Some say the solution to the multiple problems Africa and Africans today is not to dwell on the colonial past. Others argue that the plight of Africans, including their poverty, just themselves, their laziness, their spirit sensual, etc.. or their leaders-that they also deserve (!) - and in any case of abuse and ancient land. We propose a reading of these self-righteous and blind the following excerpt of a text written by a European officer in Paris, of foreign origin, it also attracted by the humanistic statements before being disgusted then appalled by the practices of the French republic. Calm Factual, stripper, the connection has never been contradicted by anyone in originaux.
When I took over the investigation of the Elf affair, I had facing me the powerful oil French, I did not like their arrogance, the way they had to serve in the boxes, but when they invoked the best interests of the country was ready to believe them. I left several years on secondment to the Ministry of Finance, surrounded by officials of integrity, of an absolute power.
I trust in the institutions of my country of adoption. I never imagined that the purpose of leaders of national oil companies was something that the common good. I was tracking the drift and not the system itself. Yet during my investigation, I discovered an underground world. Magistrate, limited by the scope of my referral and national responsibility, I had to stop on the threshold of some doors, which led to foreign countries. I discovered that the roads would have been exciting to go back, m'ahurissaient connections. With numbers, accounts, we had our eyes on deciphering an extensive network of institutionalized corruption, whose son was connected directly to the Elysee.
It was not my role to draw political conclusions, but I kept the footprint. We then designed a comprehensive plan, I always with me. It is eight feet when unfolded. It winds from the office of a Director of Elf Petroleum, up accounts obscure powered by Gabon, Omar Bongo of the hands: four decades of power and a recurring difficulty in distinguishing his piggy bank and its family of First, the state budget and the government on the other. I carry this pattern often with me, over the appointment. I spread out on tables, much like a captain in battle leaves its old maps. The positions may have changed, camouflage techniques were sophisticated, but the system is there: the tyrants are friends, that France has placed in power and it protects the wealth and influence by vast networks of corruption in exchange they watch over the interests and resources of French companies came digging. All this beautiful world has an interest in anything, ever, neither the institutions nor stimulates the economy of the country.
And if I pause a moment in Gabon, what do I see? A rich country that exports more than thirteen billion dollars of crude oil per year, with GDP per capita well above the African average ($ 6,397)? Or a poor country where life expectancy is estimated at 55 years for women and 53 men, leaving them less than a year the Malagasy-born in a land without oil? The infant mortality rate is particularly high in Gabon, the vaccination rate against measles is 40% against an average of 79% in developing countries. That is where is Gabon, a preserve of France, provider of the treasures of oil and uranium, the stronghold of Total-Elf first French market capitalization.
While residents of Libreville have not benefited from the wealth of their country is because France has monopolized its mineral resources, with the complicity of a president, his military service as enlisted by the French army and its intelligence services, placed at the head of the country 32 years in Paris. He was the youngest head of state of the world. France controls its army, its elections and protect his fortune. In return, Omar Bongo is open table several times a year, Avenue Foch or to the Hotel Crillon, where he receives politicians, publicists and journalists who have French. Everyone hurries to these hearings.
In the 1990s, a French politician in the foreground, while in office, enjoyed a parallel contract "consultant" signed by Omar Bongo and largely unpaid. Roland Dumas, President of Gabon said it was "close friend". In anticipation, he also appreciates Nicolas Sarkozy, came to "take advice" as a candidate in the presidential election. When
during the investigation, we searched the headquarters of FIBA, the Franco-Gabonese bank, we consulted the list of customers who seemed to light pen sergeant major. It was a sort of Who's Who in France in Africa, which spoke volumes about the reverse of the Republic and the media. To those who still believe in the selfless assistance of France in Africa, just check the figures of UNDP (United Nations Program for Development). The correlation between the regular amount of French aid and the wealth of raw materials. Clearly, he who has nothing in his basement should not expect much from Paris ...
It is not surprising to find the Gabon as one of the top recipients of French aid to development. The result is distressing in terms of health system and education. Money was lost en route. It is precisely for that fact. It is not a deviation but a consistent and reasoned.
In each hearing during our investigation, we hear of physical, espionage permanent and thugs. Searches in Elf Tower Defense delivered a wealth of documents revealing the gender confusion, we passed off the floor of Nanterre who was careful to open investigations. For yesterday Elf, Total today is a state within a state, designed by Pierre Guillaumat a former defense minister, chief of intelligence and head of the French nuclear program to to serve the geopolitical interests of Paris.
Norway has used its oil to build and ensure payment of future pensions.
France uses Elf-Total assert his power. The company operates in the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria, Congo - Brazzaville, Angola ... All these countries have experienced civil war and dictatorship behind which the French hand was felt.
chaos, when it occurs, does not disturb the system. Just consider Angola, at war for decades, but no drop of oil, never has missed its destination.
During the war the business ... The French banks, BNP-Paribas in mind, even the opportunity to develop financing packages for countries at war, with staggering rates, knowing they not take any chances.
Money, too, was not lost on everyone. It is a mirror in which we must not look too often the French elite. Since I opened the Elf case, in my office in the financial gallery, physically and intellectually I have traveled far from the Seine and its quays gray and blue ... I learned while walking. On arrival the picture is frightening.
Africa has remade me a Norwegian woman, proud of it. My country is rich, but he remembers being poor, a nation of immigrants looking to the new American world. His spirit of conquest, his demeanor Vikings are traces of a distant past, then came the Danish and Swedish guardianship, which he had to release. He sent to Africa for Protestant missionaries, austere face etched, carved by the word Christian and humanitarian work, rather than the new settlers, as they still believe in the neighborhoods of white expatriates. During
that France based Elf, Norway put up the exploitation of resources in the North Sea, accumulating a reserve fund, immediately placed for future generations and carefully controlled. This small country aside has become the leading donor nation in dollars per capita. Of course, the Norwegian oil are not choirboys. Recent surveys have shown that some of them were paid commissions and the temptation to abuse their power is permanent. But Norway was not ashamed of what it has done its oil. What I saw, international reports attest, is a work hope.
The French Republic, at the same time, put in place in Africa a system far from its values and the image she likes to refer to the world. How strong institutions and democratic, enlightened and brilliant minds, they could build networks systematically violating the law, justice and democracy? Why are famous journalists of all stripes, they tolerated what they saw? Why political parties and NGOs, also quick to ignite, they did not want to see?
Independence in Africa: a travesty.
I do not condemn. I shared this blindness. I like them, before slipping the eye in the keyhole and take the measure of this family secret: France remains an empire and is not recovering its lost power. Political independence was largely a charade in West Africa. The West closed its eyes, because France is prevalent being the "policeman" who defended half of the continent against communism.
The French have left to do, for shrewdly, De Gaulle and his successors have brought their action as a bulwark against American hydra. Elf was one of the cornerstones of this part geopolitics. The double game has been facilitated by the certainty, rooted in the mentality that "there is different".
There is normal corruption, nepotism, war, violence. There is the normal presence of the French army, the pro-consuls at the embassy or at the headquarters, military camps. There, that's normal instruction of presidential guards. There is normal uptake of natural resources. Besides, "everybody does the same. Young or old, left or right, no one thinks of French offended to see our troops carry out almost every year, an operation Military in Africa, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Rwanda, when all make fun of that came to America to police Iraq, make a paint Democratic geopolitical interests and petroleum Washington.
There Yet many symmetries. I recently saw a documentary about the Biafran war, four or five half-hours of raw testimony of key players, without comment. I was speechless. To those born after 1970, Biafra said nothing. In this part of Nigeria's oil-rich, ethnically, Christian and animist armed by France, demanded independence. A war ensued killing of three years, funded revolt from the Elysee through Swiss companies. French television show loved children so hungry that the French military plane brought back for treatment, she never showed the cargo of round, full of weapons ... Like now, former employees of Jacques Foccart, sated in their Louis XV chairs, unemotional detail these arrangements illegal. The officers, lieutenants then-general today, tell this trick with a smile. End of the documentary. Not a word, not a line in the history books. Tragedies like this, Africa contains dozens carefully ignored. The massacres of the Bamileke in Cameroon by France of General de Gaulle, the Tutsi genocide committed by a regime backed by François Mitterrand, assassinations of opponents, manipulation of election ...
liabilities of France in Africa is comparable to U.S. imperialism in Latin America or the Middle East.
It is fashionable among French intellectuals to complain about the movement of repentance that has spread in recent years. The benefits of colonization, to include in textbooks, has even been of a bill, widely supported by members. Of course, the history of France in Africa and Southeast Asia also counted adventurers sincere, exporters, teachers or pioneers, who have stood together with the countries they have discovered. In Madagascar the vazas these Blackfoot Malagasy, continue to rent to me the condition of French roads and infrastructure at the time of independence. But people are like family. We can not do the sort of memory. It is carefully hidden secrets which the wave will reach far beyond one or two generations. Children inherit everything from the misery as happiness, wealth as debt.
The French Republic is now paying the bill for his past. Just down the list of official names of North Africans born in a French department until 1962 or hex on the ground since the 1970s. By law, they were and are like other French. Successive governments have yet ceased to invent paraphrases:
"indigenous Muslim", "African subject not naturalized," "Jfom (Young French of Maghreb origin)," a young immigrant background "," son of Harkis "," young neighborhoods, " "Arab-Muslim", "French of Arab origin," French Muslim "...
's France 1789 is incompatible with French Africa. France is still living in Africa as if she were at home, and as if his children of African descent were not French.
The development of French Africa, our tolerance vis-à-vis the networks, all back to the secret colonial empire in this spirit that haunts like a ghost. Yes, Total, the first French company, is rich and prosperous. But the way the firm has built part of the inheritance. Who will dare to make one day Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo - Brazzaville what France owes them? Who will challenge the contracts concluded by Areva for uranium from Niger or those gold mines of Sadiola in Mali, two countries among the poorest in the world, which only involves a ridiculous wealth taken from their soil?
The Republic has a debt he'll have to honor. Our prosperity is fueled by wealth that we turn. In some of these undocumented migrants who risk their lives to reach Europe, it could be paid a pension instead of an eviction notice. I dream for this country I love, a collective awakening. A France worthy of his ideal and its legacy of 1789 is inconsistent with Françafrique that this generation has, another can undo. Possible.
From "The strength that we lack," Eva Joly. Editions des Arenes (Paris) 190 pages Source: BDP - Gabon new
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