Monday 27 April 2015
Sunday 26 April 2015
The Refugee Crisis: How NATO Kills Africans in the Club Med
Global Research
Humanitarian imperialism as applied to what the Pentagon loves to
define as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) has led, according to
Amnesty International, “to the largest refugee disaster since the Second
World War.”
You all remember that NATO/AFRICOM coalition of the willing, “led” by King Sarko the First, then President of France, with US President Barack Obama “leading from behind” and a former Secretary of State, now presidential candidate with a campaign chest of $2.5 billion, coining a gloating “We came, we saw, he died”.
Well, this fabulous collection of humanitarian imperialists is still on the loose, now killing — by proxy — across the waters of the Mediterranean, aka Club Med, aka Mare Nostrum, after they destroyed a viable state — Libya, a secular Arab republic — under the pretext of preventing a “genocide”.
Asked about it today, as he recently pontificated in relation to the Armenian genocide, that pathetic excuse for UN Secretary-General, Ban-Ki Moon, would say the potential massacre in Libya might — and the operative word is “might” — not even qualify as an “atrocity crime.” The six-month humanitarian bombing of Libya engineered to prevent a highly hypothetical “atrocity crime” ended up “liberating” at least 10 times more people from their lives than the previous skirmishes between Col. Gaddafi’s troops and weaponized “rebels”, most of them hardcore Islamist militias, now free to wreak jihadi havoc from eastern Libya to northern Syria.
Humanitarian imperialism practitioners duly created a “liberated” wasteland — which they called “victory” — trespassed by weaponized militias; installed a pervasive chaos trespassing a great deal of the Maghreb and Western Africa; and unleashed a massive humanitarian crisis.
Stranded in MENA
Humanitarian imperialism as applied to what the Pentagon loves to define as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) — from Libya to Iraq, Syria and now Yemen, as well as sub-proxy wars in Mali, Somalia and Sudan — has led, according to Amnesty International, “to the largest refugee disaster since the Second World War.” Amnesty estimates that no less than 57 million people have been turned into refugees by 2014.
A crucial subplot is that according to the International Organization on Migration (IOM), the number of refugees dying as they tried to reach Fortress Europe rose by more than 500 percent between 2011 and 2014.
This means humanitarian imperialism, as applied by the Pentagon/NATO/AFRICOM, handed the waters of the Club Med to the real winners: a vast human trafficking racket that includes smugglers, corrupt police and even “terra-rists”.
Across Europe, only Italy — to its credit — is really outraged, and willing to accept at least a fraction, a few really, of the wretched African boat people. After all, the privileged exit point is “liberated” Libya and the privileged entry point is Italy’s Sicily. France, Germany, the UK and Sweden follow Italy with much more modest attempts.
This aphasiac EU/NATO wall of silence is due to the fact that Europe now is mostly about anti-immigration political parties running amok. After all would-be immigrants are perfect scapegoats. As fearful “nationalists” define them, they flatten wages; they live off welfare; they are mostly criminals; they reproduce like rabbits; they destroy the “national identity; and of course there are so many “terra-rists” among them who want to submit Europe to the chador and Sharia law.
This fearful, austerity-ravaged EU subjugated by NATO’s military diktats cannot possibly muster the will to build a common, decent policy to confront the tragedy of a Club Med putrified by a tsunami of African bodies. A great deal of the EU in fact suspended Operation Mare Nostrum — opting to control/police the borders of Fortress Europe instead of acting on humanitarian principles.
Call the drone cavalry
A modest proposal would involve bombing smuggling boats in their hideaways before they are filled up with their tragic human cargo; under UN protection, establish in the “liberated” Libyan coastline humanitarian stations able to process those eligible for political asylum in the EU; facilitate their air or naval travel to the nations ready to receive them; or — using American methodology — drone the “enemy” to smithereens, as in the smugglers and their financiers. After all US drones are expert in the matter, operating under Obama’s infamous “kill list” and totally oblivious to international law.
That, though, will never happen. As Nick Turse demonstrates in a new, path-breaking book, Libya was merely AFRICOM’s first war (then transferred to NATO, as I examined here); the Pentagon has much nastier plans in its evolving pivoting to Africa.
Meanwhile, those fabulously wealthy oil and gas rackets in the Persian Gulf — the same ones buying every ostentatious sign of luxury between Paris and London — are busy “creating” the bulk of the largest refugee crisis since World War II: in Syria, a privileged theatre of their proxy war against Iran.And the House of Saud oil hacienda — with the Empire of Chaos “leading from behind” but providing the bombs, the fighter jets, the intel, and the escalation, via nine US warships dispatched to Yemeni waters — is also busy prosecuting its bombastic “Decisive Storm” over the poorest Arab nation, setting the scene for yet another chapter of the rolling refugee crisis.
NATO remains busy training Kiev’s goons; demonizing Russia generates much more PR than dealing with Africans.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have already announced their new spring offensive starts this Friday; NATO, whose collective behind was royally spanked by a few thousand Taliban with fake Kalashnikovs, won’t be even “leading from behind”.
And at the bottom of the Mare Nostrum lies, in full putrefied regalia, the EU/NATO’s civilized corpse.
Pepe Escobar‘s latest book is Empire of Chaos. Follow him on Facebook. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-refugee-crisis-how-nato-kills-africans-in-the-club-med/5444945
You all remember that NATO/AFRICOM coalition of the willing, “led” by King Sarko the First, then President of France, with US President Barack Obama “leading from behind” and a former Secretary of State, now presidential candidate with a campaign chest of $2.5 billion, coining a gloating “We came, we saw, he died”.
Well, this fabulous collection of humanitarian imperialists is still on the loose, now killing — by proxy — across the waters of the Mediterranean, aka Club Med, aka Mare Nostrum, after they destroyed a viable state — Libya, a secular Arab republic — under the pretext of preventing a “genocide”.
Asked about it today, as he recently pontificated in relation to the Armenian genocide, that pathetic excuse for UN Secretary-General, Ban-Ki Moon, would say the potential massacre in Libya might — and the operative word is “might” — not even qualify as an “atrocity crime.” The six-month humanitarian bombing of Libya engineered to prevent a highly hypothetical “atrocity crime” ended up “liberating” at least 10 times more people from their lives than the previous skirmishes between Col. Gaddafi’s troops and weaponized “rebels”, most of them hardcore Islamist militias, now free to wreak jihadi havoc from eastern Libya to northern Syria.
Humanitarian imperialism practitioners duly created a “liberated” wasteland — which they called “victory” — trespassed by weaponized militias; installed a pervasive chaos trespassing a great deal of the Maghreb and Western Africa; and unleashed a massive humanitarian crisis.
Stranded in MENA
Humanitarian imperialism as applied to what the Pentagon loves to define as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) — from Libya to Iraq, Syria and now Yemen, as well as sub-proxy wars in Mali, Somalia and Sudan — has led, according to Amnesty International, “to the largest refugee disaster since the Second World War.” Amnesty estimates that no less than 57 million people have been turned into refugees by 2014.
A crucial subplot is that according to the International Organization on Migration (IOM), the number of refugees dying as they tried to reach Fortress Europe rose by more than 500 percent between 2011 and 2014.
This means humanitarian imperialism, as applied by the Pentagon/NATO/AFRICOM, handed the waters of the Club Med to the real winners: a vast human trafficking racket that includes smugglers, corrupt police and even “terra-rists”.
Across Europe, only Italy — to its credit — is really outraged, and willing to accept at least a fraction, a few really, of the wretched African boat people. After all, the privileged exit point is “liberated” Libya and the privileged entry point is Italy’s Sicily. France, Germany, the UK and Sweden follow Italy with much more modest attempts.
This aphasiac EU/NATO wall of silence is due to the fact that Europe now is mostly about anti-immigration political parties running amok. After all would-be immigrants are perfect scapegoats. As fearful “nationalists” define them, they flatten wages; they live off welfare; they are mostly criminals; they reproduce like rabbits; they destroy the “national identity; and of course there are so many “terra-rists” among them who want to submit Europe to the chador and Sharia law.
This fearful, austerity-ravaged EU subjugated by NATO’s military diktats cannot possibly muster the will to build a common, decent policy to confront the tragedy of a Club Med putrified by a tsunami of African bodies. A great deal of the EU in fact suspended Operation Mare Nostrum — opting to control/police the borders of Fortress Europe instead of acting on humanitarian principles.
Call the drone cavalry
A modest proposal would involve bombing smuggling boats in their hideaways before they are filled up with their tragic human cargo; under UN protection, establish in the “liberated” Libyan coastline humanitarian stations able to process those eligible for political asylum in the EU; facilitate their air or naval travel to the nations ready to receive them; or — using American methodology — drone the “enemy” to smithereens, as in the smugglers and their financiers. After all US drones are expert in the matter, operating under Obama’s infamous “kill list” and totally oblivious to international law.
That, though, will never happen. As Nick Turse demonstrates in a new, path-breaking book, Libya was merely AFRICOM’s first war (then transferred to NATO, as I examined here); the Pentagon has much nastier plans in its evolving pivoting to Africa.
Meanwhile, those fabulously wealthy oil and gas rackets in the Persian Gulf — the same ones buying every ostentatious sign of luxury between Paris and London — are busy “creating” the bulk of the largest refugee crisis since World War II: in Syria, a privileged theatre of their proxy war against Iran.And the House of Saud oil hacienda — with the Empire of Chaos “leading from behind” but providing the bombs, the fighter jets, the intel, and the escalation, via nine US warships dispatched to Yemeni waters — is also busy prosecuting its bombastic “Decisive Storm” over the poorest Arab nation, setting the scene for yet another chapter of the rolling refugee crisis.
NATO remains busy training Kiev’s goons; demonizing Russia generates much more PR than dealing with Africans.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have already announced their new spring offensive starts this Friday; NATO, whose collective behind was royally spanked by a few thousand Taliban with fake Kalashnikovs, won’t be even “leading from behind”.
And at the bottom of the Mare Nostrum lies, in full putrefied regalia, the EU/NATO’s civilized corpse.
Pepe Escobar‘s latest book is Empire of Chaos. Follow him on Facebook. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-refugee-crisis-how-nato-kills-africans-in-the-club-med/5444945
Al-Shabaab-linked sugar smugglers still in business after attack
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Investigations by the Saturday Nation reveal that none of the sugar barons were named in the list of 86 companies and individuals whose accounts were frozen on allegations of supporting terrorism.
Reports by the United Nations and a US government agency say there are about 70 businessmen — located in the Somali port city of Kismayu and in Garissa and Nairobi in Kenya — who are brokers in the sugar and charcoal trade.
Garissa was the scene of the latest attack, on April 2, by Al-Shabaab in which 142 university students and six security officers were killed.
Reports say the businesses earn the militant group millions of dollars which they use in their terror campaign. According to a report prepared jointly by the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) and Interpol, Al-Shabaab’s primary source of income appears to be from informal taxation at roadblocks.
“In one roadblock case, they have been able to make up to $8 million (Sh696 million) to $18 million (Sh1.5 billion) per year from charcoal traffic in Somalia’s Badhadhe District,” says the Unep/Interpol report, adding that trading in charcoal and taxing the ports have generated an estimated annual total of $38 million to $56 million for Al-Shabaab.
Earnings from the trade are vital in sustaining the terrorists’ capacity to carry out attacks in Somalia and Kenya.
Kismayu has been controlled by Kenya Defence Forces(KDF) since they captured it from Al-Shabaab in September 2012, cutting off the group’s finances but the militants have since moved into the hinterland where they rake in money at roadblocks.
SENIOR POLITICIAN
Although the reports do not name individuals, the Saturday Nation has established that one of the biggest sugar smugglers based in Garissa is related to a senior politician.
He has been operating a lucrative smuggling ring between the port of Kismayu and Garissa, that brings in millions of dollars a year.
The sugar trade has boomed since KDF went into Somalia in late 2011 and has overtaken charcoal as southern Somalia’s leading cross-border trade commodity.
The smuggler has a fleet of trucks that operate between Garissa and Kismayu. On their way to Kismayu they carry Kenyan food and consumer goods and on their way back, they are loaded with hundreds of bags of contraband sugar imported from Brazil.
“There are five checkpoints between Kismayu and Garissa – three by Al-Shabaab and two by the KDF. The sugar trucks are waved through all the checkpoints without any checks. There is a tacit agreement between the owner and these entities and we are sure hefty sums of money change hand in the form of illegal ‘taxes’,” said the source.
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) office at the Liboi border crossing is also implicated in the scam, through “creative invoicing” or by simply not declaring.
The trucks are also known to use the Kolbio border post where they are driven to Lamu and Mombasa and resold to middle-men as “customed” sugar. They are repackaged and made to look like local sugar.
With Mumias Sugar, Kenya’s biggest producer of the commodity in financial doldrums, sugar importation has become even more lucrative.
The news could undermine confidence in the list of terror associates.
Intriguingly, while the list included two human rights groups — Muhuri and Haki Africa — and money transfer firms, none of the sugar barons was listed.
It also contains names of clerics who the government has been collaborating with to tackle jihadism and youth radicalisation in Kenya’s Somali-speaking communities.
Sheikh Ummal, a prominent Eastleigh-based cleric, whose name was in the list, has protested his innocence. Sheikh Ummal has consistently criticised Al-Shabaab’s campaign of terror and its intransigence and refusal to seek a political settlement.
He is immensely influential and his anti-Shabaab messages are often relayed on Somali satellite TV channels, earning him death threats from Al-Shabaab.
“This is the kind of guy the government should keep on its side in its ideological fight against jihadism and Al-Shabaab,” a Somali security source told the Saturday Nation.
LACK OF INFORMATION
Those who have been named in the list and have appeared before the counter-terrorism police unit have been shocked at the state agents’ lack of information on the subject.
Father Gabriel Dolan of Muhuri who appeared before the unit together with his fellow board members, said: ‘’We expected a ‘grilling’ and to be furnished with substantive allegations and evidence linking Muhuri with the Al-Shabaab murderers. However, nothing of the sort emerged.
Instead, we faced a team of tired, bored NIS officials who did not want to be identified nor unduly bothered and whose task was merely to give out a fourteen-page document to be filled, returned and ‘you will be hearing from us in two weeks.
“The whole thing may have been sloppy, unprofessional and lacking any shape or direction but the IG Boinett and his NCTC team had already condemned the two organisations by freezing their accounts and now in utter contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law, the burden of proof fell on them to prove their innocence,” Fr Dolan wrote in his weekly column in the Saturday Nation.
The KRA has also raided the two rights groups’ offices, carting away documents and computers for tax audits.
Meanwhile, for the big boys in the sugar and charcoal trade, it is business as usual.
Elements of the KDF have been accused of colluding with Al-Shabaab in the illegal multi-billion-shilling charcoal trade.
In 2014, a report by a US government-funded organisation, which echoed earlier findings by the United Nations, alleged that the KDF mission to Somalia appears to include the charcoal trade.
“Kenya, although formally a participant in Amisom, which operates in support of the Somali national government, is also complicit in support of trade that provides income to Al-Shabaab, its military opponent both inside Somalia and, increasingly, at home in Kenya,” the Institute of Defence Analyses (IDA) said in its report by Mr George Ward, formerly Washington’s ambassador to Namibia.
Kenya’s military chiefs have previously denied allegations of involvement in any illicit activity in Somalia and have maintained that since October 2011, they have only engaged in military action aimed at stabilising the war-torn country. But the accusations have refused to go away.
While businesses of the sugar and charcoal barons boom, most of Garissa town is facing an economic crisis following the attack on the university college.
Traders in the county who spoke to the Saturday Nation said they had been incurring heavy losses since the attack and the dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed by Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet.
Police have also been accused of using the curfew to extort money from residents.
Saturday 25 April 2015
Friday 24 April 2015
Malaysian cartoonist charged with 9 counts of sedition
AL Arabiya
Malaysian cartoonist Zunar holds a copy of his comic book that has
been banned by the Malaysian Home Ministry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
(File Photo: AP)
AP, Kuala Lumpur
Friday, 3 April 2015
A Malaysian cartoonist known for lampooning the ruling coalition
was charged Friday with nine counts of sedition over a series of tweets
criticizing the country's judiciary.Friday, 3 April 2015
The charges against Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque, better known as Zunar, came amid a widening government crackdown on opposition politicians and the media slammed by critics as a move to stifle freedom of expression.
"This is a record, being charged nine times and using the sedition law. It is excessive and targeted at silencing vocal critics," said Zunar's lawyer, Latheefa Koya.
Zunar faces up to 43 years in jail if found guilty on all nine charges under the colonial-era law, she said. He was released on bail after being charged.
The nine tweets criticizing the judiciary were posted Feb. 10 when opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim began serving a 5-year prison sentence after losing his final appeal of a sodomy conviction.
"The lackeys in black robes are proud of their sentence. The rewards from the political masters must be plenty," said one of the tweets. "Today Malaysia is seen as a country without law," said another.
Anwar's arrest was widely seen at home and abroad as being politically motivated to eliminate a threat to the ruling coalition, whose popularity has slowly been eroding since 2008 after more than five decades of unquestioned dominance. Anwar and his three-party opposition alliance were seen as the most potent political challenge to Prime Minister Najib Razak's National Front coalition.
Anwar led his alliance to unprecedented gains in 2008 elections and made further inroads in polls in 2013, when the National Front won with a slimmer majority and lost the popular vote to the opposition.
A defiant Zunar posted a new cartoon on Twitter before his release on bail, vowing to "draw until the last drop of ink." The cartoon showed Zunar being cuffed and with a metal chain on his neck, but still drawing with a brush in his mouth.
Sedition as defined by Malaysian law includes promoting hatred against the government.
Scores of people including opposition politicians, activists, academicians and journalists are being investigated or have been charged under the Sedition Act since last year, mostly for criticizing the government or ruling officials.
Zunar was detained again after being released on bail on Friday for questioning about a picture on Facebook showing Prime Minister Najib Razak in prison attire. Latheefa said the picture was posted on Zunar's fan club page and he had no knowledge of it. The cartoonist was released after a few hours.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the move against Zunar showed the government has "a new-found tendency to equate repression with effective governance."
"Day by day, Malaysians are losing more and more of their rights and democracy at the hands of an increasingly oppressive government," it said in a statement.
Najib has said the government would eventually abolish the Sedition Act, which was introduced in 1949 during British colonial rule. But he backtracked after the 2013 elections.
Last Update: Friday, 3 April 2015 KSA 13:35 - GMT 10:35
Turkey journalists face 4.5 years jail over Charlie Hebdo cartoon
AL Arabiya
Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor has charged Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya with “inciting public hatred” and “insulting religious values” by illustrating their columns with the cartoon, the Hurriyet daily reported.
The cartoon was a smaller version of the controversial front cover depicting the Prophet Mohammed that French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo printed in its first edition after the attack on its offices by Islamist gunmen in January that killed 12 people.
The cartoon angered Muslims all over the world and most media in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey refrained from publishing it.
Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on January 14 had published a four-page Charlie Hebdo pull-out translated into Turkish marking the French satirical weekly’s first issue since the attack.
The edition did not include the controversial front cover of the Prophet Mohammed but a smaller version of the cartoon was included twice inside the newspaper to illustrate columns on the subject by Karan and Cetinkaya.
Prosecutors had announced the day after the publication of the issue that they had opened an investigation into the two columnists.
The case, based on a 38-page indictment and complaints by 1,280 individuals, has now been submitted to the criminal court ahead of trial, Hurriyet said.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had condemned the publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet as an “open provocation”, warning that Turkey would not tolerate insults against Mohammed.
There has been growing concern about the numbers of journalists currently facing legal proceedings in Turkey, many on accusations of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Cumhuriyet daily, which sees itself as the voice of secular Turkey, is a vehement opponent of the Islamic-rooted authorities under Erdogan.
Hikmet Cetinkaya, a columnist of Cumhuriyet which had published a
four-page Charlie Hebdo pull-out translated into Turkish marking the
French satirical weekly’s first issue since the attack. (File Photo: AP)
AFP, Istanbul
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday called for two prominent
journalists who featured Charlie Hebdo’s cover with the image of the
Prophet Mohammed in their columns to be jailed for four and a half
years.Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor has charged Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya with “inciting public hatred” and “insulting religious values” by illustrating their columns with the cartoon, the Hurriyet daily reported.
The cartoon was a smaller version of the controversial front cover depicting the Prophet Mohammed that French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo printed in its first edition after the attack on its offices by Islamist gunmen in January that killed 12 people.
The cartoon angered Muslims all over the world and most media in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey refrained from publishing it.
Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on January 14 had published a four-page Charlie Hebdo pull-out translated into Turkish marking the French satirical weekly’s first issue since the attack.
The edition did not include the controversial front cover of the Prophet Mohammed but a smaller version of the cartoon was included twice inside the newspaper to illustrate columns on the subject by Karan and Cetinkaya.
Prosecutors had announced the day after the publication of the issue that they had opened an investigation into the two columnists.
The case, based on a 38-page indictment and complaints by 1,280 individuals, has now been submitted to the criminal court ahead of trial, Hurriyet said.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had condemned the publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet as an “open provocation”, warning that Turkey would not tolerate insults against Mohammed.
There has been growing concern about the numbers of journalists currently facing legal proceedings in Turkey, many on accusations of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Cumhuriyet daily, which sees itself as the voice of secular Turkey, is a vehement opponent of the Islamic-rooted authorities under Erdogan.
Last Update: Wednesday, 8 April 2015 KSA 21:19 - GMT 18:19
Wednesday 22 April 2015
Sunday 19 April 2015
The brutal death of Emmanuel Sithole
Mozambique national Emmanuel Sithole collapses on the pavement
after he was attacked by men in Alexandra township in Johannesburg on
April 18, 2015. He later died from his wounds.
Image by: JAMES OATWAY Sunday Times.
Image by: JAMES OATWAY Sunday Times.
Shortly before 7am yesterday, Sunday Times journalists were in Alexandra township, near Sandton, speaking to shop owners who had their businesses looted overnight. Children played, people walked the streets, some stopped to gawk at the carnage from the night before. Then this happened ...
In a gutter in Alexandra a Mozambican man stopped and lay down. The gash to his chest meant he could go no further.At the day clinic less than 100m away they could not help him. The doctor scheduled to be on duty did not show up because he was a foreigner and feared being a victim of xenophobia.
It began on Friday night when mobs blockaded Arkwright Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in Alexandra, with rubble and burning tyres. Foreign-owned shops' roofs were ripped open and metal gates torn away as looters went on the rampage.
Outside one spaza shop, a man in a black corduroy jacket and red shirt was walking along the road.
Suddenly a young man dressed in a grey tracksuit jacket beat him over the head with a wrench. The red-shirt man tried to fend off the blows, his arms raised. He stumbled back, falling into rubbish strewn by the roadside. The blows with the wrench rained down. Then the bludgeoning stopped and the man with the wrench moved away.
"Are we safe here?" asked a South African woman watching the attack.
The man in the red shirt got up. Now another man with a beige spottie approached, holding an okapi knife high above his head. Again, the man in the red shirt raised his hands, pleading for mercy. But his pleas were in vain. He was stabbed ... again and again.
The red-shirt man tried to get up but fell. Finally he made it to his feet. Feebly, he walked up the road.
Do you know why they attacked you? Who are you? Where are you from, we asked him.
He turned his head towards the questions fired at him, his face pleading. He said nothing. His shirt was drenched, a 2cm gash in his chest.
Metres further he stumbled and lay down in the gutter. He struggled to sit up and fell down.
Up the road, at Alexandra Day Clinic, nurses did what they could. There was no doctor; he would have to be taken to Edenvale Hospital.
Along the way the man was flailing wildly, sitting up, lying down, wincing with pain. The wound to his chest was gushing now.
At Edenvale Hospital a lone gurney stood at the entrance. The porters sat in a room with tinted windows. Oatway pleaded for help. The man in the car was critical, he said.
nbsp;
Slowly one porter rose and scribbled in a book. Then the other, both now ambling towards the hospital entrance. Inside the car the red-shirt man looked lifeless.
"He's dead. We can't take him," one porter pronounced.
There was no pulse. Then a gag reflex. He's alive.
Inside the ICU, doctors compressed his chest, massaging his heart. After nearly seven minutes a ventilator was used. Shortly after 9am Emmanuel Sithole was pronounced dead. He was Mozambican. The stab wound to his chest had penetrated his heart.
In his pockets, R285 and 10c in change and a cellphone. His phone would ensure he did not die nameless.
On his wrist, three armbands read: "United for Bafana."
Related News
Saturday 18 April 2015
Thursday 16 April 2015
Egypt belly dance TV owner arrested
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Egyptian police said they arrested on Thursday the owner of a television station that broadcasts belly dancing, on suspicion of “facilitating prostitution.”
Baleegh Hamdi, owner of the al-Tett channel, is also accused of “harming public decency,” police said, adding that he was arrested in his apartment.
The prostitution charge appears to stem from messages broadcast on the channel, a police official said without elaborating.
Egyptian law bans prostitution and vaguely defined offences against public decency.
Baleegh Hamdi, owner of the al-Tett channel, is also accused of “harming public decency,” police said, adding that he was arrested in his apartment.
The prostitution charge appears to stem from messages broadcast on the channel, a police official said without elaborating.
Egyptian law bans prostitution and vaguely defined offences against public decency.
10 Al-Shabaab Terrorists Arrested in Tanzanian Mosque
Published On: Wed, Apr 15th, 2015
10 Al-Shabaab terrorists have been arrested in Tanzania, the first major anti-terrorism operation in the East African nation.Intelligence reports confirm that Tanzania arrestED 10 suspected members of Al Shabaab early Wednesday and seized explosives and military uniforms hidden at a mosque in Dar es Salaam.
Terror warning and alerts on increasing extremism in Tanzania have been published on Open-Source Intelligence Resource Strategic Intelligence.
Tanzania joins Kenya in the list of countries facing extremism and homegrown terrorism.
Little Mogadishu, Under Siege
By Amanda Sperber
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Eastleigh is a predominantly Somali neighborhood — hence its nickname, “Little Mogadishu.” A suburb of Nairobi, the town is an economic powerhouse doing some $100 million of business each month. It is one of East Africa’s most vibrant commercial centers, built by Somalis who have been migrating to Kenya since the early 1990s when their country collapsed under the weight of war. Somalis have invested heavily in the enclave, and bulk imports of electronics and textiles from Asia and the Middle East are sold here. “Somalis have brought money and development,” said Hussain, the 65-year-old chairperson of the Eastleigh Residents Community. “There are more buildings, more business, more ideas.”
On April 2, four al-Shabab gunmen carried out a brutal attack on Garissa University, killing nearly 150 people during a bloody, 15-hour siege. In a show of solidarity, Little Mogadishu made contributions and donations to the grieving families, making donations to the Kenyan Red Cross as it tried to manage the fallout from the assault. Three days after the attack, there was a peaceful protest against the Garissa attacks in Eastleigh. The day after that, the community leaders of Eastleigh held a food drive, followed by a blood drive the next day. Six days after the massacre, Eastleigh held an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
Yet an unmistakable sense of unease permeates the community. In a speech two days after the attack, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to take the fight to al-Shabab. But he added that “the planners and financiers” of the attack were “deeply embedded” in Kenyan communities. Radicalization, he cautioned, “occurs in the full glare of day, in madrasas, in homes, and in mosques with rogue imams” — referring, it seemed, directly to communities like Eastleigh.
Increasingly, Eastleigh’s Somali community is caught between an al-Shabab that is now targeting Muslims and Christians alike, and an emboldened Kenyan security apparatus willing to go to extreme measures in an attempt to root out radical elements in Somali communities like this.
The tension can be traced back to 2011, when Kenya began contributing soldiers to the African Union’s military initiative to take on the al Qaeda-affiliated, Somalia-based al-Shabab. In response, the group declared war on Kenya. Since late 2011, there’s been a surge in violent attacks on Kenya — for all of which al-Shabab has gleefully claimed responsibility. Al-Shabab facilitated the 2013 Westgate attack that killed at least 67, and the 2014 Nairobi bus bombings that resulted in three deaths and 62 injuries. Later that year, the group also carried out a bombing in Nairobi’s Gikomba market that left 12 dead and 70 injured, and another bus attack in Mandera that killed 28. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
And regardless of its Somali population, Little Mogadishu has not been spared. In 2012, one person was injured in a grenade attack at Eastleigh’s biggest mall. In June 2013 another grenade attack injured three at a hotel. In April 2014, two bombs exploded at a gas station and a restaurant in the neighborhood, killing six. Later that month a car bomb exploded outside the police station in the area, killing four. Al-Shabab is suspected of carrying out all of these attacks.
Eastleigh has not been content to sit idle – and is not afraid to direct its gaze inward. Community leaders say it’s a lack of options that turn young people to al-Shabab — a common explanation for what drives them to militant groups around the world. “If they start with that, then they can attract the terrorists and they can be paid to bomb somewhere,” said Rahma Mohammed, a Somali-Kenyan born in Eastleigh, and a research officer at the Eastleighwood Youth Forum, a well-known nonprofit that helps young people in the neighborhood find constructive outlets for their energy and abilities. And so, at the end of every month, the youth forum hosts a “peace forum” to encourage unemployed, desperate, and bored youth to stay away from the petty crime that can get land them in the wrong circle of people and lead them to work for al-Shabab in order to make money.
At the peace forums there are refreshments including chips, fruit juice and soda, music, and discussions about “terrorist activities” and “radicalization.” According to Rahma, an average of 400 young people attend each gathering. The organization offers everything from computer and language trainings, even talent showcases for the youth. Rahma said the group’s leaders have been threatened by al-Shabab because of their counterterrorism work.
But no matter what good faith gestures the people of Eastleigh show, local authorities seem unmoved. It has been standard protocol for the Kenyan police to storm Eastleigh after attacks like the one at Garissa. As the people in Eastleigh describe, police forces “swoop,” arriving in droves, riding massive army trucks to “round up” and “crack down” on the community’s residents in the name of security. The police will rush apartments, brandishing AK-47s, banging on doors, demanding to see national identification cards. Along the way, they trash homes, steal citizens’ property, and take bribes.
Following a string of small-scale attacks in early 2014, the Kenyan police rounded up and arrested thousands of Somalis last April. Hundreds were reportedly held in putrid conditions in local police stations, and more than a thousand were held in Kasarani sports stadium; journalists and humanitarian organizations were banned from entering, eventually sparking an international outcry.
Revelations of the Kasarani “concentration camp,” as local Somali Kenyans referred to it, seemed to magnify the day-to-day dread the Kenyan police provoke among Somalis. As those I spoke with in the community attested, every day, authorities sweep through Eastleigh, allegedly on the lookout for illegal immigrants who could be terrorists. These extensive and haphazard operations, they say, often end with bribes and beatings.
In the heat of the crackdown in April of last year, Human Rights Watch issued a call to the Kenyan government to “stop the arbitrary arrests and detentions, extortion, and other abuses against Somalis.” According the organization, almost 4,000 people were reportedly detained and arrested in Nairobi and Mombasa in less than two weeks. (Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya, and has a sizable Somali and Muslim population.)
Those I spoke with in Eastleigh who’ve been on the receiving end of a police crackdown say that the harsh treatment is still ongoing, and renewed in the wake of the Garissa attacks.
“If you don’t give them money, they will beat you,” said Habib, a 26-year-old student who says he has been stopped by the police more times than he can count. He still has bruises and scars on his arm from an encounter with them three weeks ago.
“What crime have I committed by not having my ID?” Odhiambo asked, recalling his own arrest on Christmas Day. The Kenyan community organizer lives in Eastleigh, and had gone out to buy airtime minutes for his phone when the police pulled him over and shook him down. He didn’t have his phone with him, “so I had to make some shouts,” he said, yelling in the street to attract attention to the situation. Eventually someone went to his house and brought the ID to the police. After the Garissa massacre, he doesn’t leave his house without his proof of citizenship.
It’s these kinds of incidents that lead Somalis in Kenya to feel divorced from the very force that is supposed to protect them from violent radicals like al Shabab. “Instead of building a good relationship with the police, they [the police] are hardening the community,” Odhiambo said.
And this growing distance may very well be hindering local efforts to improve security. The Eastleighwood Youth Forum regularly surveys hundreds of its young adult constituents about terrorist recruitment and activity. But the survey conductors say that the constant clash between citizens and the police hinders their ability to gather information.
“Everyone fears the police. They try to look for a simple mistake, especially in Eastleigh,” Odhiambo said. He went on to explain that no one would want to do anything to attract the police’s attention. Those who “come forward,” he added, have been interrogated roughly. “The police’s lack of discretion, in turn, leads to fears that al-Shabab may find out about the leak and target the person giving information, or that person’s family.” (Attempts to reach the police to discuss the efficacy of its policing tactics in Eastleigh were unsuccessful.)
On Monday, April 6, the Kenyan planes bombed a pair of al-Shabab training camps in Somalia. Later, an eyewitness told BBC Somali that the attack, which wounded three innocent civilians and destroyed livestock and wells, had failed to hit any al-Shabab assets. Five days later, on April 11, the Kenyan government called on the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to close the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya’s northeast on the grounds that it is where al-Shabab plans its attacks, and to the repatriate the more than 500,000 Somalis that had fled there, some of whom have been living in the camp for more than 20 years. The U.N. has rejected Kenya’s request, and points out that closing Dadaab would be a breach of international law.
Even before the bombings began, the Somali community in Kenya had been bracing for blowback. It arrived with the news about Dadaab camp. Closing the biggest refugee camp on the planet is no small task, and it’s illegal to force refugees to move, so nothing may come from the government’s call. No matter the outcome, the message to the Somali community in Kenya from the government is clear: We don’t want you here.
At the April 7 blood drive, more than 100 people came out to give blood, according to a staff member with the Kenya Red Cross. Under a white tent, connected to IVs, donors reclined on black chairs with their feet up to simulate blood flow. They chatted, winced, and laughed. Many were quick to point out that al-Shabab chooses its victims indiscriminately, killing Somalis and Muslims alongside Kenyans and Christians.
Many in Eastleigh agree with Kenyatta’s suggestion to look inward. “What has happened, and what the president has said is true,” said Ahmed Mohammed, the Secretary General of the Eastleigh Business Community, a coalition that represents over 20,000 businesses. Dressed in a crisp gray suit, he was one of the main coordinators of Tuesday’s blood drive. “Someone, somewhere must know something about these people,” he added.
Others strike a more conciliatory note. Fatuma Bashir, a 19-year-old student, talked and winced while giving blood. “At the end of the day we have to forgive them. Peace is important in the world.”
Photo Credit: Tony Karumba / Stringer
Thursday 2 April 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)