Daniel Steinmann
30 October 2009
opinion
Windhoek — The world is a weird place. This week two prominent Frenchmen were given gaol sentences for their role in arms trafficking in Angola during the civil war period from 1993 to 1998.
In the meantime, commodity companies and American petroleum companies fall over their feet to do business with an illegitimate government in Luanda that has been there longer than 30 years with the incumbent president in office for two decades without popular elections.
If one really wants to bring charges to the big destroyers of Angola, the first to accuse will be the communist Portuguese government of 1976 who quickly abandoned Angola after taking office. This started a chain of events which systematically ruined the country over the next thirty years. Accused number two will be a natural person in the form of one Fidel Castro, supreme commander of the Cuban military, who really took the task of destroying Angola very seriously. Were it not for the South African army, this bunch of communists would have had free reign over a large chunk of fertile Africa, turning it also into a sixties-look-alike country, or another Burma, or North Korea.
The irony is that the South Africans initially entered Angola to prevent Swapo incursions on Namibia's northern border but that the liberation movement rapidly evaporated to the status of a mere nuisance, and then it became a full-scale bushwar against the Caribbean invader. The almost unpalatable allegiances that followed saw the colonials siding with Unita while absorbing most of the former FNLA soldiers into a feared and very successful elite unit. Angola became an exercise in war-mongering but also futility for almost all involved there.
Meanwhile, the incompetent MPLA government found out it is much easier to pilfer the country living off future oil revenues paid by American companies, than to actually try to govern. This made most of them incredibly rich - beyond one's wildest dreams - but the country and its ordinary citizens remained the sacrificial pawns of those who controlled its huge natural resources. At some point, in a show of camaraderie, Unita was invited to the table but this arrangement did not see the year out. For Unita is was easier to control the rural diamond fields and to use these diamonds to pay people like the two Frenchmen to keep supplying them with arms, ammunition and equipment from Russia and China.
So forgive me for not getting my knickers in a twist over two rather insignificant frontmen when a court in Europe decides they were naughty boys. Making it even more of a joke, I noticed an Israeli and another Frenchman were sentenced in their absence. What a show, what a farce!
Taking the pretences to the next level, the two primary accused received sentences of 365,000 euros and 100,000 euros. Perhaps this is the clearest indication what disregard Europe has for Africa and for African lives. Let's be generous and say that those sentences equal roughly N$3.5 million and N$1 million. This is what you pay for a luxury house and a medium house in Windhoek. Translate that type of morals into a practical situation and I come up with the following picture: I visit my bank manager. "Excuse me Sir, but I want to put up my house as collateral. Give me some money, I want to go and kill 100,000 Angolans, or 1 million Angolans, depending on whose estimate I use.
Can you imagine that. The Portuguese government, the MPLA, the American oil companies, the Cuban government assisted by the Russians and the East Germans, collectively killed an estimated more than one million Africans, and two stooges who are fingered in supplying arms to this motley collection of destroyers, are fined the equivalent of two houses in Windhoek. Please forgive me if I tell the war masters, I am not impressed neither fooled by this farce.
In my suburb in a corner house close to mine, lives one of the Angolans who became rich while his brethern suffered. I often encounter this person while driving. This week, I was driving behind him. He, as usual, was quite the cat in his silver Range Rover. Just as he was about to turn into his yard, the window rolled down and he casually tossed a handful of wrappings out of his window onto the sidewalk.
"Ja, I thought to myself. You shared in the pilfering of your country, yet you reside in Windhoek. In your backyard are always parked several very expensive luxury offroaders. You obviously have some business interest linking Angola and Namibia but you simply throw your rubbish on the street. No wonder your country is in such a mess. Your type helped to create it. You and the Frenchmen are just the same."
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