In this issue:

Bush Executive Order Boosts London War Against Zimbabwe

London Lawyers Group Calls for Putting Mugabe on Trial

Neo-Con Thug Krauthammer Wants To Smash Africa

Assassination of Nigerian Party Leader on Eve of Elections

Thai State-Owned Companies Get Sudan Development Deal

From Volume 2, Issue Number 10 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Mar. 10, 2003
Africa News Digest

Bush Executive Order Boosts London War Against Zimbabwe

President George W. Bush signed an Executive Order released March 7, which declares that Zimbabwe President Robert "Mugabe's policies constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the U.S.," according to the U.S. press. The March 9 edition of the South African Sunday Times of Johannesburg added that the order also uses the following language: "I [the President of the United States] hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."

The order freezes all assets in the U.S. belonging to President Robert Mugabe and 76 other Zimbabweans, including Cabinet ministers, the head of the Central Intelligence Organization, and the Speaker of Parliament. The order also bans U.S. citizens from doing business with any of the 77 Zimbabweans named.

EIR notes that the language of the Executive Order implies the authorization of covert operations.

There are two aspects of the timing of the executive order: British Commonwealth power in Africa, and the global blackmail by the Bush Administration warhawks against the countries which are resisting the approval of war. The treatment of Zimbabwe, including the implied covert operations, would serve as a warning to the African nations that have put out two strong unified statements opposing an Iraq war, in favor of continued inspections, and disarmament by diplomacy. The U.S. has especially put under enormous pressure the African members of the UN Security Council—Angola, Guinea, and Cameroon.

The EO is also timed to resonate with Australian Prime Minister John Howard's attempt to extend the period of Zimbabwe's suspension from the British Commonwealth. Because South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo are dead set against the gambit—saying the sanctions are counterproductive—the furious Howard has threatened to canvass other Commonwealth leaders—that is, to bypass the two, in the context that they and he have been delegated by the Commonwealth to handle the issue. Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon is to submit a report on Zimbabwe to the troika during this current week.

London Lawyers Group Calls for Putting Mugabe on Trial

The International Bar Association (IBA), headquartered in London, called March 6 for the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and try Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The IBA has "addressed its call to all State Parties [those countries that signed the treaty] to the ICC, each of whom has the authority to request that prosecution be initiated," according to an IBA press release. "No single act would more accurately reflect the purpose and importance of the ICC than to have Mr. Mugabe as the first individual tried by the new Court," according to IBA Executive Director Mark Ellis, who added, "Fortunately ... the existence of the ICC means that if found guilty, he will not escape being held accountable for his actions."

The ICC came into being in July 2002 "as the first permanent court ever established to investigate and try individuals for the most serious violations of international humanitarian law, including crimes against humanity," says the IBA press release. The ICC is currently recruiting its first prosecutor.

IBA membership includes 16,000 individual lawyers and 180 bar associations and law societies, including the American Bar Association, the German Federal Bar, and the Law Society of Zimbabwe.

In remarks following President Bush's refusal to allow the United States to become a party to the ICC, Lyndon LaRouche said that although the ICC is an entity which violates sovereignty, Bush's refusal was for the wrong reason. LaRouche explained that the ICC, a supranational organization answerable to no sovereign nation-state, runs the risk of being used to target any nation-state that refuses to play ball with various institutions of the globalization empire. The targetting of Zimbabwe's President is a case in point of how the ICC can be misused.

Neo-Con Thug Krauthammer Wants To Smash Africa

Who cares what Africa thinks—or needs? That is one of the themes of Charles Krauthammer's op-ed in the Washington Post Feb. 28, "A Costly Charade at the UN," dedicated to the proposition that no power on Earth should be able to challenge Washington.

Krauthammer, a neo-conservative fanatic for the Iraq war who opposed taking the issue to the United Nations, writes, "America goes courting Guinea, Cameroon, and Angola in search of the nine Security Council votes necessary to pass our new resolution on Iraq. The absurdity of the exercise mirrors the absurdity of the UN itself. Guinea is a perfectly nice place.... But from the dawn of history to the invention of the UN, it made not an ounce of difference what a small, powerless, peripheral country thought about a conflict thousands of miles away. It still doesn't, except at the Alice-in- Wonderland UN, where Guinea and Cameroon and Angola count."

But, although Krauthammer leads with this attack on the vital interests of Africa, what really irks him is not African votes in the UN as such, but France's role in organizing countries in Africa and elsewhere into a bloc challenging American power. This was especially evident when France joined with 56 African nations to issue a statement against the Iraq war from the Franco-African summit (see last week's INDEPTH).

Despite Krauthammer's heavy breathing, in fact, the three African countries on the UNSC have a mandate to speak for all of Africa. The Iraq conflict will not be thousands of miles away, since a war-driven rise in the price of oil by 100% or more, will so devastate African economies that more people will die in Africa than in Iraq.

Assassination of Nigerian Party Leader on Eve of Elections

Dr. Marshall Harry, a national vice chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the leading opposition party, was murdered in his home in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, early March 5 by a team of five men. The team's actions were witnessed by children in the household after a security guard was overpowered. The ANPP's Presidential candidate is Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a former military head of government.

The ANPP said it held the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) responsible for the murder; recited the obstacles thrown up to prevent its Presidential campaign kickoff in Port Harcourt March 8; and declared that its members would defend themselves.

A Federal government statement called the murder "shocking." It said that President Obasanjo was saddened because "Chief Marshall Harry's death adds to the disturbing number of deaths by assassination of more than seven prominent Nigerians in the last 15 months, a tragedy that raises grave questions concerning the willingness of many of our citizens to resist the temptation to resort to violence.... [T]he Federal government appeals to all the political parties to call on their members to ... dissociate themselves from every manner of violence as a means of settling political scores."

President Obasanjo had said March 4, at a political rally in Ebonyi State, that the Ebonyi people should steer clear of the political violence reported in that state in the past two weeks. "Any person who causes violence will see my red eyes. If I use the police and I don't succeed, I will use the Army," he said.

Obasanjo's party, which is the PDP which the ANPP accuses of the murder, called the assassination "one too many, too ugly."

Nigeria's Presidential elections are scheduled for April. Since independence in 1960, the country has not yet succeeded in making the transition by ballot box from one civilian government to another.

Thai State-Owned Companies Get Sudan Development Deal

Thailand's state-owned power companies have spread their wings overseas to clinch an operation and maintenance (O&M) contract for a power plant in Sudan.

"This represents a major stepping stone for us to do further business with Sudan and other countries in Africa and the Middle East," Somyos Polachan, managing director of Egco Engineering & Services (Esco), said.

Esco is an affiliated company of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

Egat and Esco signed a Bt100-million (Thai bhat, equal to about U.S.$2.5million) contract recently with the National Electricity Corp., Sudan's state-owned power agency, to operate the 330-megawatt El Gali power plant. Somyos said the company was in negotiations to win more O&M contracts in Sudan, and is targetting revenue of about Bt500 million per annum from the North African nation. Last year, Esco reported total revenue of about Bt500 million. Some 44 staff—20 from Esco and 24 from Egat—will fly to Sudan this month to begin work on the project.

Egat and Esco beat competitors from China, Belgium, Denmark, and Malaysia for the first Sudan contract. The El Gali power plant uses second-hand gas turbines bought from Thai company Alfa Power. Egat Governor Sitthiporn Rattanopoas said the agency has O&M revenues totalling about Bt2.8 billion per year, of which Bt1.2 billion are derived from providing services to non-Egat power plants.

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