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Opinions of Monday, 24 January 2011

Columnist: Transient Justice

Is Atta-Mills, ECOWAS, and the AU weak?

It’s been almost one month since I wrote my initial article about the Ivory Coast, condemning Dr. Atta Mills and Victor Gbeho for not being proactive about helping cote d’ivoire find a legitimate solution to their election woes. Well, as I am writing today the situation has not changed much. Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Ouatarra are both still president and the country is losing millions in revenue by the day. Unfortunately a grave lesson has been learnt from this current saga. Namely, neocolonialism, imperialism and paternalism are still the name of the game when the “international community” deals with Africa.

Some may simply say that Gbagbo is a criminal that has already ruled for 10 years. They will say, “What can he do in the next 5 that he did not do in the previous 10”! They may say he has manipulated the system to stay in power and, is as much a neocolonial tool as 69 year old former IMF Economist Alhassan Ouatarra. FINE! This article will not seek to prove the case for either of these hypotheses. Instead, what I am confounded by is the fact that there seems to be a PUSH from the international community for the WAR option to be on the table. Some call it a form of negotiation and “diplomacy”. Comical!

Some may say ECOWAS, the AU etc are the ones talking about the military option. The Military option has been deemed the LAST option by those working for the “international community” but, if ECOWAS and the AU were so brave would they not have declared war on sovereign states in Africa which have had presidents who have been in power for 20+ years? What is so special about Cote d’ivoire? Why are there puppets promoting an agenda from outside the African borders? It seems these are just men seeking to be complimented on a job well done! Who are these puppets/men?

None other than Raila Odinga who is PERSONALLY responsible for allowing the death of 1500+ Kenyans who LOST their lives because of FALSE exit polling data commissioned by foreigners who were “observing” the election. These ESTIMATES deemed that he was likely to win due to random sampling and not counting of ballots, after the counting of the ballots it was revealed that he had lost but, he was having none of it and the result of his belligerence are what we call history. How can a man with a history such as this be deemed the chief negotiator? He is clearly a puppet. Worse of all, in typical blood thirsty fashion, he was one of the first people to call for a military option. HIM! Who is he working for?

It seems everyone says WAR(called the “military option” by those who claim to be savvy) is the last option. The problem is, the way the negotiations are being performed it will end up being the ONLY option. Who is going to pay CASH for this military option? The Western powers, UN, French, EU etc and all those with an interest in installing a new puppet. Sure the dirty work will be done by those calling themselves “Nigerians’, Senegalese” etc but, the money, the state of the art weapons, the bullets, will all come from the aforementioned powers. What happens if it flops?

You guessed it, they will blame the Africans for destabilizing cote d’ivoire just like history has been rewritten about the slave trade and the colonial era to put much of the blame on the “African”. If one reads the colonial era very carefully one will realize that in most African countries were colonial battles were fought it was rarely colonizers doing the fighting but local Africans on the behalf of the Colonizers. In fact in many of these situations it was trained Africans, trained by the Colonizers, to fight for their flag who fought to bring down those who did not seek to be colonized. This did not only happen in Africa but, everywhere that Colonialism happened. Has anything changed?

The answer is no! We have the same type of people today performing the same role of doing the dirty work, who will inevitably fail, and everyone of us will be written in history as the main culprits. Specifically, if the so called military option flops when history is written it will say ECOWAS and the AU attacked the country and that set off a civil war which killed X amount of people and there may even be a Hollywood movie about it! History always repeats itself for those who don’t learn.

Atta Mills has been very strange recently. He on the SURFACE seems to be flip-flopping all over the place.

Here are his opinions:

1) He supports ECOWAS using the Military option as the last option 2) He does not think the Military Option is a good idea 3) Dzi wo fie asem 4) No Ghanaian troops 5) Ouatarra is the winner since he got the most votes regardless of the fact that the election may have been flawed

**Note** I understand that 5 seems strange considering what happened in Kenya.

It seems like he KNOWS the military option is a bad idea but, does not have the testicular fortitude to say it with vigor! They say having the military option on the table will cause Gbagbo to run scared but, he does not seem to be budging!! Thus, it is a worthless option unless they actually plan on using it. The fact that no other intelligent means have been deciphered to solve this says a lot about the state of humanity but, that is a different article! Atta-Mills position on the surface seems strange but, is probably the result of being highly educated and seeing numerous sides of the issue. I would have liked him to be “braver” and express his opinion with vigor while expanding on point number 2 but, we have a weak foreign minister like Mumuni who does not know his front from his back and is blatantly incompetent thus, no better should be expected. I was so embarrassed listening to his recent interview given to Joy FM reacting to comments by listeners of a BBC program. He is incompetent.

The whole international community have failed cote d’ivoire. The situation can still be solved but, it will take better ideas than the ones currently on the table. In the end no matter what happens everyone is a loser because, it’s quite obvious not much has changed in the last 500 years neocolonialism, imperialism and paternalism are still the name of the game.

Penname: Transient Justice