They shook Al Gathafi’s hands too: An injured rebel fighter in Tripoli gets VIP treatment on 15 September from the British Prime Minister David Cameron (R), new Libyan leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil (2ndR), and French President Nicolas Sarkozy (c)


brings the foam to the corner of his champing jaws – and that is the treachery of all those he thought of as friends. “And of those who have ratted on him in the last six months,


African Airways had to replace my luggage with a brand new piece, because it was irreparable! And I am not alone. Ask any passenger who has had the misfortune of going through Joburg airport, and the tales of woe never end – to the point where people now dread going through that beautiful airport, unless they had wrapped their luggage with thick cellophane plastic. The airport authorities will have to put their feet down and


stamp out that shameful practice, or President Jacob Zuma’s government may have to take matters into its own hands and stop South Africa’s name from being sullied any further by the thieves at O.R. Tambo. It is a disgrace, and somebody must remove it from the face of South Africa! Now, let me come to what I really wanted to write about


– Libya. A No Fly Zone to “protect civilians” has ended up in a Regime Change. And the world appears to have accepted it as an excellent thing. Might is power is back in fashion, and the so-called democratic countries of this world are congratulating themselves for misusing their might to achieve their foreign policy goals. As I write, the British prime minister, David Cameron, and his foreign secretary William Hague are meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy in Tripoli. To do what? To congratulate themselves for work well done. Now, I look at Africa, and do I want to cry? No. I turn to Lord


Lugard and I point to South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon, who voted with the NATO countries for the so-called No Fly Zone over Libya, and I say to those three African countries, go and read Lord Lugard! The other day, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson (an ex-


journalist who would have been a good comedian if he had not turned to politics), wrote a “flipping” good piece in The Daily Telegraph (5 Sept 2011), titled: “First, we fête them, then we bomb them – but that’s politics”. Let me conclude this Beefs with the thoughts of Boris Johnson: “We cannot know what is going through the mind of crazed


ex-despot Muammar Gaddafi [Western spelling, not the Libyan’s] as he continues to flee Nato bombs and rebel snipers – but we can have a good guess. He may be holed up gibbering in a base- ment in Sirte... Wherever he is, I wager there is one thing that causes the old dyed ringlets to shake with rage, one thought that


there is one particular group of traitors that he would like to cast – I bet – to the nethermost fire-bubbling pit of hell. Never mind the rebels, and all those snaky ex-ministers who chose to defect as soon as the going got tough. For sheer duplicity, there is no one to beat – the British! May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their armpits! “Gaddafi groans behind his dark glasses ... No wonder they


talk about perfidious Albion, he mutters, and you can see why. It was only a few years ago that Tony Blair himself came out to his tent, almost snogged the Mad Dog, and proclaimed a new era of co-operation between Britain and Libya... All appeared forgotten as ever grander emanations of the British state were despatched by London to slobber over the colonel’s jackboots, and to help win oil contracts for British companies. “In a series of retch-making overtures, British special forces


offered to help train the Khamis Brigade, one of Gaddafi’s most vicious military units. MI6 was apparently so keen to cooperate that it was prepared to trace phone numbers for his horrific secret police. The former chief inspector of Her Majesty’s prisons was sent out to devise some collaboration between the British prison service and the dungeons of Tripoli. “Lord Kinnock was one of many involved in a weird programme


of “educational co-operation” that reached its emetic climax in a personal contribution by Tony Blair to the PhD thesis of one of Gaddafi’s whacko sons. The poor Duke of York was ordered by the Foreign Office to go and set the seal on a new ‘stable partnership’ between Britain and Libya. “Gaddafi thought he was quids in, and then what happens?


A spot of bother with some rebels in Benghazi, a faint sugges- tion that his regime might be in trouble (and that he might no longer be the go-to man for oil contracts), and ka-booom! The very Brits who have been oiling up to him are now flying sorties over Tripoli and trying to kill him and his family. “Yes, Gaddafi must be feeling bitter about the whole thing;


and, of course, he is not alone in being cynically courted, fawned over and fêted by the British establishment, and then ruthlessly vilified and attacked... A cynic might say, however, that if the revolution had not begun in Benghazi, it is all too likely that the oiling to Gaddafi would have continued – because that was the British economic interest... It may all sound reprehensible, but I am afraid it’s called politics.” Well, this son of Ghana, and of Africa, is done. I hope the


National Transitional Council in Tripoli is listening – for the lessons are writ large!


New African | October 2011 | 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100