On The Road In The Kingdom Of Fear

Africa - famine and other stuff

Location the Presidential Palace, Niamey, Niger: Huge room with huge armchairs and sofas lining the 4 walls. Air conditioning, lush carpets, servants hovering in the doorways. Large man on large sofa dressed in white and in denial.

President Mamadou Tandja "The people of Niger look well fed as you can see.... Mass starvation is just Western propaganda..... a way for relief agencies to receive funding"
Cut and move to second location, AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

AU heads of state still not fully recovered from the recent coup in Mauritania whose head of state incidentally landed in Niamey after being ousted. (He and Tandja could have had lots of discussions on how many slaves they own and what problems these HR organisations are causing them)

Large numbers of men dressed in a mixture of western suits and traditional gowns each with an entourage of minions carrying bags and papers standing at attention. They all mill around and chat about their latest purchases and how much of their citizen's money they have wasted in the last month on their overseas trips. Not a pleasant site, the back drop being an angry Ethiopian population who have been betrayed by their own leaders.

AU President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. In a slow drawn out tone "how much can we give to these starving people in Niger. I mean the President says it is not true. Although I have seen the photos on CNN, the President most know better. I say let us send $1 million that is 1 weeks food money from each of you, then at least we can say we did something to help these wretched people"

Clearly like slavery they do not see starvation as a something worthy of much attention. Coups are much more exciting especially as many of them have their own personal experience of either working for the "Generals" or being one themselves in a former life. It is such hypocrisy for African head of states to make all this fuss about the Mauritania coup. As Black Start Journal states, Mbeki who was apparently furious over the coup is the chief apologist for Zimbabwe's Mugabe government. How does he reconcile that one?

posted by Alexander Try @ 4:30 pm