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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:25
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quote:
Poor and corrupt but world players for a day
Guinea is to be president of the security council. Few, though, have even heard of Saddam
James Astill in Conakry
Saturday February 1, 2003
The Guardian
Night falls on Conakry, Guinea's coastal capital. Out in the Atlantic lights appear; European trawlers scooping up shoals of snapper and sole a few miles from west Africa's shore. For the people of the city, bound by poverty in a country besieged by sporadic wars on three borders, the world they represent is as distant as the stars.
Mariama Jalo's world is six square feet of concrete jetty, where she eats, sleeps and sells oranges and cassava to the local dugout fishermen.
"We're always here," she says in Creole, arranging a sheet of black plastic to cover herself and her three children. Earning around 30p on a good day, she has no time to go elsewhere, though she sometimes gets news from the town. "Life's not bad," says Mariama, a beautiful 35-year-old, in a purple headscarf and matching gown. "But business is small."
Guinea is one of the world's poorest, most isolated countries. Its seven million people live on around £200 a year for a little over 40 years on average. That's roughly the same as in next-door Sierra Leone. But unlike Sierra Leone, Guinea has had no civil war to justify and draw international attention to its misery. Last year, not a single story solely about Guinea appeared in the British press.
Now, by a quirk of international relations, the country is charged with deciding the fate of another suffering people.
As a temporary member of the security council, its vote could determine whether, and under what circumstances, the UN sanctions war with Iraq.
If there is anything odd about that, foreign minister Francois Fall will not admit it. "The situation in Iraq remains a serious concern for the people of Guinea," he said yesterday, shortly before leaving for New York, where he will next month assume the council's presidency. "It's a question of principle: as a member of the international community we have to see that Iraq disarms."
Back on her jetty, Mariama has never heard of Iraq. Nor it seems has anyone in the night-time streets of Conakry: not the huddles of men drinking on rubbish-blown corners, not even the students reading in the pale light outside the well-lit military barracks. "What do I know about that place?" says Francis Issay, a refugee from Sierra Leone. "We're not even on the same map."
His ignorance is not surprising. Three-quarters of Guineans are illiterate. The handheld radios crackling in the dark of every Conakry street offer no news of Iraq; only triumphalist government reports, delivered in the name of General Lansana Conte, Guinea's ailing dictator.
In Mr Conte, Guineans have a leader not unlike Saddam Hussein. He seized power in a coup two decades ago, and has maintained it by crushing dissent whilst allowing his cronies to plunder Guinea's vast mineral wealth. Though he introduced democracy in 1993, according to Amnesty International his security forces open fire whenever "political opponents or citizens have dared to show their dissatisfaction with the government".
Though he has liberalised the mineral sector - which includes gold, diamonds and a third of the world's bauxite reserves - Guinea remains one of the world's most corrupt countries, and its people are getting poorer every year, according to the anti-corruption group Transparency International.
Last year Mr Conte engineered a referendum to allow himself to rule for another term; or, as most analysts assumed, for life. As a question of principle, he might expect international condemnation. Instead western donors give him over $200m (£121m) a year, about half the national bud get; plus, in America's case, arms and military training.
Last week the US added another $2m, ostensibly to cope with refugees from neighbouring Liberia. They reason that, if Mr Conte is not perfect, he is a valuable ally against Liberia's tyrannous president, Charles Taylor, and the rebels who until recently controlled much of Sierra Leone.
Mr Fall, the foreign minister, denies that Guinea would vote for whatever UN resolution its patron proposed. "It's not a matter of what America wants or doesn't want - even Germany or France would support a war if the council's sanctions are violated," he said.
For a Muslim country, Guinea's mullahs show no apparent interest in their country's role in the future of Iraq. Seated outside the main mosque, Imam al-Haji Ibrahima Ba asked: "What could we refuse the Americans? They are very strong. Religiously we are with the Iraqis, but whatever America asks of us we will do. We have no say in these things, so if America wants war, that's fine. It's none of our business."
The only conflict poor Guineans are concerned about is the civil war they live in fear of. Mr Conte is rumoured to be dying. "The army's getting ready," said Alhassan Sillah, a leading journalist. "Everyone's waiting for the coup, or something worse, maybe war."
That would probably draw the curtain on Guinea's role on the international stage. The American and Russian bauxite companies would flee; the western donors and diplomats would follow them; the Spanish trawlers would keep a little further from its shore. |
So apparently the US is after Saddam because he is a 'bad guy' and he's dangerous. Nothing to do about oil, or anything like that and no mention that North Korea seems far more dangerous and unstable at the moment...
We all know the Al-Qaeda links with Iraq are non-existent - if one wants to go after Al-Qaeda links, surely we should be marching into Saudi instead???
Take Guinea for example, run by a tin-pot bad guy for as long as anyone can remember - he's at least as bad as Saddam, though he's just never gotten round to producing weapons of mass destruction and yet the US is supplying him with money arms and training!
Not to mention all the other 'bad guys' that the US has funded down the decades - get real, the US government may be able to pull the wool over the eyes of gullible Americans, but the rest of the World can see right through this web of deceit...
Any guesses which way Guinea will be voting on that crucial day...?
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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Boddington's
Ming, don't you think we have enough Iraq war threads now? Thanks.
Might as well start by getting rid of the crap like this first... |
F*ck you Bods, this is also about the two-faced nature of the US still supporting corrupt and violent regimes when it suits their purposes - this attack on Iraq is politically engineered, nothing more.
I'm not going to whine on about the fact that it's about oil (except for the fact that the 2nd largest reserves will be neatly under the control of a US sanctioned government), it could be fair to say that it's also about the weapons industry if that were the case, given Bush's highly suspect relations with the US arms industry...
This war is wrong, at least until the weapons inspectors come up with some hard evidence to the contrary. One of the things that amazes me most is that the world's only superpower has had years to build up a credible dossier of evidence against Saddam using the most sophisticated technology and it's come up with hearsay, grasping at straws - that's an embarrassment to the CIA ( )...
By it's own rules, surely the US should be laying some heavy whup-ass on NK, instead of ***** footing round Kim Jong-Il like a timid puppy - no one is taken in by this...
Why is the US still supporting a regime like Guinea, if it is so interested about toppling 'bad guys'?
Answer me that.
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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
I'm not going to whine on about the fact that it's about oil |
Good, because it isn't  . |
Must be about lining the pockets of the defence industry then...
Actually, we all know it's about regime change - Bush is trying his level best to get a war out of Saddam, it's blindingly obvious he doesn't just want to stop at disarmament.
Right, so when are gonna invade North Korea then? By Bush's own goalposts they're far more dangerous, we should be going after them first. It's not like the US would be militarily stretched - Rumsfeld said the US has the capability to fight in both theatres at the same time...
Don't worry Wezil, as usual the hawks are ducking the difficult questions, just like any bully they only pick the fights they know they're going to win...
Bods was easy, Imran snipes from the sidelines without adding any substance - I actually did a double take because it looked like a Dinodoc post...
LotM: Again, if the US really cared about morality and sparing the suffering of innocent people, it could clean up Charles Taylor and his cronies with about 1% of the forces that it's sending to Kuwait. Actually the Liberian situation is all the more ironic in the current climate given the US' historical relationship with that country.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:25
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I hear you, and I'm all for lining them up and knockin' 'em all down....but one at a time. One at a time.
The US should never have gotten in the business of supporting d*ck-taters at all....that we did is shameful, and I'd love nothing better than to see us start with every two-bit dictator we ever propped up, and (through the UN) using them as bowling pins. Further, when we're done, we ought to see that a truly Democratic government be put in place, and commit US-led, UN forces to ensuring that it happens.
And, since we've already got our toys arranged in the general vicinity of Iraq, starting with him seems like a goodish plan, but sure! I'm all for putting this lil' spud on the skewer next, assuming he lives for a few months.
What *I* find interesting though, is the unusual stance that certain of our "allies" in Europe seem to have (*ahem* France....*Cough* Germany) when it comes to lambasting the USA for taking a stand, railing and b*tching about how wrong we are, and yet, utterly failing to do anything to put forth a viable alternative.....which of course, implies that the proposed alternative is more of the same, or essentially....nothing.
Given the supreme effectiveness of "nothing" over the past ten years, one would think that at some point, the conclusion might be reached that it wasn't working so well, and so another approach might be needed.
Of course, nothing in the way of a viable alternative has been forthcoming from our "allies," who seem to think that simply complaining about the current course of action should constitute a sufficient level of input and support. Well....that and crowing and complaining loudly enough so that they get a few handouts (bribes) from Washington to line their pockets, in exchange for favorable votes on the UN Security council. Yep...that's coalition building for you.
For the record, I have very little respect for our current administration, or their handling of events of late (Dubya is, admittedly, a walking gift to European cartoonists), but is it any wonder that they scoff at the complaints of the vast bulk of our allies, when all they do is ceaselessly whine about what's wrong with the current plan, without stepping up to the plate to put their well-considered alternatives under the microscope? Without making even the slightest effort to step onto the world stage and show us how to do it right?
-=Vel=-
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Kaak
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MOBIOUS, you are a moron. The US is not a hegemon. We are not the "world's police force." Those who are a serious threat to our way of life, like saddam and north korea, will be dealt with. no offense, but gunea, believe it or not, poses zero threat to anyone but itself.
If we started ousting all the bad guys, the goverments of the world would throw a fit.
Here we are trying to oust one bad guy, who obviously is making a mockery of the UN, and half the world throws a fit.
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Kaak
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the point is that it is not our job to help every poor person in the world
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06-02-2003 17:07
I thought that I was the dark horse of the UN Security Council not Guinea or Horse!
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