The Enrichment of Africa's French Allies

By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS 

French President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) stands with his Congolese counterpart Denis Sassou-Nguesso (R) at the beginning of a state dinner at the presidential palace in Brazzaville on March 26, 2009.

ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty

President Nicolas Sarkozy may have promised on the campaign trail to clean up the less than savory relationship France maintains with various strongman leaders in its former African colonies, but that's proved to be easier said than done. So, France's judiciary is looking to step in where diplomats have been leery to tread, by filing corruption charges against three African heads of state.

Related

Stories

• Behind President Sarkozy's Africa Trip

Can someone tell the French president that it is time for him and his country to stop protecting the tyrants whose corrupt behaviour has entreched poverty in their countries

This week, France's senior investigating magistrate, Françoise Desset, ruled that a case brought by the anticorruption organization Transparency International against three African leaders had sufficient merit to warrant a full judicial investigation. The complaint accuses the trio — Gabon's President Omar Bongo, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, and Equatorial Guinea leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema — of pillaging their impoverished nations and treating state money as their personal wealth to finance acquisitions in France. The ruling means Desset can use her judicial authority to examine banking and other records to determine the origins of funds maintained by the three in France, and used to buy property here. (See pictures of the Pope in Africa.)

All three leaders fit the stereotype of the African "Big Man," having seized and maintained power by force. Each one, Transparency International alleges, has also used his position to enrich himself. That, French foreign-policy specialists say, has been done with the complicity and connivance of successive French governments maintaining the traditional Françafrique policy of retaining influence among former colonies. French lawyers for each of the leaders have flatly refuted the allegations. In Gabon — where Bongo is in temporary seclusion to mourn the death of his wife — government spokesman Alain Akouala Atipault assured that "there's nothing concrete in this affair, and there will be nothing legally concrete." Though French officials initially refused to comment on Desset's ruling, Paris prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, announced Thursday he had appealed her decision to investigate the claim.

"Françafrique is a Gaullist creation that integrated leaders from France's African sphere as virtual members of the French political and strategic élite," explains Antoine Glaser, a specialist on Franco-African relations, and author of the recent book Sarko in Africa. "That relationship has been based on French recognition of services rendered, and meant the interests of African leaders and their families that make up the first circle of power have come before the actual populations they're supposed to represent."

France's coddling, critics have long complained, has allowed its client regimes in Africa to quash political opposition, shackle democracy and siphon off untold fortunes from the national coffers for their personal use — even donations to French political parties of all stripes. According to the Transparency International complaint that Desset has decided to investigate, the Bongo and Sassou-Nguesso families hold 70 and 111 bank accounts in France respectively, and own a total of 31 pricey homes or buildings in and around Paris. They also boast entire fleets of cars in France. Listed in the Obiang Nguema family's holdings are two luxury automobiles and a $44.2 million private jet (though the Equatorial Guinean first family has snubbed Paris' real estate market in favor of a $45 million property in Malibu).

What's wrong with that? Nothing, according to Sassou-Nguesso — who publicly pooh-poohed a 2007 French corruption complaint against him, noting that "leaders from around the world have châteaux and palaces in France, whether they're from the Gulf, Europe, or Africa." (See pictures of South Africa.)

But where the previous investigation failed, Desset has chosen to officially investigate the embezzlement charges raised by Transparency International — and braved the anticipated appeal by France's top prosecutor against the investigation. Indeed, if the investigation makes it all the way to court, some observers say it could be the first blow that eventually brings the understandings of Françafrique crashing down.

"No matter the merits and competencies of these leaders," Transparency's lawyer William Bourdon ironically noted, "no one can seriously believe that their holdings could have been obtained as the fruit of their labor alone."

Still, the African leaders under investigation in France aren't quaking just yet. Aware that the Paris prosecutor's office twice previously rejected Transparency's request as legally unfounded, they were among the many expecting that Desset's decision to investigate would be appealed. Many observers note that the prosecutor's office is filled by officials appointed by politicians that may be reluctant to see Paris' relations with African leaders aired. Some of France's less-than-savory clients in Africa have previously threatened to bring down political heavyweights in Paris who also benefited from Françafrique if the situation were to change to their disadvantage.

Still, Glaser believes the case may eventually be allowed to proceed once efforts to stop it have been rebuffed by the courts. That would allow Sarkozy plausible deniability before vulnerable African allies, yet help him to jettisonFrançafrique policies that he has tried to end as promised, but was instead forced to fall back on in crisis situations.

"When France moved to save Chad's government from surging rebels, its forces came in from Gabon — just one example of how Sarkozy found himself chained to the realities of old Françafrique," says Glaser. "But France no longer has the money, forces, or desire to pay the price to be able to act unilaterally in Africa. Meanwhile, I think Sarkozy sees Françafrique is dying whether people like it or not. This legal case suggests he's not the only one recognizing that, and turned to a new order of affairs."

Hiding Africa’s Looted Funds: The Silence of Western Media

By Lord Aikins Adusei 

Quite often when you read newspapers, listen to radio and watch television in the West you learn how poor Africans are and how corrupt African leaders are. But you will never watch, read or hear anything in these media outlets about the role being played by Western banking institutions; property development and estate companies; the big corporations; and the western political and business elite in promoting corruption in Africa. When it comes to Africa and the developing world the Western media pretend to be doing a good job only when there is an embarrassing story or a scandal that undermines their credibility as the watchdog of the state. It is not uncommon to see poverty stricken Africans in poor living conditions being shown in documentaries, movies, and television screens in the West but the same documentaries and movies are always silent on the role play by the institutions in the West. Bribery as we all know involves a giver and a taker but it is

always the taker who is reported in media. In many instances as we shall soon see bribes are offered in order to secure contracts, secure official favour or to induce officials in order to influence the out come of a government decision. In other instances people become corrupt because of the existence of favouring conditions as can be seen in most western countries with their banking secrecy laws. 

The media in the west tend to ignore the role of western institutions for many reasons. One main reason why they would like to show the poverty level in Africa but refuse to show the role played by the western banking, property, multinational corporations is the fear of loosing revenue through adverts. Many of the media outlets survive through advertisements from the property, banking and multinational corporations so while would they want to incur their wrath? Another reason is that the editors, programme directors and the other bigshots in the media are themselves shareholders of these banks and property companies so why would they want to jeopardise the source of their own wealth? The enthusiasm with which CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, ITN, SKYNEWS, television producers portray Africa as poor and least developed; the same cannot be said about the way they report on the role played by the Western banking and other institutions. They fail to tell the world that

the looted funds that make Africans poor are indeed sitting in Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and the offshore Islands controlled by the West. They fail to tell the world that Africa would be a different place if all the stolen monies are returned, but would they ever raise a voice in support of such a laudable idea? Why would the media change the way they report when for centuries they have been the source of all the misinformation and misrepresentation of anything unwestern?

Corruption is rife in Africa because there are banking institutions in Europe especially Switzerland, France, Jersey Island, Britain, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, US and many others who accept money from African leaders without questioning the source of the money. According to the UN around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by the political leaders, the business elite and civil servants every year with collusion and connivance of banking industries in Europe and North America. Even though it is a common knowledge western banks are acting as havens for looted funds, very little attention is received from the western media to expose them. The media to focus their energies on the corrupt leaders with little or no mention at all as to where the monies they have stolen are being kept. There has not been any concrete effort to expose the banks that collude and connive with these corrupt leaders who are impoverishing the people. 

No effort has been made by the political elite in Europe and America to force the banks to return these stolen monies to the poorest of the poor because they are often the shareholders and beneficiaries of profits made by these banks. They talk about corruption because it is embarrassing to them but they have no agenda to fight it as that would mean no fat dividends for them and no cheap credits for their citizens. Even the Pope knows that the monies stolen are in Europe and America as is seen below. 

Within five years of his reign (1993-98) Sani Abacha of Nigeria according to official figures was able to stash four billion dollars and between 12 and 16 billion dollars in unofficial terms. After his death in 1998, investigators in Nigeria, Europe and America stumbled on over 130 bank accounts in abroad where some of the money stolen was kept.

The banks that received Abacha’s stolen funds are: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, ANZ, London Branch; Bank Len, Zurich; Bankers Trust Company, London; Bankers Trust Company, Frankfurt; Bankers Trust Company, New York; Banque Barring Brothers, Geneva; Bank in Liechtenstein A. G. Vaduz; Barclays Bank, New York; Barclays Bank, London; Banque Edouard Constant, General; Banque Nationale De Paris, Geneva; Banque Nationale De Paris, London; Banque Nationale De Paris, Basle; Citibank N. A. London; Citibank N. A. New York; Citibank N. A. Luxembourg; Citibank Zurich; Credit Lyonnais , New York; Credit Suisse , New York; Credit Suisse, General; Credit Suisse, Zurich; Deutche Morgan Grenfell, Jersey; FIBI Bank (Schweiz) A. G. Zurich; First Bank of Boston , London; Goldman Sachs and Company, Zurich; Gothard Bank, Geneva; LGT Liechtenstein Bank, Vaduz; Liechtenstein Landesbank, Vaduz; M. M. Warburg and Company, Luxembourg; M. M. Warburg and Company,

Zurich; M. M. Warburg and Company, Hamburg; Merrill Lynch Bank, New York; Merrill Lynch Bank, Geneva; Midland Bank, London; National Westminister Bank, London; Paribus, London; Paribus, Geneva; Royal Bank of Scotland , Leeds; Standard Bank London Limited, London; UBS AG, Zurich; UBS AG, Geneva; Union Bancaire Privee, Geneva; Union Bancaire Privee, London; London Branch; Verwaltungs Und Private Bank A. G., Vaduz; and ANZ, New York; ANZ, Frankfurt. Source: Tell Magazine, October 7, 2002.

In February 2009 a French court had Omar Bongo’s 9 bank accounts containing several millions of Euros frozen. In confirming the court’s decision lawyer Jean-Philippe Le Bail said, "This concerns Crédit Lyonnais, in which the president of Gabon has two current accounts, two savings accounts and a share account, and BNP, in which he has two checking accounts, a savings account and a share account". These are the banks whose shady dealings with the political and business elite in Africa continue to impoverish African countries but which for profits sake the media refuse to tell the world about. The banks know these corrupt leaders have stolen the money yet they pretend not to know until there is a scandal before they begin to act as if they are responsible institutions.

Most of the above named banks have also been implicated for receiving billions of dollars of looted funds from the lates Mobutu of Zaire; Lansana Conte of Guinea; Eyadema of Togo; and a number of tyrants such as Omar Bongo of Gabon; Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea; Dos Santos of Angola; Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo; Paul Biya of Cameroon; Arap Moi of Kenya; Jerry Rawlings of Ghana; Ibrahim Babadjinda of Nigeria and a number of sitting and ex-presidents in Africa yet western media are silent about where the funds are being kept. According to a 110 page report prepared by international risk consultancy firm Kroll, Arap Moi and his family have banked £1 billion in 28 countries including Britain but the media in the west will not expose the banks involved.   

Apart from the banking sector, the property sector in Europe, America and Australia have also colluded and connived with the political and business elite in Africa to impoverish the people. It has been revealed that several African leaders have bought properties in Europe and America using the monies stolen from their poor countries. It is on record that Mobutu of DRC (Zaire)bought several villas in France, Switzerland, Belgium and many European Countries. Yet again the companies selling the villas have been kept secrete. They will not be exposed by the media. Why would they?

According to AFP a French police investigation has established that Bongo and his family own at least 33 luxury properties in France, including a villa located at Rue de la Baume, near the Elysée Palace, in Paris bought in 2007 for 18.8 million Euros. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been spotted greeting Bongo in this villa bought with funds looted from Gabon. However, other investigations have uncovered that he and his family have at least 59 properties, several bonds and stocks in France alone. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was embarrassed when it was revealed that Bongo's government paid his consultancy firm a staggering 2.64 million Euros for advice on health policy drawn up by Kouchner before he took office.

It has recently come to light that Arap Moi of Kenya and his family bought several multimillion pound properties in London, New York, South Africa including 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia and bank accounts containing hundreds of millions of pounds. While majority of Kenyans live in slums and in rural areas, with little roofing on their heads and lacking water and other basic necessities of life, Moi’s family live in a £4m home in Surrey and £2m flat in Knightsbridge yet the media will not expose the estate companies involved.

Another area often ignored by the western media is the role play by western companies and corporations in encouraging corruption, bribery and thievery in Africa. It is very common for western companies looking for lucrative contracts to pay bribes and kickbacks to induce officials into awarding them contracts. For example on 17th September 2002, a Canadian firm called Acres International was convicted by a High Court in Lesotho for paying $260,000 bribe to secure an $8 billion dam contract. In 2002 Halliburton a company once controlled by Dick Cheney former US Vice President, was accused of establishing $180m flush fund with the intent of using it to bribe Nigeria officials in order to secure a $10 billion Liquefied Gas Plant contract in Nigeria. Achair Partners a Swiss company and Progresso an Italian company have been accused of bribing Somalia Transition Government officials in order to secure contracts to deposit highly toxic industrial waste in the

waters of Somalia. Such corrupt practices by western companies seeking contracts in Africa are one of the reasons why poverty and diseases are rife in the continent.

The catastrophic environmental damage being caused by Oil, mining and timber companies such as Shell, BP, Total, Elf, Texaco, Mittal, Anglo-America Corporation in Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, DR. Congo, South Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal do not make the news in the West. How often do we hear about the huge environmental price Africans are paying to satisfy the west insatiable appetite for energy and technology? Apart from the huge profits being made by these conglomerates which we often hear in the news, do we hear also their complete disregard for environmental rules; the pollution of rivers, lakes, streams, wells, and the environment? 

In October 2002, after a three year investigation a UN Panel of Experts implicated Cabot Corporation (Boston), Eagle Wings Resources International, and George Forrest's OM Group (Ohio) for arming rebel groups and collaborating with them to traffic from DR. Congo gold, diamond, timber and most importantly coltan (columbo-tantalite)-a precious ore essential to Sony playstations, laptop computers, and cell phones. Coltan is often spirited out of DRC to U.S., Swiss, Belgian, and German clients by Uganda and Rwanda army officers, rebel groups and through a network of criminal syndicates. In all 85 companies were implicated by the report. Except the wars and the stranded faces of hungry refugees, do these illegal activities by the corporations make the news in the Western media? Definitely not. Even when local journalists and writers document these for broadcast in the western media they refuse because it does not serve their interest in the wider scheme of

things.

These are the hypocrisy and the double standards of the western media. They want the world to know how poor Africans are but fail to tell the world that Africans are poor because Western banking institutions, property development companies, defence companies and defence contractors, oil and mining corporations are major stakeholders in promoting Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment. Corruption and bribery in Africa and indeed the developing world could be reduce tremendously if the media for once put aside the pick and choose journalism and attach the same importance to show the degree of involvement by western capitalist institutions Europe, America and Japan and their role in keeping Africans poor.

Black History Month, Is It Worth Celebrating?

By Lord Aikins Adusei

It is an undisputable fact that Black people have contributed immensely towards the development of the world and therefore the celebration of events like Black History Month should be welcomed. However, the continuous celebration of BHM in the face of poverty, hunger, diseases and racial discrimination facing African-Americans and their counterparts in Europe today make any such celebrations meaningless and it will continue to be meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of African-Americans and Blacks in general from poverty, social and economic marginalisation and blatant discrimination.

The BHM is not worth celebrating when millions of African-Americans remain poor, cannot pay for health insurance and education; are homeless and marginalised economically; and are subjected to racism in America and Europe. To celebrate BHM in the face of all the problems facing African-Americans and Blacks in general is like Robert Mugabe having a lavish birthday party while cholera is decimating thousands of his people, while millions face starvation and the economy of his country is on the brink of collapse.

The institution of the BHM itself is an acknowledgement of the many wrongs committed by European-Americans mostly in the south against their African-American brothers whom they enslaved, maltreated and denied the basic right enjoyed by all people but does not liberate African –Americans from their current predicaments. The institution and the celebration of BHM are just superficial and cosmetics as there are deep seated problems facing African-Americans and other minorities today.

Today the old laws that favoured the imprisonment of Blacks on even minor offenses and on flimsy charges are still in place. As a result Blacks make up more than 50% of the total inmate population in USA despite the fact that they make up about 13% of the population.

An article by Louise D. Palmer, of the Boston Globe says that the “Evidence of prejudice against African-Americans in the criminal-justice system is overwhelming.

Criminologists such as William Chambliss, professor of sociology at George Washington University and past president of the American Society of Criminologists, says the Police admit that they focus their resources on black communities, particularly when enforcing drug laws and despite studies that show whites consume more drugs than blacks. “It is much easier to go into black community and pop someone selling drugs on the street corner than to go into a suburb where drug use happens behind closed doors,” he says.

Blacks are also more frequently viewed as suspects, pulled over and targeted by raids, Chambliss said.

A survey of traffic stops in Volusia County, Fla., for instance, showed nearly 70 percent of those stopped were blacks or Hispanic, according to Georgetown University Law Professor David Cold, author of “No Equal Justice.”

Police look for crimes in the ghetto, and that’s where they find them,” Chambliss said. Criminologists say sentencing guidelines were imposed in part to rid the criminal-justice system of sentences that varied dramatically because of prejudicial factors such as race, gender, individual circumstance or geography. But African Americans still received sentences an average of six months longer than whites for committing the same crime, according to a University of Georgia study”.

How good is Black History Month when lack of economic opportunities has forced millions of African-Americans to embrace welfare and crime as the only alternative? Is it enough to celebrate BHM when the walls of racism remain intact, when few African-Americans and their colleagues in Europe are found in the position of power and when majority of African-American male felons remain disenfranchised?

How many African-Americans are in the US Senate for example? President Obama was the only African-American in the one-hundred member seat Senate until his election as President. The tears of joy and the wild celebrations that we saw during President Obama’s inauguration show how far they have come.

It is on record that John McCain opposed the institution of Martin Luther King’s Day and during one of the presidential debates referred to Obama as “That one” a clear sign of disrespect for even African-Americans who have made it to the top of American society.

One commentator commented after Obama was elected that, “America has managed to elect its first African-American president and we are waiting to see if Europe will be able to have their own Black President or Prime Minister”. A clear manifestation that the policies of keeping Blacks down and out of political and economic power is not only peculiar to America.

There is every indication that Europe is no where near what America has done, it will be at least another hundred years before Europe can have its first prime minister or president from a minority background. The comments that came from European politicians like Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy and Radek Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland when Obama was elected attest to this fact. Berlusconi in a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow said ”Obama is young, handsome and also tanned, so he has all the qualities to agree with you”.   The Polish FM also joked that President Obama’s grandparents were cannibals.  “Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary,” Mr. Sikorski was quoted on blog run by Mr. Ryszard Czamecki a Polish Member of European Parliament. A spokesman for the FM in denying the charge also said, “Mr Sikorski did not tell a racist joke,” said Piotr Paszkowski, the spokesman. “He was only giving an example of the unpalatable and racist ‘jokes’ that surround President Elect Obama.”  

If such derogatory comments could come from top politicians in Europe who are the elite, then what will you expect from the ordinary men and women? The result is what is being witnessed in stadia across Europe where monkey chants are made against Black players and bananas are thrown at them.

In Britain and France where they have a sizeable percentage of Blacks among their population, it is very disheartening to know that institutional racism has ensured that no Black person makes it to the top. In France for example there is only one Black cabinet minister and out of the total deputies (MPs) of 577 only one is Black and none are of Arab origin despite France’s five million-strong Arab Muslim population and the same is true for Italy where there is only one Black Member of Parliament.

Black newscasters for most of the major news networks for example only come on screen in the night when most viewers have gone to bed and even the BBC is not exception. A recent survey has revealed that job recruiting agencies in the United Kingdom have an unofficial policy not to recruit blacks and other minorities as receptionists for companies and businesses. It is common to see Blacks and other minorities being stopped and searched at ports of entry in Europe by immigration officers.

Whereas policies such as Affirmative Action which gives African-Americans the chance to progress economically and socially seem to be working in America, Europe appears to be far behind America in those respects. France has resisted any such policy despite the mounting evidence poverty and joblessness among the minorities.

To make the celebration of BHM worth participating in, the US and European governments must first and foremost also pay reparations to all those blacks who have endured decades of injustices, discriminations and economic marginalisation and whose ancestors also slaved for centuries for nothing. Not only that, every board either private or public must be made to have a certain percentage of minorities as board members as is currently happening in South Africa where apartheid kept the majority Black population from holding any key position in government and private institutions. Such affirmative action policy is what is needed if integration is to work in Europe.

African-Americans and their colleagues in Europe too must take their destiny into their own hands. The African-American male population must recognise that crime does not pay and that it is only education that can free them from crime and poverty. A report that majority of US inmates are functionally illiterate and cannot even fill job application forms does not make any good reading.

The repeating cycle of teen pregnancy, promiscuity, disappearing dads, school dropouts, alcoholism and dealing and taking drugs only make the situation worst. There is nothing good than getting and keeping a job as it helps to eliminate the dangers that push one towards crime. Government actions alone cannot solve the problems and neither will such events as Black History Month. Dads should show more interest in the upbringing of their kids. Parents should get the kids interested in education and the world and its possibilities. Parents should set good examples and be role models for their kids. Blacks must be responsible citizens of their communities; they have to work together with the city authorities, church groups and civil society organisations to stop the cycle of poverty and the degeneration of family values.

There are many Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Koreans and Philippinos who moved to America with nothing but have worked to make a successful life for themselves so there is no reason why with the correct attitude and support African-Americans cannot make it.

All said and done, the celebration of BHM will be meaningless unless there is a fundamental change in federal and state policies and laws towards Blacks and other minorities. BHM will remain cosmetics and superficial especially in Europe unless it is linked to the total elimination of poverty, racial discrimination, prejudice and economic marginalisation of Blacks and other minorities.