Inside France's secret war: The motives for this war are drenched in dollars and euros and uranium

[bananas]

The motives for this war are, Roland-Gosselin says, drenched in dollars and euros and uranium.
"The overarching goal is to take African resources and funnel them towards French corporations."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article3030349.ece

Inside France's secret war

For 40 years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in Africa, hidden not only from its people, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator – and to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so violent that thousands are fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur – seeking sanctuary in the world's most notorious killing fields

By Johann Hari in Birao, Central African Republic
Published: 05 October 2007

I first heard whispers of this war in March, when newspapers reported in passing that the French military was bombing the remote city of Birao, in the far north-east of the CAR. Why were French soldiers fighting there, thousands of miles from home? Why had they been intervening in Central Africa this way for so many decades? I could find no answers here – so I decided to travel there, into the belly of France's forgotten war.

On the battlefield - Birao

I am standing now on its latest battlefield, looking out over abandoned mud streets streaked with ash. The city of Birao is empty and echoing, for the first time in 200 years. All around are miles of burned and abandoned homes, with the odd starved child scampering through the wreckage. What were all these buildings? On one faded green sign it says Ministry of Justice, on a structure reduced to a charcoal husk. In the market square, the people who have returned are selling a few scarce supplies – rice and manioc, the local yeasty staple food – and talking quietly. At the edges of the town, there are African soldiers armed and trained by the French, lolling behind sandbags, with machine guns jutting nervously at passers-by. They are singing weary nationalist anthems and dreaming of home.

<snip>

The motives for this war are, Roland-Gosselin says, drenched in dollars and euros and uranium. "The overarching goal is to take African resources and funnel them towards French corporations," she says. "The CAR itself is a base from which the French can access resources all over Africa. That is why it is so important. They use it to keep the oil flowing to French companies in Chad, the resources flowing from Congo, and so on. And of course, the country itself has valuable resources. CAR has a lot of uranium, which the French badly need because they are so dependent on nuclear power. At the moment they get their uranium from Niger, but the CAR is their back-up plan." So this is, in part, a war for nuclear power? " Yes, but also a lot of this money has been funnelled, through corruption, straight back into the French political process. Say somebody needs a road built here in the CAR. The French government will insist on a French company – and the French company back home donates a lot to the 'right' French political party."

This neo-imperial war reached its psychotic apogee in 1994, when the French government used the CAR as a base to fund and fuel the Rwandan genocide, the most bloody since the death of Adolf Hitler. Vincent Mounie is a leading figure in Sur Vie, a French organisation monitoring its government's actions in Africa. He explains: "The French were totally complicit in the genocide. There were French troops there before, during and after the genocide, backing the most extreme Hutu forces as they murdered the Tutsis. You know the identity cards that divided the Rwandan population into Hutus and Tutsis in preparation for the slaughter? They were printed in Paris."

<snip>

[greenman3610]

1. France's wonderful nuclear program, the one that works so well!

and it only costs a few Africans every year..

"And of course, the country itself has valuable resources. CAR has a lot of uranium, which the French badly need because they are so dependent on nuclear power. At the moment they get their uranium from Niger, but the CAR is their back-up plan." So this is, in part, a war for nuclear power? " Yes, but also a lot of this money has been funnelled, through corruption, straight back into the French political process. Say somebody needs a road built here in the CAR. The French government will insist on a French company – and the French company back home donates a lot to the 'right' French political party."

[bananas]

2. crossposted from GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1997649

[losthills]

3. None dare say, "Peak Uranium..."

[hunter]

4. 1492 Brand Western Imperialism.

Bringing misery and death to people for over 500 years.

Same old racist empires, different metals.

[phantom power]

5. Imperialism for uranium is wrong. Evil, in fact.

Or, like hunter said, it's evil no matter what the resource in question is.

[phantom power]

6. This brings up an interesting feature of nuclear energy.

France (and everybody else) can and should:

1) pay a fair price for uranium extraction from other countries.
2) pay the cost of proper mine operation, cleanup, etc.
3) pay the cost for proper worker conditions, protection, health care, pensions, etc.

And if they do all this, even though it will multiply the cost of the fuel itself, it will have a pretty small impact on the actual price of nuclear energy. Because the energy density of uranium ore is about 20,000 times the energy density of fossil fuels. Because of this extremely high energy density, the cost of uranium isn't a dominating component of the cost nuclear energy. The costs of building and operating the plant itself are what dominate its cost.

That aside, human history has shown that people will sell out the welfare of other people even to save a nickel they don't really need. So even though it could be economical, I'm not holding my breath for it. But that's not a property of the nuclear industry, it's a property of human nature.

Which has some implications for the future of Big Renewables. Because Big Renewables will also be run by human beings, who are governed by human nature. I think we should all bear that in mind, so that the future doesn't disappoint us any more than necessary. Just sayin.

[losthills]

10. Big Renewables...

You must travel in different circles than I do, because I haven't heard that one yet.....

If you made it up, then you should copyright it, because the people that will start slinging it will the wealthiest of the wealthy...

[Hydra]

7. Oh, so France does what we do too?

I was wondering why they had no problem with us invading Iran.

International politics among superpowers: "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Just keep your hands off of mine, and I'll leave yours alone too."

[NNadir]

8. Oh please....

The anti-nuclear industry couldn't care less about Africa, never has and never will.

The most "vicious genocide since Hitler?"

Apparently - and this is hardly suprising for an anti-nuke - you have no idea what the population of the Central African Republic is. Apparently - just as you wish to claim that everyone in Harrisburg was killed by Three Mile Island, just as you wish to claim that everyone in the Ukraine was killed by Chernobyl, and just as the collection of shit-for-brains anti-nukes wished to represent that everyone in Japan was killed by the earthquake related leak at the nuclear plant, you wish to claim that everyone in the Central African Republic was killed to get uranium.

Why not trivialize genocide?

Oh, and in case you're fucking oblivious to it, von Paulus's drive on the Caucasus was to get access to the oil fields.

http://www.germanwarmachine.com/waffenss/1942/stalingrad.htm

You couldn't care less.

In fact, speaking of Russia, you couldn't care less while you pal, the paid off anti-nuke Gerhard Schroeder smooths over that little business in Grozny, near his Lake Baikal choking pipeline.

Ever hear of Cambodia?

No?

Why am I not suprised?

Let's try the name of another country that starts with a "C" and an "A."

Ever hear of Canada?

No?

Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium. A real genocidal nightmare, Alberta is.

If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

You have no fucking idea where uranium comes from, just as you have no fucking idea where dangerous fossil fuels come from, just as you have no fucking idea how many people die for your dangerous fossil fuel apologetics.

The anti-nuclear industry has been blowing Amory Lovins for years, and Amory Lovins blows Royal Dutch Shell.

You never heard of Nigeria?

Why am I not surprised?

It is always the same, the anti-nuke industry tries desperately to isolate nuclear energy from its alternatives, and it does this for money.

It is one thing for the anti-nuclear industry to assume scientific illiteracy and another for it to assume historical illiteracy.

My guess is that the anti-nuke industry, so flush with blood money, would rather assume that everybody is stupid.

[losthills]

9. Gin.

Again...

[NNadir]

13. Dope, again

Why do you think they call it dope?

[DLnyc]

11. do "Vincent Mounie" or "Sur Vie" actually exist?

from your post:
"Vincent Mounie is a leading figure in Sur Vie, a French organisation monitoring its government's actions in Africa"

but searching both altavista and google on "Vincent Mounie" "Sur Vie" gives no hits except, apparently, quotes of this article.

???????

edit to say: My bad, it's "Survie", not "sur vie", it exists, it's at http://survie-france.org/ interesting site, if you can read French.

[tocqueville]

12. is this French-bashing or CIA-spin or what ?

That France has a colonial past in Africa and defends geopolitical interests there is no secret. So do the Brits, The Chinese, the US et al. This can be of course criticized.

But making France responsible of a genocide is another thing.

"Survie" is an extreme-left, anarcho-trotskyite, anti-globalization organisation, manipulated by the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) which in its turn is manipulated by the CIA. "Survie" excels in conspiracy theories.

According to the UN , Amnesty international<11>, Human Rights Watch<12>, Physicians for Human Rights<13>, le Centre international des droits de la personne etc... etc.. the RPF is responsible for triggering the civil war that turned into a genocide in Rwanda. They are even accused of letting the genocide go on to cause an external intervention and seize power.

Globalsearch has studied the background to the Rwandan genocide and found out who was behind (guess who) and why :

The civil war in Rwanda was a brutal struggle for political power between the Hutu-led Habyarimana government supported by France and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) backed financially and militarily by Washington. Ethnic rivalries were used deliberately in the pursuit of geopolitical objectives. Both the CIA and French intelligence were involved.

In the words of former Cooperation Minister Bernard Debré in the government of Prime Minister Henri Balladur:

"What one forgets to say is that, if France was on one side, the Americans were on the other, arming the Tutsis who armed the Ugandans. I don't want to portray a showdown between the French and the Anglo-Saxons, but the truth must be told." 43

In addition to military aid to the warring factions, the influx of development loans played an important role in "financing the conflict." In other words, both the Ugandan and Rwanda external debts were diverted into supporting the military and paramilitary. Uganda's external debt increased by more than 2 billion dollars, --i.e. at a significantly faster pace than that of Rwanda (an increase of approximately 250 million dollars from 1990 to 1994). In retrospect, the RPA -- financed by US military aid and Uganda's external debt-- was much better equipped and trained than the Forces Armées du Rwanda (FAR) loyal to President Habyarimana. From the outset, the RPA had a definite military advantage over the FAR.

According to the testimony of Paul Mugabe, a former member of the RPF High Command Unit, Major General Paul Kagame had personally ordered the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane with a view to taking control of the country. He was fully aware that the assassination of Habyarimana would unleash "a genocide" against Tutsi civilians. RPA forces had been fully deployed in Kigali at the time the ethnic massacres took place and did not act to prevent it from happening:

The decision of Paul Kagame to shoot Pres. Habyarimana's aircraft was the catalyst of an unprecedented drama in Rwandan history, and Major-General Paul Kagame took that decision with all awareness. Kagame's ambition caused the extermination of all of our families: Tutsis, Hutus and Twas. We all lost. Kagame's take-over took away the lives of a large number of Tutsis and caused the unnecessary exodus of millions of Hutus, many of whom were innocent under the hands of the genocide ringleaders. Some naive Rwandans proclaimed Kagame as their savior, but time has demonstrated that it was he who caused our suffering and misfortunes… Can Kagame explain to the Rwandan people why he sent Claude Dusaidi and Charles Muligande to New York and Washington to stop the UN military intervention which was supposed to be sent and protect the Rwandan people from the genocide? The reason behind avoiding that military intervention was to allow the RPF leadership the takeover of the Kigali Government and to show the world that they - the RPF - were the ones who stopped the genocide. We will all remember that the genocide occurred during three months, even though Kagame has said that he was capable of stopping it the first week after the aircraft crash. Can Major-General Paul Kagame explain why he asked to MINUAR to leave Rwandan soil within hours while the UN was examining the possibility of increasing its troops in Rwanda in order to stop the genocide?


http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO305A.html

For those who read French (there is much more than in the English version):

Survie :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survie_(association)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survie

Front Patriotique Rwandais :

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_patriotique_rwandais
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Patriotic_Front

I considered the Independenr to be a reliable source. But this article is plain garbage.