`It's always in Canada's interests to try to elevate... humanitarian rights.'
Peter MacKay, foreign affairs minister
Sat Apr 29, 1:40 PM ETLaura Cacho of Working Assets hands a protester a sign during a mass rally against the war in Iraq on Saturday, April 29, 2006 in New York, NY. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree)
The international community has had plenty of opportunity to intervene with armed force, to create a barrier between the refugee camps and the conflicting forces in the region. But like Rawanda the original colonial powers in the region pull the strings behind the scenes, exerting their great power influence over the region. In this case the US and Canada have less to say about this than say oh Britain and France the original Imperialist powers in the region.
The Sudan Wars were a series of conflicts in the Sudan part of Africa in the late 19th Century. The conflicts erupted between the British and the Muslims Africans in the Sudan in 1881 because of religious disputes and the British attempt to end the "new" slavery trade. Muslim fundamentalists instigated a rebellion against the British, driving them and their Egyptian armies from Sudan. Britain atoned for the loss in 1898, militarily reclaiming control of the Sudan. Following this engagement, competition between Britain and France for the south of Sudan led to military conflict, ended by diplomatic avenues which partitioned the disputed area. Both events demonstrate the intensifying struggle to control Africa, and the conflict between the European powers in the race of imperialism. This conflict gave rise to the beginning of World War I. Sudan Wars
French Equatorial Africa (Introduction)
Chad • Congo • Gabon • Central African Republic
French Equatorial Africa was a former administrative grouping of four French territories in west central Africa. It was first formed in 1910 by the federation of three French imperial colonies — Gabon, Middle Congo, and Ubangi-Shari-Chad — comprising a total area of 969,112 square miles (2,500,000 sq km). Chad was separated from Ubangi-Shari in 1920 to form a fourth colony.
In 1934, French Equatorial Africa was transformed into a unified territory of France, but in 1946 it was re-divided into four separate overseas territories (TOM — territoires d'outre-mer).
The federation ended in 1959 after the territories had chosen — in 1958 — to become self-governing republics of the French Community. Middle Congo was renamed Republic of the Congo, and Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic. All four republics attained their independence in 1960.
In the case of Africa, this human element is seen in the variety of forces that affected or moulded her history and experience. Lydia Polgreen summarized the roots of Africa’s present burden: Africa was a land carved for a colonial feast. For her, “it is a truism of Africa that the borders bequeathed by white colonial powers, drawn in the 19th-century scramble for Africa at the convenience of London, Paris and Brussels, became the Blackman’s burden”. And if the inherited colonial- nation state has been the Blackman’s burden, it has also been the African despot’s best friend, a powerful tool when wielded by crafty hands. In fact, the excesses of African dictators, from Mobutu Sesse Seko to Robert Mugabe, from Sani Abacha to Charles Taylor, were enabled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the inherent conflicts created by artificial state boundaries that allowed a powerful central government to play tribal, ethnic and religious groups against one another. Aligned to that, colonialism destroyed some African cultural values and structures that would have conduced to the emergence of accountability in governance. This is well depicted by the fact that until now as Ali Mazrui argued, “Africa has borrowed Western tastes without Western skills, Western consumption patterns without Western production techniques, urbanization without industrialization, secularization (erosion of religion) without scientification.” African Poverty as Failure of Leadership
What the postcolonial left who oppose intervention and the liberal internationalists who support intervention in Darfur (but oppose it in the Middle East) share is a common concern about the conditions of the Third World. They are likely to agree that the West is fully or partially responsible for the deterioration of those conditions. Unlike those on the right like the current President of the U.S., their foreign policy ideas transcend crass national self interests and are burdened by their moral consciences. Where they disagree however is in what role the West can play in alleviating the global south’s conditions. Where the liberals want the West to intervene to save the poor Africans from killing themselves (which can be understood in a post-Rwanda context as either humanitarianism or on the other extreme, a neo-imperial continuation of the white man’s burden), the postcolonial left want the West out of the third world. Since the West is responsible for the poverty, war and low rates of democratic and human development in places like Africa, the Middle East and beyond – vis-à-vis colonialism and neo-colonialism – they should just butt out. SkarredBlogAlso See: War and the Market State
The U.S. War on Drugs: Political Economics of a New Slavery
Compiled by Drug Policy Alliance. August 2001.
The U.S. "war on drugs" is big business -- a multi-billion dollar public/private venture that radically inflates the value of illegal drugs and is used to criminalize the poorest people of color, trapping them in a vicious cycle of addiction, unemployment and incarceration:
- $27 billion for interdiction and law enforcement, $1.3 billion for Plan Colombia in 2000.
- $9.4 billion in 2000 to imprison close to 500,000 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, 75% of whom are Black.
- $80 to $100 billion in lost earnings.
- Untold billions in homeless shelters, healthcare, chemical dependency and psychiatric treatment, etc.
Resources on Prison Privatization
The Raggedness of Prison Privatization:
Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States Compared
PRIVATE ADULT PRISONS:
WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW AND WHY DON’T WE KNOW MORE?*
New Internationalist: Crime pays: well, it does if you run the prison
Grassroots CCA Prison Report 2003
The modern private prison business first emerged and established itself publicly in 1984 when
the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was awarded a contract to take over a facility in
Hamilton County, Tennessee. This marked the first time that any government in the country had
contracted out the complete operation of a jail to a private operator.1 The following year, CCA
gained further public attention when it offered to take over the entire state prison system of
Tennessee for $200 million. The bid was ultimately defeated due to strong opposition from
public employees and the skepticism of the state legislature.2 Despite that initial defeat, CCA
since then has successfully expanded, as have other for-profit prison companies. As of
December 2000, there were 153 private correctional facilities (prisons, jails and detention
centers) operating in the United States3 with a capacity of over
Private Prisons: Profits of Crime
Private prisons are a symptom, a response by private capital to the "opportunities" created by society's temper tantrum approach
to the problem of criminality.The big business of prisons
By Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans
More than 1.8 million people are currently behind bars in the US -- the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. In 1995 alone, 150 new US prisons were built and filled.
Privately managed prisons go before the review boardWith 1.5 million people behind bars, the United States imprisons a larger share of its population than any other nation. Indeed, the rate of incarceration in the United States has grown much faster than the population in the past decade, leading to serious overcrowding in local, state and federal al prisons. Federal facilities are operating at 160 percent of capacity, while state facilities are at 117 percent, despite a desired capacity rate of percent that allows for periodic maintenance and repairs, special housing for protective custody, disciplinary cases and emergency needs.
The cost of confining inmates in the United States almost doubled in the past five years, reaching $50 billion lion annually, or $33,334 per inmate, per year. Estimates show that one 700-bed bed jail and one 1,600-bed prison need to be opened every week just to meet the rising demand. The projected annual construction cost of this is $5.98 billion.
But, with the political climate favoring decreasing taxes and reducing the size of government, it is unlikely that cities and counties will be able to build and manage many more prisons.
At the same time, the war on drugs and the get tough, policies, like the "three strikes" laws, will yield even greater numbers of inmates
Real Women’s letter to MP’s has called upon the Harper government to defund the powerful radical feminist lobby that allows only one interpretation of women’s rights and equality to be represented.
Lorraine McNamara, Real Women’s National President, writes, “The feminist ideology does not now, and never has had the support of the vast majority of Canadian women.”
McNamara writes, “Feminist groups have few, if any, members, and are, in effect, mostly phantom organizations sustained only by the funding they receive from the Status of Women. Since these organizations represent no one but the women who run them, they should not receive financial support from the Canadian taxpayer.”
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