Loading ...According to the US African Command website, Somalia -– invaded by US backed Ethiopian troops in Jan 2007, under the guise of hunting Al–Qaeda –- is in desperate need of assistance.
“Somalia,” they announce, “a people in need.”
“The United States,” they continue, “answering this call!”
Apparently, Somalia is ‘in the midst of a complex humanitarian emergency’ justifying the active military presence of the US and Ethiopia.
Of late, we have seen a resurgence of starving Somalian babies filmed by caring journalists as they are carted around like groceries. Cameras zoom in to bloated bellies, flies buzzing around anemic and swollen faces, lips cut with dehydration, poised against the backdrop of a barren desert of red dust and huts and one or two emaciated goats.
Americans will then recall Black Hawk Down, based on the US’s 1992 military campaign entitled Operation: Restore Hope; they may even remember the group of Somalian ‘rebels’ who tied the body of a US soldier behind a vehicle, dragging him around for miles.
When I last went to the US, they were still shaking their heads, talking about the dog that bites the hand that feeds, ungrateful, needy, bestial Africa.
A friend in the US told me last week that he simply could not understand why America would risk the lives of their ‘innocents’ by creating Africom – a 53 country military to military presence - to protect our continent.
“Why should we help you?” he asked me quizzically. “We can’t save everyone.”
Yet the Somalian situation is far from the complex ‘famine’ perpetuated by the US media, legitimizing US ‘intervention’.
“It’s there. There’s no doubt there’s oil there.” Thomas E. O’Connor: World Bank, on Somalia’s oil, in 1991.
In 1991, the World Bank and the UNDP conducted a series of coordinated regional hydrocarbon studies of Somalia’s oil and gas basins, the structural and stratographic zones, extending across basins in the Gulf. Based on the documented results of the exploration, Somalia, along with Sudan, was placed at the top of an eight country list articulating the world’s most lucrative commercial oil producing regions.
“It’s got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together,” said Thomas E. O’Connor, the World Bank’s principal petroleum engineer.
By the time US backed dictator Siad Barre was ousted in a coup in 1991 by Mohammad Farah Aidid, the opposition leader cum warlord, the entire region had been divided up into concessions by four major energy giants: Chevron, Conoco, Amoco and Phillips.
The Petroleum Economist (PE) stated in 1991, “Somalia is both oil and gas prone…” and “too poor to develop its own infrastructure…” The journal laid to rest the ‘widespread perception that Somalia’s oil was inaccessible and too expensive to explore’ by quoting the UNDP studies.
During the 1980’s, Aidid accused Barre of ‘selling Somalia’ to US multinationals, exploring the region.
The World Bank document goes on to state that, ‘Almost the entire area was under license to companies by the time hostilities with the central government broke out in 1988.’
Aidid was correct as it turns out –- even before the UNDP conducted official studies, Chevron and Conoco had already sealed the deal with Barre.
In 1992, in retaliation to ‘their man’ being kicked out of office, the US occupied Somalia. They called it Operation: Restore Hope.
The occupying army was also known as US Special Forces, graduates of Fort Benning, designated the Terrorist School of the Americas, and described by John Pilger as having trained, “half the cabinet ministers of the genocidal regimes in Guatemala, two thirds of the El Salvadorian army officers who committed, according to the UN, the worst atrocities of that country’s civil war, and the head of Pinochet’s secret police, who ran Chile’s concentration camps.”
The 1992 invasion operated out of oil giant Conoco’s headquarters, in Mogadishu and the Special Forces were sent in by George Bush, closely connected to Hunt Oil, another energy giant based in Yemen and Somalia.
Yet even then they could not win.
“We’re not inflicting pain on these people…When people kill us they should be killed in greater numbers. I believe in killing people who try to hurt you. And I can’t believe we’re being pushed around by these two-bit pricks.” Bill Clinton, President of the US to Tony Lake, National Security Advisor on Operation Restore Hope, Somalia; quoted in the book All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos.
How should the US’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia via AFRICOM be perceived now?
Daniel Volman, the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a specialist on U.S. military policy in Africa, says, “Africa is only covered by the media when there is some disaster or outbreak of violence without any reference to the role of the United States or former colonial powers like the UK and France in creating these problems.”
How does the media justify the militarization of these resource rich regions, under the pretext of humanitarian aid?
“The emphasis that US government spokespeople place on America’s humanitarian interests and proclaimed interest in promoting economic development, security, and democracy are–in my opinion–just an effort to sell AFRICOM both in the US (particularly in the US Congress) and in Africa.
“The PR effort is designed to conceal the true purposes of AFRICOM which are primarily to secure resources, bolster the capabilities of allies and surrogates to repress internal political opposition, and act as proxies for the US (as Ethiopia is doing in Somalia for example), and counter the growing political and economic influence of China.
“AFRICOM is generally treated as if it were some generous and benign action by the US on behalf of Africa when, of course, it is an instrument of American military power created to serve what the administration has defined as US interests.”
How is the humanitarian effort perceived by the American public?
“The American people tend to fluctuate between paternalistic desires to do good in Africa, which the government plays upon to justify its own activities and the paternalistic contempt for Africans, as ungrateful and incapable of becoming like us –- which is what Americans assume the world wants to be.
“This literally allows the government to get away with murder.”
The media tends to provide only skeletal information, microscopically reducing situations to monolithic conditions -– famine, tribal wars etc. Who is responsible and how do the ‘armed and propped’ satellite regimes provide the ‘evil native skin’ required to convince the American public, that the fault lies in Africa?
“Countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia often act as surrogates or proxies for the US. They are believed to be threatened by terrorist linked to Al–Qaeda, or where China is increasing its economic and political connections.
“There is a direct line between US Security Assistance (political, economic, military policing of Africa in general) and African poverty. The US is not the only culprit, Europe, China etc all play a big role and African governments bear a significant portion of the blame, but there is no doubt in my mind that US policies are responsible in part for the violence, tyranny and poverty in Africa.”
How have the African governments collaborated with the US?
Most African governments have been quite happy to collaborate with the US government and the companies that plunder resources (Zimbabwe, Sudan, Eritrea and a few others are exceptions). They are perfectly happy with the negative consequences because they see this as key to their power bases, necessary to enrich themselves…
“Most African countries would have rejected hosting the HQ of AFRICOM for fear of local backlash, but a number have made it clear that they were eager to attain as much security assistance as possible. Countries like Nigeria, Chad, Angola, Ethiopia, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea continue to get more and more assistance from the US, and in some cases, China as well.”
So AFRICOM’s humanitarian intervention is legitimised by the media -– glossing over the facts, presenting — a priori — a specific version of events, duplicating sparse content rife with emotions that overwhelm facts.
How do they do it?
Ben Bagdikian, author of The New Monopoly, tells me that Africa is covered only in relation to its ‘worth’.
“Historically Africa was reported only as it affected the European nations that had African colonies—Portugal, Spain, Britain, Italy, etc. In the 1960s, as these colonies became ‘independent’ most of the former colonial powers of Europe lost interest except for spectacular events, and the former African colonies interested outside corporations, like oil companies, markets (like Monsanto’s sterile seeds) and using Africa’s many natural resources for their own global trade.
“This often meant ‘buying’ the African political leadership or rebellion by some African leaders, like Mandela; today, the United States war in the Middle East has made Africa
important mostly for resources or domination, as in Somalia.
“When events like this occur,” says David, “they are reported without providing any context, explanation or information.”
Perhaps it is because the directors of the media corporations are inextricably linked with the multinationals they are meant to expose. Dr Aaron Moore of the Columbia Journalism Review compiled a list in 2003, detailing the 45 directors interlocked with other multinationals ie: sitting on the boards of companies such as Pfizer, the New York Stock Exchange, JP Morgan, Coca–Cola, Tricon, Chevron and Boeing.
The Big Five operate as a media cartel, pumping up shares, sharing information and keeping mum about the reality of the news, preferring to sell ‘news products sympathetic with government and multinational interests.’
The media molds identity and point of view, defining reality for a passive, unengaged audience comprised of ‘consumers’ who have relegated all thought to ‘specialists.’
As Ben says, ‘‘Duplication and race to the bottom quality have become the rule.”
But whose fault is it that the media acts as a thin veneer for Empire’s interest?
Theirs or ours?
You’re always a fascinating read. Thanks.
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