OPERATORS IS DISGUISE!
(The Behind The Scene Story)
Bono & Bob Geldof have been excoriated (even if not enough)
for their paternalist & white supremacist humanitarian aid campaigns for
Africa. The same treatment needs to be accorded A-list Hollywood who make a
seamless transition from strutting the red carpet to touring conflict zones in
Africa not just touting humanitarian aid but US foreign policy in Africa. The
list of movie stars playing great white savior is a mile long but George
Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio distinguish
themselves in an unfortunate way.
Whether their concern is genuine isn't relevant. What does
matter is what political forces they ally with & what political agenda they
promote for Africa. All of them are in league with the highest echelons of US
government power--from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Pentagon &
US Congress. Even their so-called humanitarian aid foundations are linked to US
power.
Clooney operates in league with John Prendergast, a shadowy
figure identified as a human rights activist in Africa but more likely a CIA
operative who has numerous connections to US government agencies. The two
frequently grandstand in Congress to testify for US military intervention in
Darfur. Prendergast has a few foundations which media cite authoritatively on
politics in central African countries. Last year, the Guardian reported
Prendergast's Enough Project (with links to the Clinton & Obama
administrations & World Bank) declared the mines of DR Congo out of the
control of war lords & the metals extracted conflict-free due to a US federal
law passed in 2010. That absurd claim takes consumer heat off companies like
Intel & Apple, leaves the mines in the hands of foreign mining interests
strip-mining them for profit, & the continuing 17-year civil war
inscrutable.
To promote US intervention in Darfur & other African
countries, Prendergast, Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, &
other Hollywood hot shots formed Not On Our Watch Project. The Project gave
half a million bucks to Oxfam in the Chad-Darfur region in 2008--a grant that likely
involves less largesse than drawing NGOs into collusion in the region. It also
provided seed money for the Satellite Sentinel Project founded by Clooney &
Prendergast to do satellite surveillance of the region.
Jolie operates most often through the UN as a goodwill
ambassador. Most recently (2014) she collaborated with William Hague, then a
British Secretary of State, about the use of rape as a weapon of war,
especially in DR Congo. She also frequently tours refugee camps in
Africa--without ever bringing an iota of insight to what is causing the mass
rapes or the refugees. One could claim that humanitarian aid is above politics
except that such a distinction is entirely false. And Jolie as a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations knows that. One of her frequent collaborators in
the field is the International Rescue Committee, Kissinger's group which is
funded over 50% by the US government.
Affleck formed his own foundation, the Eastern Congo Initiative
(ECI) in 2010 focusing on DR Congo which allows him to promenade media &
testify in Congress as an expert on Africa. The co-founder of ECI is Whitney
Williams, who also set up Matt Damon's foundation for Africa. Williams is a
humanitarian aid consultant with links to the Clintons, USAID, the Gates Foundation,
the International Rescue Committee, John Prendergast & the Enough Project,
& Bono's foundation ONE. In 2011 ECI & the Enough Project jointly
called on the US to intervene in DR Congo around elections. It's all of a piece
& not just of noblesse oblige but to serve US foreign policy &
neoliberal plunder.
This narrative of Africa as a continental basket case of war,
genocide, & famine is curiously at odds with investment agencies promoting
foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa. Since the late 1990s, the UN, World
Bank, other investment groups, & Forbes magazine have issued regular
reports that rue the lack of FDI & promote African countries as among the
fastest growing economies in the world. In fact, in that period FDI grew from
$9 billion to $62 billion, mostly in the mining industries. In a recent list
the World Bank listed the DR Congo as among the top six African economies. The
DR Congo has been in a 17-year civil war with over four million civilian deaths
& is occupied by UN troops. How the hell is economic performance
calculated?
Mauritius, a small island country off the east coast of Africa,
is held up by the World Bank & economist Joseph Stiglitz as the
"Mauritius miracle" & among the top forty best economies in the
world for doing business. What price glory! Sweatshops where workers earn
pennies an hour, sleep 16 to a ward, have no labor rights; child labor; child
prostitution for the tourist industry; sky high property costs so most workers
can't afford homes or rent.
Investment bankers project growth in Africa from a US $ 2
trillion to a $29 trillion economy by 2050 but their measure of growth &
that of Africa's working people is entirely different. A couple years ago the
African Development Bank (a major player in all this) issued a report on
Africa's growth touting the extraction of oil & minerals as the primary
source of economic growth. They didn't elaborate that much of this depends on
the dispossession of small farmers & the use of child labor. They reported
major inroads into poverty so that those living below the poverty line of US $1
a day has fallen from 51% to 39%. They gloat that now 350 million Africans (out
of 1.11 billion) earn between US $2 & $20 a day. $730 or $7,300 a year is
nothing to gloat about. They never addressed the estimated one million African
refugees every year making arduous treks to Europe, Saudi Arabia, Israel, &
elsewhere seeking asylum & economic opportunity.
Foreign investment is in fact draining Africa of resources. An estimated
$134 billion flows into the continent each year, in the form of loans,
investment & aid, but an estimated $192 billion is taken out, mainly in
profits made by foreign companies. The result is that Africa suffers a net loss
of $58 billion a year. That's called plunder.
The basket case narrative serves a political purpose or it
wouldn't be promoted. Partially it's to cover for IMF-World Bank austerity
programs which dispossess farmers & rural workers, create urban slums,
destroy public health, education, & social services, allow multinational
corporations to strip mine & wreak environmental catastrophe, & allow
foreign corporations to maraud & freeboot in the name of development.
There have been popular uprisings in nearly 30 countries against
pauperization & neoliberal plunder. These are seldom reported because they
are at odds with both the basket case narrative about Africans & the
promotion of FDI. These aren't just spontaneous inchoate uprisings but involve
political groups with explanations for the neoliberal devastation in their own
countries. In the period after independence from colonial powers & before
the onset of neoliberal plunder, there was considerable economic & social
development that is being reversed. It is in these rebellions that the future of
Africa lies--not in movie stars with white savior complexes.
Last fall, uprisings in Burkina Faso in western Africa deposed
the president who was one of Africa's longest serving leaders. Hundreds of
thousands protested to stop him from running for a fifth term & after
months of protest, he fled the country in October. This photo is of a protest
in the capital Ouagadougou.
MARY SCULLY
0 Comments
