Geopolitical thoughts about release Al-Megrahi
Published September 16, 2009
Abdelbasset Ali Mohamed Al-Megrahi is the man who was condemned for the bomb attack on an American plane above Lockerbie in 1988. He was released a couple of weeks ago by Great-Britain and subsequently welcomed celebratory in Libia. Now that’s strange, but much stranger is the fact that the British government reacted much less disapproving to this happening than the United States for example.
Now it seems that this has to be perceived in a geopolitical way: interests on economical level influenced a decision on political (and ethical, think about the surviving relatives) level. Earlier on, the British minister of Justice, Jack Straw, wanted to exclude Al-Megrahi from an agreement between London and Tripoli about the exchange of British and Libian prisoners. But in the end, Straw gave in on this point because Libia refused otherwise to conclude a billion dollar deal with British Petroleum (BP). Shortly after Straw’s deicision, negotiations were restarted on this issue.
So it’s clear this deal was economically important to the UK, but indirectly, it also was on political level (again). Because by importing oil and gas from Libia, the UK would be less dependent from Russia, which creates a better negotiation position with this country on other issues and so on…
A new colonial era
Published August 26, 2009It’s generally presumed that the colonial era is history nowadays. Yes, the formerly great colonial powers like Great-Britain and France don’t have any governments installed anymore in third world countries in Africa and South-America. But there is no reason to worry: we can still rob them from their valuable commodities, but let’s not call it colonialism anymore. We have neat gold mining companys now and they have their own social responsibilities and stuff.
There’s for example the well-known gold mining multinational, of which I can’t remember the exact name right now, which acquired the power over a huge plant site in Peru in a complete nonviolent way. Because violence is very colonialistic, they just bribed some Peruvian judges and in the end the entire Peruvian government. Subsequently, they polluted the entire region. But hey, the presence of the gold mine means a boost for the local economy!Too bad that the greater part of the employees is coming from outside the region and the fast urbanization brought along prostitution, criminality and outrage. And the inflow of foreign capital from well-paid expatriates caused a growth in land prices. However, the situation improved a little after a great portion of media attention.
Maybe that’s because they shifted their focus from South-America to Africa. Ghana for example. A friend of mine is conducting some research there at the moment and the similarities with Peru are countless. For example the communities of Teberebie and Iduapriem, which are seriously struck by the gold mining activities. People are literally forced to cede their land by soldiers (how do you mean colonialism?). Of course they are promised to receive other land but of course that isn’t the case. And concerning the pollution:
The picture on the left shows the polluted river which the local population needs for their daily activities, the picture on the right shows its health consequences.
In another community, that of Adisakrom, people live along the Soubry river. This river is partly closed the river by a dam, with the one side serving as a dump for the chemical waste of The Big Mining Company and the other side is for the sustenance of the local people. However, the water level has grown enormously thanks to the dam, which is why crocodiles and, I must quote, ‘other crazy reptiles’, can’t catch any fish anymore. Consequence: they enter land.
And what did The Company have to say at this? The old story: the local people take advantage of the mining, they have no reason to complain. With the consequence of big strikes which took place recently, because Ghanaian emplyees earn about 700$ a month for a job as senior officer, while the average expatriate earns about $20,000 for doing a comparable job. And don’t think that it are only private companies who are involved: organisations who are connected to insitutions like the World Bank are also investing in such huge mining projects. One can wonder if it isn’t more suitable for such organisations to invest in an improved democracy at large scale and concerning the mining territory in specific, instead of projects in the private area. Colonialism isn’t dead, they are just trying to legalise it.
“All my life I kept trying to go up in society. Where everything higher up was legal. But the higher I go, the crookeder it becomes. Where the hell does it end?”
(M.C.)
Posted in News, News Africa | 
adisakrom, colonial era, ghana, gold mining, iduapriem, peru, social responsibility, teberebie, world bank | 
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