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Apartheid laws segregate the races (who are classified by the state), ban inter-racial sex or marriage and define where people are allowed to live. Even beaches and park benches are segregated. The USA and Western Europe continue to trade and support this government even though it oppresses a large number of people.
UK troops seize the Suez Canal in Egypt.
The UK fights against independence movements in Kenya. The country had been a colony of the UK since 1920.
Around 1,500,000 people are imprisoned, many in hundreds of concentration camps. Most are tortured. Up to 300,000 die from starvation and the brutal regime in the prisons.
Nderi Kagombe, a book shop owner, spends five years in seven camps. He describes being punished by having to carry a bucket full of sand and human waste on his head for several hours. Others are strung up by their ankles and beaten. In Manyani camp, detainees have sand and water alternatingly stuffed into their anuses. On Mageta, people would be shakled to a post and smeared with sap from a tree which would cause the victim to be attacked by mosquitoes.
Several Asian lawyers, including Fitz de Souza, tell of representing detainees who are never seen again.
The Kikuyu people are the main target of UK forces. Thousands are evicted from the fertile highlands wanted by UK settlers (colonists) and resettled in more than 800 reservations on scrubland. Over 160,000 are incarcerated.
This conflict is reported in the UK media as a fight against Mao Mao terrorists. In fact it is about control of agricultural resources, like coffee plantations.
France fights independence movements in Algeria and Morocco.
The USA supports the European powers in their attempts to keep their colonies. These are examples of democratic and free countries denying the same to others.
The Belgian rulers of Berundi, had divided the population by educating the Tutsi minority and using the Hutu majority to work on the European coffee plantations. This split would eventually lead to genocie decades later.
Prince Rwagasore, who had campaigned for Hutu-Tutsi unity, is assassinated.
In South Africa, non Whites are compelled to carry passes. These pass laws will cause much resentment amongst the majority population.
The UK and Egypt decide the future of Sudan without reference to the people there.
The UK exiles King Kabaka Mutesa II of Uganda from his homeland. Sultan Muhammad V is exiled from Morocco by France.
Western countries are unwilling to let go of their colonies, removing leaders and monarchs in order to keep the population leaderless.
The UK forms the Federation of Nigeria from bits of its west African colonies without consulting the people involved. They create a "country" containing many different tribes, both Muslim and Christian, speaking over 400 languages. Frictions between these diverse peoples would cause a war in the late 1960s.
The Algerian independence movement against French settlements (colonists) gains momentum.
The UK continues to occupy and settle Kenya although resistance is increasing.
In April 25,000 members of the UK military and security forces cordon off Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. All Africans are taken away from the city and held in concentration camps. The arrests are brutal with people beaten with clubs and rifle butts. Some people are taken in police vehicles and are never seen again. Families are separated. UK forces loot the houses of people, often burning their possessions while they watch. Castration is used by police to extract confessions. Some victims have their hands cut off to obtain information from their relatives.
The tribes of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru are separated from other Africans and exiled from the city.
The UK, France and USA impose economic sanctions on Egypt. Israel invades Egypt taking the Gaza Strip. This is supported by the UK and France, who bomb Egypt from the air.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces massacre 275 people in a refugee camp at Khan Younis. Another 60 people die in Gaza City after the city centre is shelled.
All of the invaders are eventually forced to withdraw by United Nations pressure after 18,000 Egyptians had died. The USA becomes the dominant power in the Middle East after this time and proposes international control of the canal.
Villages are destroyed and their populations herded into concentration camps. Conditions are so bad that 400 people die every month. Torture, flogging, slave labour, deliberate starvation and abuse of women and children is common. The historian V G Kieman notes that "The special prisons were probably as bad as any similar Nazi or Japanese establishments."
The activities of the UK in Kenya are covered up except for a few military personnel who report them. The UK forces destroy documents relating to this conflict in 1963. The story would be published in a book by Caroline Elkins called Britain's Gulag in 2005.
The central African region had been conquered by Belgium in 1885 and had become the personal possession of the Belgian monarch. The Europeans made money from ivory, timber, gum, rubber, copper, cobalt and copal (a resin).
The colonial government ruled Congo very brutally using techniques like chopping off hands, rape and village burning. Whips made of hippopotamus hide was a favourite implement of control and opunishment. It has been estimated that 13 million people were killed under Belgian rule.
Eleven days after independence, Belgium intervenes militarily to set up the mineral rich southern part of the country into a separate state, Katanga, ruled by Moise Tshombe and financed by European and American mine owners.
Lumumba is arrested by the Belgian military and transferred in early 1961 to Katanga where he is tortured and killed by Tshombe's forces and their Belgian advisors. After his death his body is dissolved in acid by the Belgian police under Gerard Soete. The USA CIA is later implicated in the assassination after an approval by the USA president Dwight Eisenhower. Belgium would apologise for the death of Lumumba in 2002.
Tshombe rules a united Congo after independence, allowing Western companies access to the minerals. The West's business interests over-ride the wishes and interests of the local people.
Over 70 people are killed in Sharpville, South Africa while demonstrating against the pass laws. These laws require non-Whites to carry documentation or else face imprisonment.
The African National Congress (ANC), an organisation seeking a multi-racial state with universal voting rights, is banned in South Africa.
White supremacy gains in strength in southern Africa.
The president of France, Charles de Gaulle was determined to grant Algeria independence. The USA opposed de Gaulle and supported an attempted French coup in the country. The CIA would later attempt to assassinate de Gaulle, who was blocking USA plans for domination of NATO.
In 2003, it would be revealed that France refuses to allow 100,000 Algerians who had fought on the French side from emigrating to France. Most of them would be massacred.
South Africa creates Bantustans, areas where ethnically cleansed black people must live. Only white people can vote (30% of the population). Opponents to the regime (both black and white) are assassinated, exiled, imprisoned and tortured.
The UK imposes sanctions that are ignored by multinational companies, Portugal controlled Mozambique, and apartheid South Africa.
The new, USA backed, ruler is Mobutu Sese Seko who allows USA companies access to the country's cobalt, copper, and diamonds. In the coming years, Mobutu amasses a personal fortune of over $ 5,000 million. Every foreign company setting up in the country has to pay a "tribute" to the president.
Mobutu would rule brutally for 30 years during which time the Zairian people would become impoverished despite the country's huge natural wealth.
France supports this regime because of concessions in mining the huge Uranium deposits. South Africa and the USA loan money to the government.
According to a CIA internal memo dated 25 February 1966 (declassified in 1977) the CIA and Ghana's military leaders had been plotting the coup for over a year.
Nigeria refuses to let aid reach Biafra, causing a dreadful famine. This diverse country had been artificially created by the UK, which continues to sell it arms and benefit from oil concessions.
Between 1967 and 1970, the UK supplies the government of Nigeria with 36 million rounds of ammunition, 60,000 mortar bombs, 42,000 Howitzer rounds, thousands of rifles, as well as helicopters and armoured cars. According to the UK Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, the armoured cars "have undoubtedly been the most effective weapons in the ground war..."
The oil company, Shell / BP, which was partially owned by the UK government, had $ 350 million worth of investments in the country. The UK Commonwealth Minister, George Thomas, confirms that "the sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations".
Over a million people are killed in the resulting conflict.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir maintains that "there is no such thing as Palestinians; they never existed".
Moshe Dayan (the Israeli Defence Minister) addressing the Israel Institute of Technology admits:
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
Settlement building the in the occupied territories continues. Several new political parties affirm that the land should be retained as it was given to the Jews by God.
Israel bombs Cairo (Egypt) causing many civilian casualties, including 30 school children.
Israel and Jordan are both supported and armed by the West.
The Israeli attaché, Colonel Rar-Lev, spends the day of the coup advising the new dictator. Eric le Tocq, of the UK Foreign Office, writes "Our prospects in Uganda have no boubt been considerably enhanced".
Amin had been running British concentration camps in Kenya during the independence movement in the 1950s, where he earned the title of "The Strangler".
He begins one of Africa's most brutal reigns of terror killing his friends, the clergy, soldiers, and ordinary citizens. His first state visits are to UK and Israel, who sell him arms. The West continues to finance his regime until 1979.
Zaire has more resources than most other countries in the region; the corrupt regime keeps this country so poor that one third of Zaire's children die before the age of five. Imprisonment and torture, often without trial, are commonly used against Mobutu's opponents.
The USA had given the country millions in aid and had bought Selassie a $ 2,000,000 yacht while Ethiopia was the poorest nation in Africa with a literacy rate was 7%.
The Moroccan ruler, King Hassan ll, lives in extreme luxury with 7 palaces, 260 horses, camels, ostriches, zebras, 1000 head of cattle, a 1500 acre dairy farm, and 2 harems. In contrast, 95% of the population lives in abject poverty. Members of the opposition are arrested and tortured.
The USA, France and UK veto a United Nations resolution critical of South Africa's attempts to impose the apartheid system in Namibia.
The USA, France and UK veto 3 United Nations resolutions condemning the apartheid policies in South Africa.
Egypt has an un-elected leader, Anwar Sadat, while Israel is occupying large areas of Palestine and building settlements (colonies) on occupied land in violation of United Nations resolutions and the Geneva Convention.
Israel and Egypt become the largest recipients of USA aid. Much resentment is engendered amongst the Arab populations of both countries.
Between 1971 and 1978, United Nations sanctions had been in place on Rhodesia. Three countries had violated the sanctions: The USA, Portugal (under a Fascist regime), and South Africa (under apartheid).
According the USA newspaper, Chicago Tribune (22 August 1990), in an article by Howard Witt entitled "US Fingerprints - Not Heart - Are All Over Liberia", a USA official admits that "Our strategic interests are more important than democracy".
Witt describes Doe as a "brutish, nearly illiterate army sergent" who seized power "after disemboweling the previous president in his bed".
The USA gives the new regime military and economic aid. USA companies Firestone and B F Goodrich prosper under the new regime.
The USA vetoes a number of United Nations resolutions: The first promoting co-operative movements in developing countries (123 to 1 votes). The second affirming the right of every state to choose its economic and social system in accord with the will of its people, without outside interference in whatever form it takes (126 to 1).
South African commandos raid Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. They begin to create, arm and deploy special military units in Mozambique to attack roads, railways, bridges and other economic targets, as well as to terrorise in rural areas.
South African agents carry out sabotage and assassinations in Zimbabwe. South Africa (with help from the USA's CIA) attempts to mount a coup against President Kaunda in Zambia. The CIA director, William Casey flies secretly to Lusaka and threatens sanctions against Zambia if the role of the CIA is exposed.
In addition to these military activities, South Africa begins a full scale economic war against Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
After being elected to the USA presidency, Ronald Reagan states that closer relations with South Africa are a means "to counter Soviet influence in southern Africa". Arms and money are passed by the USA's CIA to groups supported by South Africa in the region.
The USA blocks the implementation of the United Nations plan for a settlement in Namibia, currently under South African rule. It does this by unilaterally linking the Namibian issue with Angola. While the USA continues to state its support for the United Nations plan, the USA Secretary of State, Al Haig, informs the South African Foreign Minister "that the United States would not press South Africa to settle the Namibian question unless Cuban troops were withdrawn from Angola."
The USA vetoes seven United Nations resolutions condemning the actions of South Africa, condemning apartheid and attempting to strengthen sanctions. These votes are 145 to 1, 124 to 1, 136 to 1, 129 to 2 (with UK), 126 to 2 (with UK), 139 to 1, and 138 to 1.
Qaddafi had removed the previous pro-West government and had set up a welfare state for his people. In addition he supported the Palestinian struggle for independence.
The presence of the USA military close to Arab countries disturbs people in the Middle East.
Smith rations food for the black population whom he believes are feeding black resistance fighters. This measure serves to starve the already undernourished black population. 90% of Rhodesia's black children are malnourished and nutritional deficiencies are the major cause of infant death. Smith rounds up black people into concentration camps he calls "protective" villages.
The government's spending on education is dependent on skin colour: $5 on each black child compared to $80 on each white child.
Many European, UK and USA companies trade secretly with the country.
South African commandos attack and destroy the oil depot in the city of Beira. The raid cuts supplies of petroleum to Zimbabwe and costs the country millions of dollars in lost revenue.
South Africa's actions in the country would kill 100,000 people between 1982 and 1983.
Anthony Lewis, writing in the USA newspaper New York Times (31 January 1983) boasts:
"Externally, the last year has seen South Africa use its military power both covertly and overtly in neighboring black-governed states... without any significant political penalty. The United States has privately urged restraint on South Africa. South Africa's neighbors have in effect been told, without subtlety, that they can have peace and a chance for economic development only on South African terms."
A South African official also quoted in the New York Times (25 January 1983) warns:
"We want to show that we want peace in the region, we want to contribute and we can help a lot. But we also want to show that if we are refused we can destroy the whole of southern Africa."
This view is confirmed by Charles Lichenstein, the Deputy USA Ambassador to the United Nations, quoted in the Johannesburg Financial Mail:
"destabilization will remain in force until Angola and Mozambique do not permit their territory to be used by terrorists to attack South Africa."
The "terrorists" are groups wanting a democratic and non-racist South Africa.
The USA vetoes four United Nations resolutions concerning South Africa and apartheid: The ratification of the convention on the suppression and punishment of apartheid (voted by 124 to 1); Promoting international action against apartheid (141 to 1); Against apartheid in sports (138 to 1); Cessation of further foreign investments and loans for South Africa (134 to 1).
Habré's regime would kill tens of thousands of people and torture over 200,000. Many dissidents would simply disappear. In 2000, Habré would be tried for his crimes in Senegal.
The USA newspaper, the Washington Post (20 December) admits that the decision was because Zimbabwe sponsored a United Nations resolution condemning USA intervention in Grenada and abstained in a USA sponsored resolution about Korea.
The USA and UK veto two United Nations resolutions concerning South Africa and apartheid: these were voted by 121 to 2 and 146 to 2.
The ANC is fighting for full democracy in South Africa, a country where only the minority white population can vote.
The attack is condemned by the United Nations, the European Community but supported by the USA.
Palestinians had been expelled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948. In 1967, they had been attacked again when the West Bank was occupied. In 1982, their leadership had been expelled from Lebanon. Now they were being attacked in Tunisia, a country on a different continent, Africa.
A report from Amnesty International states:
"According to survivors, some of the most common forms of torture were electric shocks, near-asphyxia, cigarette burns and having gas squirted into the eyes. Sometimes, the torturers would place the exhaust pipe of a vehicle in their victim's mouth, then start the engine. Some detainees were placed in a room with decomposing bodies, other suspended by their hands or feet, others bound hand and foot. Two other common techniques consisted of gripping the victim's head between two small sticks joined by cords, which were twisted progressively, and leaving the detainees to starve."
This regime is supported, trained and financed by France and the USA.
The USA Congress imposes economic sanctions on South Africa in spite of a veto by President Reagan. Only 25% of the trade between the two countries is affected. Iron, steel and uranium continue to be exported from South Africa. In the next two years, USA exports to South Africa increase from $ 1,280 million to $ 1,710 million.
The USA vetoes two United Nations resolutions. One condemning Israeli actions against civilians in Lebanon and the other calling on Israel to respect Muslim holy places.
Israeli warplanes force an executive jet from Libya to land in Israel, in an effort to capture Abu Nidal, a Palestinian leader. He is not on board and, after interrogation, the passengers are allowed to leave. The USA vetoes a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for sky-jacking.
Between 1981 and 1986 the USA CIA has been behind several plots and attempts to assassinate the leader of Libya, Moammar Qaddafi. An attempt is made by the USA using bombers based in the UK. Qaddafi survives but several people are killed including the leader's infant daughter and many foreign nationals: Greeks, Egyptians, Yugoslavs and Lebanese.
A newspaper in the USA, the Sunday New York Times has a headline declaring: "Colonialism's back -- and not a moment too soon." (18 April).
The article, written by Paul Johnson, charges that "some countries are just not fit to govern themselves," and argues that the poorest nations of the southern hemisphere should be forced to submit to formal "recolonisation" for a period of about 50 to 100 years. Johnson, who refers to developing countries as the "third world" and to industrialised nations as "the civilised powers," is writing about the USA military presence in Somalia - something which numerous other writers have compared to a return of formal colonisation.
Alex de Wall and Rakiya Omaar of African Rights in London (UK), are among them: "'Operation Restore Hope' represents an important strategic precedent for the way in which the USA, and to a lesser extent the European countries, use the United Nations to have their way with the world," the two human rights activists write the Spring 1993 edition of Covert Action Information Bulletin, a publication by opponents of underhanded actions against people in the Southern Hemisphere. They continue:
"Limits placed on Western access are warded off with charges of narcotics trade, international terrorism, and nuclear and chemical weapon proliferation. The potential disruption posed by unstable nations with no powerful central government is more problematic. In this context, philanthropic imperialism, spearheaded by ostensibly independent human aid agencies, can play an important strategic role. It can legitimise intervention taken for wholly different motives, for example, to win human rights credentials back home for electoral purposes, to safeguard military budgets, or to act against a perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism. All these motives figures in the case of 'Operation Restore Hope.' Above all, Somalia was an easy and timely test for this new weapon in the arsenal of international control."
Savimbi had been destabilising Angola since 1974. The incumbent government refuses to allow USA companies concessions to the country's oil and diamonds. The USA continue to arm and finance Savimbi as he continues to destabilise Angola. Over 650,000 people have died in the conflict.
The villages of Eeken, Gwara and Kenwigbara are devastated by the Nigerian military who massacre over 1000 people and make 20,000 people homeless. The market village of Kaa is attacked with grenades, mortar shells and automatic weapons. 247 people are killed and all the villagers forced to flee. The primary and secondary schools in the village are destroyed.
At Port Harcourt 53 Ogoni men, women and children are massacred and all buildings demolished.
The United Nations Economic Commission estimates that "South Africa's military aggression and destabilisation of its neighbours cost the region $ 10,000 million in 1988 and over $ 60,000 million and 1,500,000 lives [between 1980 and 1989]".
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| In Ntarama 5000 people are killed in six hours. |
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| Three war orphans. |
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| War orphans in Nyamata. Many were babies when their parents died; others were abandoned after their mothers were raped. |
More than 100 government executions occur, and numerous pro-democracy demonstrators are killed by police. The UK and Dutch company, Shell Oil, provides most of the country's wealth by extracting oil from the Ogoniland region, while in the process causing severe environmental destruction and devastating the local economy. More than 700 Ogoni environmentalists protesting the destruction of their way of life, have been executed in recent years.
Shell supports Abacha's policies by its silence. Despite appeals that Nigerian oil be boycotted, the USA government refuses.
UK and Netherlands companies (principally Shell and Chevron) obtain oil from this region at the expense of the rights of the Ogoni people. Shell has extracted oil worth $32,000 million from the region with little benefit to the Ogoni. Before his death Saro-Wiwo wrote:
"The flaring of gas... has destroyed wildlife, and plant life, poisoned the atmosphere and the inhabitants in the surrounding areas, and made the residents half deaf and prone to respiratory diseases. Whenever it's raining in Ogoni, all we have is acid rain which further poisons water courses, streams, creeks and agricultural land. Acid rain gets back into the soil, and what used to be the bread basket of the delta has now become virtually infertile."
Mashood Abiola, the winner of the 1994 annulled elections dies in prison after 4 years in solitary confinement. His physician had been denied access to him. His wife, who had campaigned for his release despite harassment and imprisonment, was shot dead by government gunmen in 1996.
In the Niger Delta, entire villages are are burned and villagers killed. People are tortured by being made to sit in the open under the hot sun and drink their own urine.
This is an oil producing region run by UK oil companies with concessions from the Western backed military government.
This was later admitted by the USA to have been an error. The casualty toll remains unknown as the USA blocks a United Nations inquiry. Western media do not persue the story.
The plant was under contract with the United Nations to export medicines; a fact that the USA appeared not to know. Half of the country's pharmaceutical supplies were produced in the plant. Tom Carnaffin, a technical manager of the plant in the mid-1990s from the UK, tells The Observer (UK):
"I have intimate knowledge of that factory, and it just does not lend itself to the manufacture of chemical weapons."
The project was headed by Dr Wouter Basson from 1981. He was informed by USA Major General William Augerson: "that chemical warfare is an ideal strategic weapon because infrastructure is preserved together with facilities, and only living people are killed. The warm climate of Africa is ideal for this type of weapon because the diffusion of the poison is better and the absorbtion is increased by perspiration and increased blood flow in the persons who are the targets".
Little of the terror in Nigeria is reported in the West; the Nigerian government has given oil concessions to Western companies.
The companies are protected by government forces and allow their airstrips and roads to be used by the military, while the revenues from oil are funding expansion of the war. The news agency, Reuters, has reported that some local security forces used as private contractors by the oil companies use child soldiers.
According to Amnesty International, government forces have used ground attacks, helicopter gunship and indiscriminate high-altitude bombardment to clear the local population from oil-rich areas. Many atrocities have been committed. Male villagers are killed in mass executions; women and children have been nailed to trees with iron spikes. In the villages of Bentiu, Guk and Rik soldiers slit the throats of children and kill male prisoners who had been interrogated by hammering nails into their foreheads. In Panyejier, people are crushed by tanks and shot at by helicopter gunship. Many women are raped and abducted while houses are burned and destroyed.
Since 1983 nearly 2 million people are estimated to have been killed. More than 4.5 million people are internal refugees while a million are in exile.
The USA mining company, Freeport McMoRan, has been extracting minerals from Irian Jaya (now Indonesia, formerly West Papua) without cleaning up its pollution.
The Canadian mining company, Tiomin Resources, uses farmers' land in Kenya for mining titanium without paying adequate compensation.
The World Bank approves a $15 million loan in support of Nigerian companies working for Shell Oil. The presence of Western oil companies facilitates human rights violations and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta. The African Environmental and Human Development Agency (AFRIDA) states:
"Shell Nigeria and its contractors continue to operate in a reckless and irresponsible manner leading to continuing devastation of the natural environment, destruction of community livelihood and communal conflicts in the Niger Delta."
A large explosion rocks the Yorla Oil Field in Ogoniland (Nigeria) raining crude oil sporadically for days into adjacent farmlands, settlements, steams, swamps, lakes and rivers. Health problems in local communities such as respiratory problems, rashes on the bodies and other unidentifiable ailments have increased since the incident. Ogoniland has been ravaged by nine major oil spills and explosions since 1970.
During the election campaign four opposition activists, including Brahim Selguet, are detained and shot. Radio stations are banned from airing debates or "programs of a political nature" and from adding commentary to news items. The government closes two private newspapers, and Radio Liberte operates under threat of suspension. The government bans political gatherings of more than 20 people. The leading opposition candidate, Ngarledjy Yorongar, is detained and the tortured.
After the election, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) announce increased monetary support for the building of a $3,700 million, 900km long oil pipeline and extraction plant in the Doba region. The project is a joint venture of USA companies ExxonMobil and Chevron and Malaysian company, Petronas.
The Bushmen have lived in the area for 20,000 years and are one of the oldest cultures on Earth. Only 700 are left; another 2,000 have been settled in camps away from the lands of their ancestors.
The South African company, De Beers (owned by UK and USA company, Anglo-American), have diamond surveying rights in the region. This business is worth $3,000 million per year.
Survival International have criticised the lack of consultation between the Bushmen and the government.
Savimbi had been financed and armed by apartheid South Africa and the USA since Angola gained its independence from Portugal in 1974. For over 25 years he had destabilised Angola which had refused to allow Western companies access to its diamonds and oil.
By 1994, the Angolan government had allowed USA oil companies concessions to newly discovered off-shore oil fields. Savimbi lost his backing from the USA and was encouraged to make peace. When he refused one USA diplomat commented "The trouble with puppets is that they don't always jerk when you pull the strings".
Eventually, the Angolan government finds and kills Savimbi after receiving satellite intelligence from the USA.
In Mauritania the number of people employed in octopus fishing has dropped from 5,000 in 1996 to 1,800 in 2002. The Irish fishing vessel, Atlantic Dawn, processes 7000 tons of fish in a single voyage: this is more than a single fishing community might catch in a year. This boat is too large for European Union regulations.
In Senegal local fish supplies have fallen to dangerously low levels.
The example commodity is coffee; the example developing country is Uganda; the example developed country is the UK.
| Details | per kilogram |
|---|---|
| Peter and Salome Kafuluzi sell 1kg of green coffee beans to a middleman in the village of Kintuntu. | 0.14 |
| The middleman takes the coffee beans to a mill and transports it to Kampala where it is sold to an exporter. | 0.26 |
| The exporter transports the coffee beans to an Indian Ocean port (either Mombassa in Kenya or Dar es Salaam in Tanzania). The cost now includes transport, quality sorting and taxes. | 0.45 |
| The coffee is transported to a UK port (Southampton) and is sold to an importer. The price now includes insurance and freight. | 0.52 |
| The coffee is transported to the roasting plant of multi-national company. An example is the Kraft plant at Banbury in the county of Oxfordshire. This is the price the company pays. | 0.63 |
| The green coffee beans are roasted and processed into instant coffee. This causes a loss of weight. The kilogram coffee beans that were bought by the company have been converted to 0.385kg of coffee powder or granules. | 1.64 |
| The instant coffee is packaged, distributed, marketed and sold to the UK public. | 26.40 |
Most of the enormous price increase from $1.64 to $26.40 makes up the profit of the multi-national company. The UK public loses because it pays a very high cost for a product that should cost less than 10% of what it is sold for. The original price paid to the growers in Uganda ($0.14) keeps them in poverty.
It would be better for both Ugandan and UK populations if the source country could grow, roast, process, package, export and sell its own coffee to the UK. The coffee could easily be sold for around $2.00 per kilo (saving the UK buyer money) while more was paid to the Ugandan grower.
However, if Uganda attempted this, the UK government would put tariffs on its instant coffee. A tariff is a special tax used by governments to keep out other countries' exports. These tariffs would make the cost of Ugandan coffee artificially high so that it would not be cheaper than the multi-national coffee. The tariffs have the effect that Uganda cannot sell instant coffee on the open world market. All it can sell is the green beans, its raw materials. These are sold at a low cost partially because the multi-national roasting companies collude to keep the price low.
There are four major multi-national roasting companies as can be seen from the following table.
| Company | Owner Country |
Annual Global Sales | Annual Profits | Coffee Brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kraft | USA | $33,900,000,000 | $4,880,000,000 | Maxwell House, Jacobs, Café Hag, Carte Noire. |
| Nestle | Switzerland | $50,200,000,000 | $3,960,000,000 | Nescafé, Gold Blend. |
| Procter & Gamble | USA | $39,200,000,000 | $2,920,000,000 | Folgers, Milstone among 250 brands. |
| Sara Lee | USA | $17,700,000,000 | $2,270,000,000 | Douwe Egberts, Maison du Café, União. |
Much of the world's trade is run along these lines.
Poor countries are forced to sell their raw materials to Western multi-national companies for low prices. The companies develop a product which is sold to consumers in the developed world (and also back to the source country) for a much higher price. The profits go to the multi-nationals, most of which are from the USA.
Some countries have attempted to move outside this trading system by using their raw materials for their own markets. These countries have been demonised or have faced sanctions imposed by the West. Examples are Cuba, Nicaragua (during the 1980s), Angola (before 2000), and India (before 1990).
The USA military budget for 2001 was $ 343,000 million. This is 69% greater than that of the next five highest nations combined. Russia, which has the second largest military budget, spends less than one sixth of the USA budget. The above named "axis of evil" states spend $ 14,400 million combined (4% of the USA budget) with more than half of this amount accounted for by Iran.
None of the "axis" countries is under USA political control.
Ignacio Ramonet, writing for the French newspaper, La Monde states that USA "military domination is now absolute. And the punishment it has inflicted on Afghanistan warns all other countries: anyone opposing the USA will be isolated, devoid of allies, and exposed to the real danger of being bombed back to the stone age. A list of the likely targets has now been publicly announced in the USA press: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, North Korea."
In a speech at West Point on 1 June the USA president said there were 60 countries that were potential targets for regime change.
Amnesty International accuses Algeria of systematic and widespread torture of civilians.
In 1992, the military in Algeria cancelled elections once it became obvious that Islamic parties were about to win. The president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika was installed by the military in 1999. The resulting conflict has caused the deaths of at least 100,000 people. Very little about the nature of the conflict and the cancelled elections is reported in the Western media.
The USA announces that sales of military equipment to Algeria (stopped in 1992) are to be resumed to help the government "combat Islamic militants". The European Union obtains natural gas from Algeria after a trade deal concluded in 2001.
In July, the government releases Ali Belhadj and Abassi Madani of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) that won the first round of elections in 1991. The men have been banned from all political activity or from even voting in future elections.
Rwanda and Uganda both have troops involved in the conflict. Both countries receive more than half their budgets in aid from the UK. Other countries involved in the conflict (Angola, Namibia, Burundi) have been sold $16 million worth of weapons by the UK.
The under-reported war is being fought over the control of the country's resources: diamonds, gold and oil. Many Western companies are profiting from the conflict including: Barclays Bank, Anglo American, De Beers (both mining companies), Avient, Das Air, and Oryx Natural Resources.
A United Nations report detailing the plunder of wealth from the Congo was censored after pressure from several Western governments.
Many people are forced to sit on hot stoves, suffer electric shocks, and several people are beaten to death. Women are raped, and some men are forced to have sex with their children.
South Africa lobbies other African nations to prevent a vote condemning Zimbabwe within the United Nations Human Rights Commission. The UK continues to trade with the regime.
Police close the last privately run daily newspaper.
The companies involved include: National Westminster Bank, Barclay's Bank, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse, Credit Lyonnais, Banque Indo-Suez, IBM, Ford, Isuzu, Daimler-Chrysler, Citygroup, De Beers, Anglo-American. The financial institutions are accused of giving loans at favourable rates in defiance of international sanctions. The car making companies made armoured vehicles for the regime that were used against dissidents. The mining companies are accused of using the low-wage labour force provided by the system.
Amnesty International state that complaints to the UK military authorities have been ignored for 30 years and that this "may amount to institutional acquiescence and have contributed to perpetrating of more rapes".
Western media coverage describes his takeover of Uganda in a military coup in 1971 and his brutal reign of terror until his overthrow in 1979.
Very little is made of the fact that Amin had previously been running UK concentration camps in Kenya during the independence movement in the 1950s, where he earned the title of "The Strangler" because of his cruelty.
The country remained obscure until the mid-1990s when oil was discovered. Western companies like ExxonMobile (USA) have invested nearly $ 6,000 million in the country since then. Since the discovery of oil, France has set up a mobile phone network and the Netherlands airline company KLM, named one of its planes after Obiang.
The USA re-opened its embassy after closing it for eight years due to the poor human rights record of the country. Western criticism of the regime and its human rights violations decreased with the increase in investment.
More than 3000 USA technicians work in the country. 350,000 barrels of oil are pumped per day. The country has become the third largest exporter of oil in Africa. Up to $ 700 million is earned by Equatorial Guinea each year. Most of the money disappears into foreign bank accounts, most controlled by the president. Very little of the wealth reaches the people of the country. The majority of the country's half million population live on less than $2 per day.
Global Witness, a human rights group, say that little has changed for the people and that corruption is endemic in the government. In addition many officials from the country are involved in drug smuggling.
A coup attempt by a number of South African mercenaries is foiled when their aircraft lands in Zimbabwe to buy arms. Warships from Spain are rumoured to have been in the region at the time and moved away when the plot failed.
A UK company brokers an arms deal between Ukraine and the Sudan government, which uses an armed militia to ethnically cleanse Darfur. Russia (and China, another country selling arms to the region) has consistantly opposed sanctions against Sudan. France has sent bombs, grenades and ammunition worth over $ 400,000 to Sudan.
Several Western companies have financed the arms sales in return for oil concessions. These include Siemens AG (Germany), Alcatal SA (France), ABB Limited (Switzerland) and Tatneft (Russia).
2 million people have been driven from their homes in the conflict.
Government violence in Africa is only covered in the Western media when it is directed against Western interests. The leader of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, took power after arresting oposition leaders and running fraudulent elections. This does not appear to bother the Western countries who criticise countries not under their control to become more democratic.
Many dozens die during the relocations. Losolobe Mogeste is told he cannot visit his dying father in a relocation camp unless he moves there.
The Bushmen have lived in the area for 20,000 years and are one of the oldest cultures on Earth. Only a few hundred are left; thousands have been settled in camps away from the lands of their ancestors and are harassed by government officials if they attempt to return.
The low cost of this cotton puts cotton growers in Africa out of business. The unsubsidised cost of cotton is $1.72. The West African country Benin loses 1.4% of its annual income every year due to the USA subsidies. This leads to 33% of its population having a life expectancy of only 48 years. The USA subsidy is three times the amount of aid given by the USA to the whole of Africa.
The contrast is shown by the story of two farmers:
USA cotton is converted into clothes by workers in China earning less than $1 per day and sold for less than $3 in developed countries like the UK. European agricultural subsidies also help keep countries in Africa in poverty by denying them equal trade.
Chicken farmers in Europe benefit from subsidised grain. This puts countries like Senegal and Ghana at a disadvantage. European countries receive subsidies for growing tomatoes. Countries in West Africa have been forced to dismantle their tariffs against European tomatoes by pressure from the World Trade Organisation. The result is that many African tomato growers go out of business.
Europe subsidises fishing boats that ply the waters of the African coast where royalties of less than 1% are paid. The local fishing industry cannot compete and fishermen go out of business.
Kenya can export pineapples to Europe without incurring tariffs. If the pineapples are made into chunks and tinned, they face a tariff of 27%.
Sugar prices in Europe are three times the world average. However, subsidies mean that sugar can be exported to Africa at 40% of the cost of production. South African sugar producers cannot compete.
By the middle of 2006, over 4 million people had died in a war raging in the Congo. The main causes of this mainly unreported war are access and control of minerals like gold, diamonds, cassiterite and coltan. Coltan is used to manufacture electronic gadgets like remote controls, laptop computers and mobile phones. 80% of the world's supply of coltan is in Congo.
Congo is a diverse country created by Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century in a colonial war that killed 13 million people. the country was looted to the detriment of the indigenous people and society. When Congo became independent in 1960 the first elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, was killed by Belgium and the USA. A pro-West tyrant, Mobutu Sese Soko, was installed. The country's resources continued to flow to the richer countries.
In 1998, Sese Soko waa deposed by another warlord at which point surrounding countries attempted to seize the mineral wealth of the country. Apart from local militia, armies from Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola are fighting in the conflict. Each is backed and armed by Western countries who continue to buy the looted minerals.
Many Western companies are involved in this illegal trade including Anglo-American PLC, Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and De Beers. One UK company, AngloGold Ashanti was found to have links with militias involved with attrocities. The UK government has ignored reports from the United Nations concerning the activities of their companies in the conflict.
The mining of coltan is done by mainly slave labour including children. People are forced to work in dangerous conditions at gunpoint by militias. The ores make their way to the richer countries via Rwanda and other neighbouring countries. The use of coltan in Sony PlayStations drove up the price of the mineral and intensified the war. According the UK MP, Oona King, "kids in Congo are being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms".
Apart from the people killed and enslaved, there are reports of thousands women and girls being raped. Some 10% of the rape victims are then mutilated by having their legs or vaginas shot. According to Dr Dennis Mukwege of Panzi Hospital "It destroys the morale of the men to rape their women. Crippling their women cripples their society". The United Nations estimates that 45,000 females have been raped in one small province called South Kivu.
These war lords have little popular support and had killed eighteen USA soldiers in 1993, dragging their bodies through the streets of the capital Mogadishu, an event made into a USA film, Black Hawk Down.
The USA newspaper, New York Times (7 June) reports that USA government officials privately acknowledged that the CIA, from its station in Nairobi, Kenya, had channelled between $ 100,000 and $ 150,000 per month over the previous year to the war lords so they could buy arms on the international black market. The secret payments were in breach of a United Nations Security Council arms embargo that had been imposed on the country since 1991.
The CIA website lists the natural resources of Somalia as "uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas, [and] likely oil reserves".
The incident happend in Port Harcourt. Hundreds of people left with their belongings as the fire spread through the area. A local pastor said "I have nowhere to stay. My church, my house, most of my documents are burnt".
The companies are Chevron (owned by the USA) and Petronas (Malaysia). Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor, a government spokesman says that the country wants to have more of a say in the running of its oil facilities and to use more of the profits for the people of Chad.
Between October 2003 and December 2005, 133 million barrels of oil were exported from Chad earning the country $ 307 million, or about 12.5% on each barrel exported.
The West backs a "transitional government" run by Ali Mohammad Gedi which is not popular in Somalia as he is a war lord. The country had been relatively peaceful since June 2005 under a popular government called The Union of Islamic Courts who had pushed the previous USA backed governemnt out. They had ruled Somalia under the following principles: The independence of Somalia, freedom from warlord terror, justice, and respect for the Muslim faith. During their brief rule they had begun to restore property looted by the previous regime.
The UK supports the invasion and declares that members of the Islamic government should not be in power.
10,000 people are displaced by the fighting. Looting by war-lord led militias occurs in the capital, Mogadishu. Banditry by the militias begins again - it had been stopped by the previous government. The new "government" imposes martial law which is enforced by Ethiopian troops. Public meetings and gatherings are banned.
A few days later, USA forces bomb the south of the country in a series of air strikes using AC-130 gunships. These contain huge machine guns that fire 3000 rounds per minute. Over 150 Somalis are killed, including a group of 70 nomads in their night camp at Afmadow. Dozens of people were killed and over 100 are injured in an air raid in the fishing village of Ras Kamboni. At the same time Kenya, a USA ally, closes its border. The USA Ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, declares that no civilians had been killed. Moalim Adan Osman, a village elder in Dhobley, contradicted this: "We estimated about 100 civilians have been killed. Some are still missing. The aeroplanes have bombed large areas. The have bombed the nomads indiscriminately".
The USA ignores international protests and sends a small number of its forces into the region to "check whether they had killed their targets".
20,000 Ethiopian soldiers remain in Somalia after the invasion.
The International Somalia Contact Group (a USA led grouping) calls for a United Nations peacekeeping force. The USA grants $ 16 million aid to the new Somali "government" and offers $ 14 million to any peacekeeping force.
Over 150 people who fled across the border to Kenya during the Ethiopian invasion are arrested and secretly flown at night from Nairobi to Somalia. They are held in underground prisons at the airport at Magadishu shackled to walls and without access to legal represenation. According to human rights groups, the detainees were questioned by USA and UK officials. They are then trasnferred to prisons in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. No legal extradition procedures had been followed.
Maini Kiai, the chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, accuses the USA and UK of carrying out "extraordinary rendition". This is the process where people are moved illegally across borders and detained.
The USA backed government orders the Arabic news station, Al Jazeera, and two local private radio stations (HornAfrik and IQK Koranic Radio) to stop broadcasting from Mogadishu. The radio stations come back on air for a few months until the military shoot at their offices and attack their offices with grenades. One of the presenters and the owner of HornAfrik are assassinated.
Ethiopian soldiers arrest business people and intellectuals who oppose the new government.
Fighting between Ethiopian forces and Somali resistance kills over 1000 people during March in the capital Mogadishu.
In April more fighting breaks out between the USA-Ethiopian government and Somalis resisting the occupation. Nearly 400 civilians are killed. The USA, having got its people in power, calls for a peace deal - in contrast to its failure to call for a cease fire when its ally, Israel, was bombing Lebanon in 2006.
Fighting continues with hundreds of civilians killed. In one incident rockets were fired into a crowded market and into a bus station. Resistance to the invasion is labelled as terrorism and blamed on Al-Qaida.
According to the United Nations, 321,000 people fled from Mogadishu, a city of two million people, by the middle of 2007.
KryssTal Opinion: Somalia had enjoyed a few months of peace after years of civil war. The overthrow of its government by the USA using Ethiopian troops has resulted in hundreds of unrecorded and under reported deaths from USA foreign policy.
As people continue dying in Somalia, the conflict and its reasons are ignored by USA and UK media. Andrew Cawthorne (Reuters in Kenya) reported that "the carnage and suffering in Somalia may be the worst in more than a decade -- but you'd hardly know it from your nightly news." By May 2007, more people had died in the conflict that had been killed in Lebanon during the 2006 bombing by Israel.
Nunu Kidane, a writer from Priority Africa Network (PAN) describes the situation: "USA political and military alliance with Ethiopia - which openly violated international law in its aggression towards Somalia, is destabilizing the Horn region and begins a new shift in the way the US plans to have permanent and active military presence in Africa." The Horn of Africa is the region of East Africa around Somalia.
Walter Lindner, the German Ambassador to Somalia wrote a letter describing the situation in the country: "The obviously indiscriminate use of heavy artillery in the capital has killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, and forced over 200,000 more to flee for their lives. [Displaced persons were] at great risk of being subjected to looting, extortion and rape - including by uniformed troops at a various 'checkpoints'." The refugees are contracting cholera. International aid groups are being attacked by armed militia.
Andrew Cawthorne's report for Reuters continues with several quotes:
"There is a massive tragedy unfolding in Mogadishu, but from the world's silence, you would think it's Christmas. Somalis, caught up in Mogadishu's worst violence for 16 years, are painfully aware of their place on the global agenda."
"Nobody cares about Somalia, even if we die in our millions."
Michael Weinstein, a USA expert on Somalia at Purdue University explains why the media has been quiet about the situation in Somalia:
"For the major [world] leaders, there is a tremendous embarrassment over Somalia. They have committed themselves to supporting the interim government -- a government that has no broad legitimacy, a failing government. This is the heart of the problem. ... But Western leaders can't back out now, so of course they have 100% no interest in bringing global attention to Somalia. There is no doubt that Somalia has been shoved aside by major media outlets and global leaders, and the Somali Diaspora is left crying in the wilderness."
Although Ethiopia invaded Somalia and installed a puppet government, the affair was planned by the USA who are present in the background. The USA newspaper, Washington Post, reported "a picture of a nation that jails its citizens without reason or trial, and tortures many of them -- despite government claims to the contrary. Such cases are especially troubling because the US government, a key Ethiopian ally, has acknowledged interrogating terrorism suspects in Ethiopian prisons, where some detainees were sent after being arrested in connection with Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December. There have been no reports that those jailed have been tortured."
The next day the newspaper was reporting that "more than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful."
Carl Bloice of the USA based National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism reveals: "On file are plans - put on hold amid continuing conflicts - for nearly two-thirds of Somalia's oil fields to be allocated to the U.S. oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips. It was recently reported that the U.S. - backed prime minister of Somalia has proposed enactment of a new oil law to encourage the return of foreign oil companies to the country.
Nunu Kidane: "The unlawful U.S.- Ethiopian invasion and occupation of that country and the accompanying human suffering and human rights abuses constitute a new - and still mostly hidden - war in many ways similar to that in Iraq. And, waged for the same reason.
Sound familiar? The same process that were seen in Afghanitsan, Haiti and Iraq are now operating in Somalia. The rest of the world stands meekly by or, in the case of the UK, approves.
An exiled leader of Somalia, Hassan Dahir Uways, flees to Eritrea. The USA (which essentially paid Ethiopia to change Somalia's government) accuses Eritrea of destabilasing the region and threatens the country with sanctions. Eritrea publishes a condemnantion of USA foreign policy.
Nine months after the USA backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, over half a million people have been displaced and 80,000 children are in danger of starvation. The central market in Mogadishu is closed by the Ethiopian military who then burn it down. Kiosks and roadside stalls are also torn down leaving many people with no source of income.
Stephen Grey, a UK journalist in London and author of Ghost Plane, publishes an artical detailing the detention and torture of a UK citizen who was in Mogadishu at the time of the USA-backed Ethiopian invasion.
Reza Afsherzadegan was a 25 year old computer student from London (UK) who had gone to Somalia during the pre-invasion peace to teach computer skills to young people. Reza fled the capital during the invasion. He was captured by Kenyan soldiers near the frontier and flown to Nairobi.
He was held in crowded communal cells, with buckets as toilets, and accused of going to Somalia to train as a terrorist. "They would ask me if I've handled any weapons or received any training. I said I hadn't seen any of that. But they would look at me and say `you're lying'." Among the prisoners were women and children. "I saw a woman with five-year-old kids in cells opposite me and it was just incredible; you can't believe the way they've treated people." In violation of the Vienna Convention, Reza was denied access to his embassy (which would have been the UK embassy as he was a British national) but instead was questioned in a hotel by MI5, the British security service. Other detainees were treated in the same way.
A month later, Reza was flown blidfolded to Somalia with other detainees: "I thought to myself, can they do this? You know, can they send us to Somalia? The MI5, they know about us. They just sent us to Somalia. Can they do this?" They were held in dark, dirty underground cells.
Reza and other UK citizens were released and flown to the UK by the British embassy in Somalia. Other detainees were flown to Ethiopia. These included 11 women (five of them heavily pregnant) and 11 children as young as seven months old. Many of the people held in secret in three countries were released without any charge. Four of the women gave birth in captivity.
The story of the secrret detentions came out when some detainees obtained mobile (cell) phones from their guards and contacted human rights groups (among them Reprieve and CagePrisoners). The Muslim Human Rights Forum obtained flight manifests showing that 90 people were taken from Kenya to Somalia and these included women and children. Many ended up in Ethiopia where they were questioned by a team of USA agents.
One female victim was Fatma Chande, a 25 year old woman from Tanzania. She reported that she had been questioned by USA agents in Ethiopia. They also took her fingerprints and a DNA sample.
She stated: "The Kenyans told me originally that it is the Americans who wanted my husband, it's the Americans who were interested in us. The police tried to force me to admit my husband was a member of al-Qaida. I told them he was a businessman. He was nothing to do with al-Qaida. They kept banging on the table. They threatened to strangle me if I didn't tell them the truth."
Fatma's children also suffered: "When we arrived at the airport, we were handcuffed and our headscarves were pulled down over our eyes. The men were hooded. The children were crying all the time saying `we want to go home, we want to go home'."
This story was completely ignored the UK and USA newspapers and television news.
According to the United Nations, 600,000 people have had to flee their homes in the capital, Mogadishu from the time of the invasion up to the end of 2007. Over 200,000 continue to live in squalid camps close to the city - the largest concentration of displaced people anywhere in the world.
The Western media has completely ignored the plight of these people even as it broadcasts and publishes stories about another African region Darfur.
The USA (which has caused the catastrophe) gives no aid but spends millions to extend and modernise a runway at the port city of Bosasso. USA warships stationed off the coast of Somalia regularly attack inland targets killing many people.
The Prime Minister of Somalia, Ali Mohhammad Gedi, keeps a $ 32 million donation from Saudi Arabia, money meant for the organisation of a "peace conference". The USA summond Gedi to Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia). In return for stepping down as Prime Minister, he is allowed to keep the money and given asylum in the USA where he has bought a house in Los Angeles.
Hawa Ali Abdi is less fortunate as she lives under a tree at Afgoye, 40km from the capital with her husband and two children (both under two years old). The family fled from Mogadishu: "There is no food and no water. Nowhere to go to the toilet and nowhere to get shelter for the night".
The USA bombs Somalia in early March from an AC 130 plane killing four people.
The United Nations says that Somalia is the worst place in the world for children. Rising food prices and conditions brought about by the USA backed Ethiopian invasion were causing famine.
Human rights group, Amnesty International publishes a report describing conditions in Somalia as "dire". The report states that more than 6000 civilians were killed in Somalia from mid 2007 to mid 2008. Troops from Ethiopia (whose invasion of Somalia in late 2006 was backed and helped by the USA) are the worst offenders looting, raping and killing indiscriminantly. Other reports talk of children's throats being slit while mothers watch and eyes being gouged out.
The USA supports the invasion with air strikes and warships off the coast. The European Union provides funding for the new government.
The BBC described the killing of a Somali "militant" by a USA air strike that killed 11 people.
KryssTal Opinion: Is a Somali defending his own country from invasion more "militant" that a USA military that has come half way round the world to drop a bomb on him?
Human Rights Watch publishes a report describing the UK and USA as complicit in war crimes being committed by Ethiopian forces is the Ogaden region of Ethiopia which is a mainly Somali region in Ethiopia. The borders between the two countries were set up by European colonial powers.
The human rights violations include rape, torture and public executions. Many villages have been burnt to the ground, a fact confirmed by USA satellite images. These events remain unreported in UK television broadcasts which instead run stories on the similar events in Dafur (Sudan). Instead UK aid to Ethiopia incresed from $ 130 million to $ 260 million between 2005 and 2008. The USA also increased aid to the military.
Popular demonstrations in Tunisia force out the president, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, the leader of the regime that has ruled the country for 30 years.
France considers sending troops to protect the dictatorship. The United Kingdom calls for "free and fair elections" for the first time in 30 years.
Demonstrations occur in Egypt to remove the Hosni Mubarak, the president for the last 30 years. The government uses police forces to attack the demonstrators. In one scene shown on Al-Jazeera television, water canon is fired at a group of protestors while they are praying on a bridge.
The United Kingdom, France and Germany, after staying silent during the 30 years of dictatorship, call for "free and fair elections". Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, describes Mubarak as "wise".
The president appoints a vice president (Omar Soliman) for the first time in 30 years.
The USA has given the Egypt government $1,300 million per year during the 30 year rule of Hosni Mubarak.
During the demonstration the USA and Europe impose a travel ban on the President of Belarus for its brutal oppression of opposition during the elections in December 2010.
Hosni Mubarak resigns as president. The military take over. The military in Egypt have essentially ruled the country since 1952 when they deposed the UK-backed king.
Israel, described often in the West as the region's "only democracy", initially calls on the Western countries to back Mubarak. Once he resigns, they state that elections would not be in Israel's interests.
Israeli forces kill five Egyptian soldiers in the Sanai Desert inside Egypt. Mass demonstrations break out in Cairo outside the Israeli Embassy with calls for the Ambassador to be expelled and the Embassy to be closed.
Democracy demonstrators in Libya are attacked by a mercenary army and bombed by jets. Hundreds of people are killed.
The United Kingdom and Italy have been selling arms to the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi, even though the dictator has held absolute power for 42 years.
Most European countries condemn the violence apart from Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, who says he "didn't want to disturb" Gaddafi.
During the crisis, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, David Cameron, visits Kuwait (another absolute monarchy) with a delegation containing arms dealers. The United Kingdom had already sold £215 million worth of arms including high velocity sniper rifles and tear gas.
The USA condemns the violence on the same day that their unmanned drones kill six people in Pakistan. Many countries call for sanctions to be imposed on Libya but not Italy or the United Kingdom which have extensive business interests in the country.
The United Nations calls for a no-fly zone against Libya. The USA president, Barak Obama, talks about "protecting civilians" from attack. At the same time Yemen and Bahrain are attacking their own civilians. This is given little coverage in UK newspapers and television.
Al-Jazeera stated: "However, the overzealousness of certain Western powers like Britain, France and, as of late, the US, to interpret the resolution as an open-ended use of force, is worrisome. With their long history of interference and hegemony in the region, their political and strategic motivation remains dubious at best. Likewise, their rush to use air force individually or collectively could prove morally reprehensible - even if legally justified - if they further complicate the situation on the ground."
The USA, UK and France bomb Libya. The Western media details the massacres occuring in Libya but ignores similar massacres occurring in Yemen and Bahrain at the same time.
48 people are killed and over 150 wounded from air and missile strikes. The general secreteary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, states that "What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians." . In addition, Russia, China, and the Latin American Alba bloc condemn the bombings.
The Stop the War Coalition spokesman, Andrew Burgin, warns that the motive of the intervention was regime change, which is illegal under international law: "It looks like they are going way beyond the terms of the UN resolution. The firing of 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles was a declaration of full-scale war on Libya, not just the supposed no-fly zone which we've been presented with. This will result in substantial civilian casualties and may already have."
After a week, The UK, USA and France have used 120 cruise missiles (each costing $750,000) on Libya bombing residential areas as well as military bases.
NATO forces attack the compound of Muammar al-Gaddafi killing his son and other people.
An airstrike on a guest house in the city of Brega kills 11 Islamic clerics and wounds 45 others. The clerics had gathered for a peace march.
It late May France and UK escalate the bombing of Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
According tho the BBC, NATO is "protecting civilians".
In June, France and the UK bomb the compound of Muammar al-Gaddafi for several hours killing many people.
The central administrative complex of the Higher Committee for Children in central Tripoli was bombed with twelve bombs / rockets. The complex housed the National Downs Syndrome Centre, the Crippled Women’s Foundation, the Crippled Children Center, and the National Diabetic Research Center.
A private hotel in central Tripoli was bombed, killing three people.
In late June eight missiles and bombs hit the home of Khaled Al-Hamedi. Fifteen family members and friends were killed including Khaled’s pregnant wife, his sister and three of his children.
On the main road west of Tripoli a public bus with 12 passengers was hit by a missile killing all the passengers.
In early August, NATO air missiles hit a children's hospital in Zlitan, killing 85 people including 32 women and 33 children. No coverage is shown in the UK media.
Muammar al-Gaddafi is killed in Sirte by rebel groups after an air strike initiated, organized, coordinated and led by NATO and UK SAS forces.
The justification for the entire campaign, the charge that Gaddafi was engaged in a “massacre” of his own people, has since been shown to be based on falsehoods, misrepresentations, and undocumented allegations.
Libya (which had no debt) is encouraged by the conquerers to borrow money to rebuild its infrastructure, destroyed by the West.