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Stoking the Furnace of the War Machine

2013-02-15T16:46:00.002+01:00

Since World War ii, building up large-scale defense companies has been taboo in Germany. But that taboo is now largely history.
Two of Germany’s top military manufacturers—Rheinmetall and man Group—have announced their intention to merge their military vehicle production. The resulting combine will produce a new national champion and leading supplier for wheeled military vehicles in Europe.

This amalgamation, which has been in the works for a year, has been pushed by the political class. The German government is a big supporter of bulking up German military industry. MarketWatch columnist David Marsh said it “has been providing behind-the-scenes assistance to make sure industry goes in the right direction.” The new combine “meets the long-held German desire to build industrial companies with world scale in the defense field” (January 18).

Anyone who knows the history of Rheinmetall and man should be alarmed.
Rheinmetall has been at the forefront of German military manufacturing for over a century, so it isn’t too surprising that it again became a weapons builder after the World War ii loss. In fact, despite the Allies’ initial ban on arms production, Rheinmetall was back mass-producing machine guns by 1956. By 1972, Rheinmetall had developed and begun selling the Leopard 2 battle tank.

Not much later, and after a series of corporate acquisitions, Rheinmetall became Europe’s leading military supplier of systems and equipment for ground forces, providing everything from artillery and munitions to communications, surveillance technology and guided missile systems. Rheinmetall subsidiaries, which also include significant automotive component manufacturers, are located throughout Europe, the Americas and China.

man Group’s 252-year history is even more impressive. man is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of commercial vehicles, engines and mechanical engineering equipment. man builds trucks, buses, diesel engines and turbo-machinery; it also provides industrial services. During World War ii, and in conjunction with Rheinmetall, man produced the hugely successful Panther tank. Following the war, man took over notorious World War ii light vehicle manufacturer Büssing. According to man’s website, the corporation holds “leading market positions in all its business areas,” employing 50,000 people worldwide.
But the real reason the Rheinmetall-man Group alliance should be thoroughly scrutinized stems from a historic meeting the Trumpet has often drawn attention to.

Germany’s Plan to Return

According to a top-secret document the U.S. government declassified in 1996, several of Germany’s largest industrial giants and top German officials met on Aug. 10, 1944, just nine months before World War ii’s end. Among them were corporate leaders representing Krupp, Volkswagenwerk, Messerschmitt, Rheinmetall, Rochling, Büssing and other companies. Top German military and political personnel from the SS, Navy, and the Ministries of Armaments told them to prepare for a “postwar commercial campaign” after the eventual German loss. They must, the document said, “through their exports increase the strength of Germany.” They were instructed to place existing financial reserves at the disposal of the Nazi Party “so that a strong German empire can be created after the defeat.”

This document highlighted the exact worry that the Allies tried to address by seeking to destroy Germany’s future war-making capability. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill said, “It is our inflexible purpose to … ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world. We are determined to … break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly contrived the resurgence of German militarism; … eliminate or control all German industry that could be used for military production .…”
It is now blatantly evident that they failed! Both Rheinmetall and man Group (Büssing), which were named in the declassified report, have become dominant players on the world stage again. And Germany has become the world’s largest exporting nation and fourth-largest economy.
But a look at the astounding post-World War ii success of the other above-mentioned four companies identified in the document not only suggests a postwar German commercial campaign, but a highly effective one.

Astonishing Industrial Rebound

Take steel and weapons manufacturer Krupp (now ThyssenKrupp). When Germany lost World War ii, the company was forbidden by the Allies to manufacture arms (as it was after World War i); Alfried Krupp, the company’s owner, was convicted of war crimes, including the use of mass slave labor. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to forfeit all his property. Later, however, the U.S. high commissioner for Germany granted him amnesty and restored much of his holdings. Alfried Krupp was released in the early part of 1951, and even though many of the Krupp factories, shipyards and steel and coal mines had been damaged, destroyed or dismantled, Krupp was still able to reestablish itself as a leading German company by the 1960s to continue its 100-year tradition of supplying Germany with the arms needed for war.
The speed at which ThyssenKrupp reestablished itself as a corporate giant was astonishing.

Today, ThyssenKrupp is one of the largest steel and technology groups in the world, employing about 184,000 workers in more than 70 countries. It is also a leading naval military supplier, building some of the most technologically advanced submarines, frigates and corvettes available. Its fiscal 2004/2005 sales of approximately $53.3 billion were generated in bulk from its roughly 600 foreign subsidiary companies, located in the UK, France, Italy and 13 other European countries. ThyssenKrupp also has operations in the United States and Asia. Not bad for a company that was all but destroyed in two world wars.

Volkswagen, another German corporation documented for its collusion with the World War ii Nazis, has become a globally dominant automotive power. Though its core market is the European Union, Volkswagen sales make it the world’s third-largest automotive company by revenue. Volkswagen owns the Bentley brand; international vehicle manufacturer Audi; Seat and Skoda, which manufacture and sell cars in Spain and in southern and Eastern Europe; and Lamborghini, which makes sports cars in Italy.

Messerschmitt, Germany’s famous World War ii manufacturer that built much of the Luftwaffe’s fighting aircraft, is also prospering today, though under a different name. Like Krupp, much of Messerschmitt’s infrastructure was destroyed in the war. Further, Messerschmitt was even forbidden to produce aircraft. Yet it too has risen to become part of a world-leading corporation. Messerschmitt was eventually allowed to build aircraft again, and in 1989, after several postwar mergers, Messerschmitt became part of Daimler-Benz Aerospace (another German industrial giant). Daimler-Benz Aerospace then later helped found the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (eads), becoming a 30 percent owner.

eads today is a global aerospace and defense technology leader. The group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and the world’s largest helicopter supplier, Eurocopter. It is also a major shareholder in mbda, the international leader in missile systems. eads produces the Eurofighter and other military aircraft. Galileo, the European satellite navigation system being constructed to rival the U.S.’s gps, is also being built in large part by eads. The company employs 113,000 people at more than 70 production sites, primarily in France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain.
Rochling, founded 184 years ago as a coal-trading house, has now become a leader in high-performance plastics technologies. In 2004, the Rochling Group’s worldwide operations generated revenue of approximately $1.78 billion and employed 8,000 workers.

Yes, Germany’s war machine is back in fighting order.

Just as Predicted

While Germany was but a pile of rubble after World War ii, one man—Herbert W. Armstrong—warned that Germany would eventually rise again to dominate Europe and threaten the world.
As early as 1945, broadcasting during a United Nations conference, Mr. Armstrong warned that German industry was working toward the revival of a German empire. “We don’t understand German thoroughness,” he said. “From the very start of World War ii, they have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality, the third round: World War iii!”
“What most do not know,” said
Mr. Armstrong, “is that the Germans have their plans for winning the battle of the peace. Yes, I said battle of the peace.”
Peaceably, through corporate mergers and acquisitions, German corporations are reaching out beyond the borders of Germany to gain control of strategic industry. Even Germany’s most notorious World War ii companies, which were severely disassembled and banned from future arms production by the Allies, have emerged as European and global powerhouses.
Be forewarned. Trouble out of Europe is coming, and Germany will be the driving force behind it. Germany’s recent corporate revival is just the precursor to a much larger and non-peaceable event.

Via thetrumpet .com

Germany Worries About Its Gold Reserves

2012-05-20T02:00:00.000+01:00


Philipp Missfelder, member of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, tried to inspect German gold reserves stored in New York, but was not given access. (Getty Images)

German politicians and accounting bodies want more guarantees concerning the security of Germany’s gold reserves, with Germany’s federal audit office due to report to the finance committee of the German Parliament on the matter.

Germany has the world’s second-largest gold reserves, but keeps most of them overseas, mainly at the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Banque de France. The federal audit office, or Bundesrechnungshof, is disappointed that while the gold stored in Germany is regularly checked by the Bundesbank, the gold overseas is not. The foreign banks merely give the Bundesbank an annual statement detailing the amount of gold.

The security of the gold is becoming a popular concern, with the Bild tabloid claiming the Bundesbank has not checked its gold reserves for five years. Spiegel Online writes, “In times of uncertainty about the future of Europe’s common currency, gold is a hot topic, and some Germans take a dim view of the fact that much of the country’s gold—which theoretically belongs to the people—is held abroad.”

A campaign called “Gold Action,” which calls for Germany’s gold to be brought home, is supported by several economists and journalists. A member of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (cdu), Philipp Missfelder, visited the Federal Reserve in New York to see the gold, but “staff were either unable or unwilling to show him exactly which bars belonged to Germany,” as Spiegel Online put it. A member of parliament from the cdu’s sister party, the Christian Social Union, regularly tables parliamentary questions on the subject.

But the Bundesbank insists no additional checks on the gold are needed. “The scope of the checks that the Bundesrechnungshof wants does not correspond to the usual practices among central banks,” read a bank statement, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “There are no doubts about the integrity and the reputation of these foreign depositories.”

It also pointed to the cost of bringing the gold home, and the effect it would have on already skittish financial markets.

It’s no coincidence that this is an issue right now. The euro and banking crises are threatening the stability of paper money everywhere. In earlier times of monetary collapse, central banks have simply seized other people’s gold.

Germany’s gold could be a key part of its recovery from the euro crisis. For more information on why you should watch Germany’s gold reserves, see our article “Germany’s Gold Hoard.”

Via thetrumpet.com

Germany’s Gold Hoard by Ron Fraser and Andrew Miller

2012-05-20T01:00:00.000+01:00

Germany’s gold reserves may prove a powerful weapon in the troubled world economy.
(Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

Gold skyrocketed to over us$1,800 an ounce on Tuesday. One nation gained powerfully as a result: Germany.

As the markets fixate on Europe, seeking to understand the complexities involved in Franco-German moves to stabilize the eurozone and hence the global economy, little attention has been paid to a crucial component of German power in this whole equation—Germany’s gold hoard.

It is intriguing to note the historical timing of Germany’s sudden acquisition of its post-unification gold hoard.

The forerunner of today’s European Central Bank, the European Monetary Institute (emi), once carried almost $27 billion in gold reserves. In 1998, the emi was replaced by the European Central Bank (ecb). No European Monetary Union financial data was published that year, while Europe’s elites “rebalanced” the financial system. When financial records resumed publication in 1999, $20 billion in gold had “gone missing” from EU coffers.

One would have assumed that these EU reserves should have been automatically transferred to the emi’s replacement, the ecb. No official explanation was ever given as to why it was not. It is interesting to note, however, that in that same year, the German central bank reported a $20 billion increase in its national gold reserves.

The result? Germany now owned 3,400 tons of gold—enough to back an entire currency if it wanted to!

As the late Christopher Story, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, observed: “The Bundesbank suddenly acquired massive gold reserves, just as the euro was launched in the first quarter of 1999. The gold amassed, both in terms of its physical size and of its value (national valuation basis) is more than enough with which unilaterally to introduce a gold-backed ‘new deutsche mark’—in contrast to the U.S. dollar, which is not backed by gold” (Economic Intelligence Review, March 2000).

Coincident with this, commentators were intrigued by the continuous slump in the value of the European Union’s collective currency, the euro, immediately after its launch in January 1999. This was engineered to favor the German economy: “The euro has given German manufacturing the weak currency it needs to counter high labor costs, and has created a single capital market across 11 countries, in which the German banks are ideally placed to thrive” (Spectator, June 17, 2000). German banks were very clever at obtaining share cross-holdings in the firms to which they lent.

Put these two facts together—the sudden acquisition of bullion and the coincident launching of a currency at a rate favorable to the EU’s most powerful national economy—and an extremely interesting picture emerges. “The Germans may have been preparing their greatest coup in history: the sudden, overnight substitution of a ‘new deutsche mark’ backed by gold, for the regrettably ‘failed’ EU collective currency,” the Economic Intelligence Review continued. “[I]n reality, the Bundesbank’s acquisition of colossal gold reserves coincident with the launch of the euro (which policymakers were never supposed to notice), and the convenience of the biggest competitive devaluation in history, betray the probable truth—that this represents the realization of the pan-German plan for a European collective currency elaborated by the Nazis, and was cunningly postulated from the outset. In other words, the euro’s steep depreciation is ‘not coincidental’” (op.cit.; emphasis added).

These facts are made all the more interesting by statements recently made by a senior Bundesbank official. When asked what Germany would do if a Greek default forced the ecb into insolvency, he responded that Bundesbank officials had already discussed how to deal with such a situation. “We have 3,400 tons of gold,” he said. “We are the only country that has not sold its original allotment from the [late 1940s]. So we are covered to some extent” (Vanity Fair, September 2011).

Is it possible that German elites could use their massive gold reserves to establish a gold-backed deutsche mark in the event that the euro fails? Here is what the late Christopher Story wrote in that March 2000 edition of the Economic Intelligence Review: “If Berlin were to decide that the progressive collapse of the euro, which is already well advanced, had ceased to be tolerable, it has already amassed the necessary reserves of gold to be able to float a ‘new deutsche mark’ unilaterally—leaving the rest of Europe at Germany’s mercy and prospectively left with no practical choice, under the circumstances, but to accept the new deutsche mark in lieu of the degraded euro ….”

The implications of all this for the United States, the dollar and the world, are huge. Whereas the U.S. dollar ceased to be backed by gold in 1971, the new deutsche mark would be backed by gold. The dollar could be “dislodged” from its global primacy not by the euro, which will continue to be degraded either immediately or over time, but by the new deutsche mark.

Only time will tell how this situation will play out. However, if the Bundesbank does plan to introduce a gold-backed deutsche mark, it could well be that the day Greece defaults—which appears only a matter of time—is the day that Germany replaces America as the world’s most powerful nation, overnight!

Back in the heady European summer of 1990, when Germanic euphoria was high over the unification of East and West Germany, British politician Nicholas Ridley told the Spectator that “European Monetary Union, then being discussed seriously for the first time, was ‘a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe. … You might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly …. I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have the [bomb] shelters and the chance to fight back, than simply being taken over by … economics’” (June 17, 2000).

Well, Mr. Ridley, it took a decade, but the reality is that this time Germany has done it, not by bombs, but by sheer economic panache—and has fooled the whole world!

All that remains now is for German elites to carry out their solution to their deliberately created crisis—their real “final solution”!

Via Thetrumpet.com

Did the Holy Roman Empire Plan the Greek Crisis? by Gerald Flurry

2012-05-19T01:00:00.000+01:00

The Greek riots are a sign of a far greater upheaval that is threatening to engulf much of Europe.
(Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

I’d like to add my thoughts to a critical article written by Richard Palmer, titled “Who Will Stop the Greece Fires?” It was placed on our website Dec. 16, 2008.

Greece is in trouble. Thousands of rioters rampaged through Athens. Angry youths attacked the Athens courthouse with petrol bombs. Broken glass and burned-out wreckage lay in the streets.

These riots are a sign of a far greater upheaval that is threatening to engulf much of Europe.

Athens isn’t the only Greek city to be hit. Roughly half of the country’s workforce has gone on strike. One resident of Thessaloniki described the city as “a war zone.” Protesters wounded 12 police officers in 10 different cities in one night.

The rioting started December 6 after police shot and killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. His death triggered a fierce reaction across the country.

But Alexandros’s tragic death was simply the spark. The real fuel for the fire came from Greece’s troubled economy.

Many of the people rioting are angry about the government’s handling of the economic crisis. The unions want higher social spending, wages and pensions. Greece’s two largest unions, the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (gsee) and the adedy civil servants union, had planned a public demonstration in protest of the failing economy before Alexandros’s shooting. The melee caused by this huge demonstration merged with the mass youth riots to create chaos on city streets in Greece and grind the nation to a standstill.

The Greek government can do little to fix the nation’s economy though. Greece’s fate was, in many ways, sealed seven years ago.

In 2001, Greece adopted the euro, as a member of the European Union. At that point, Greece’s succeeding economic boom and following bust became inevitable. Columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explained the situation in the Telegraph (Dec. 10, 2008):

[T]here is obviously a problem for countries like Greece that were let into emu [Economic and Monetary Union] for political reasons before their economies had been reformed enough to cope with the rigors of euro life—over the long run. …

Greece’s euro membership has now led to a warped economy. The current account deficit is 15 percent of gdp, the eurozone’s highest by far. Indeed, the deficit ($53 billion) is the sixth-biggest in the world in absolute terms—quite a feat for a country of 11 million people.

Greece’s foreign debt is a staggering 91 percent of its gross domestic product. Greece’s banks are in crisis. The government has pledged to bail them out with €28 billion. But with Greece’s economy in such bad condition, the Greek government will have difficulty borrowing the €28 billion it wants to give the banks. This could mean it will have to take the money away from its social welfare programs. That would make social unrest in Greece even worse.

There is no way out—and, according to some analysts, it was designed from the beginning to become that way. Those analysts agree with the brutal facts unfolding in Europe.

Bernard Connolly is a civil servant who authored The Rotten Heart of Europe, which exposed the evils of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the truth about the European Union. Over a year ago, he explained the process in an article in the Telegraph (Aug. 20, 2007, emphasis mine):

[T]he EU quite deliberately created the most dangerous credit bubble of all: emu. And, whereas the mission of the Fed is to avoid a financial crisis, the mission of the ecb [European Central Bank] is to provoke one. The purpose of the crisis will be, as Prodi, then Commission president, said in 2002, to allow the EU to take more power for itself. The sacrificial victims will be, in the first instance, families and firms (and banks and investors) in countries such as Ireland …. Subsequently, German savers (or British taxpayers) will bear the burden of bailouts that a newly empowered ‘EU economic government’ will ordain.

When the current European economic union was formalized, it became inevitable that countries like Greece would eventually face economic crises. Through the inclusion of Germany, the economic union allowed for European-wide interest rates that were much lower in countries like Greece than would normally have been possible. Low interest rates encouraged massive borrowing and artificially stimulated a boom. But as with all bubbles, eventually it popped. What Greece and other countries in southern Europe in particular are dealing with now is the aftermath.

The Holy Roman Empire

Romano Prodi was recently prime minister of Italy. He was eventually pushed from power by the Roman Catholic Church because he disagreed with the church on several issues. That illustrates the kind of power the Vatican exercises in EU politics. (The Catholic Church in Europe is very different than it is in the U.S.)

So the Vatican obviously approved of the EU plan to take more power for itself. The real power of the EU revolves around Germany and the Vatican—as it has throughout the history of the Holy Roman Empire.

That spells real trouble for this world—as it has for over 1,500 years! Any student of European history knows about the violent past of the Holy Roman Empire.

For over 50 years we have been warning about the rise of this dangerous power. (Request our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, which explains much of that history.)

The facts overwhelmingly prove there was an extremely close relationship between Germany and the Vatican in World War ii (the sixth head of the Holy Roman Empire), even though the Vatican vehemently denies it.

What happened between Germany and the Vatican of World War ii is only a preview of the immediate future.

Otto von Habsburg was a prominent leader of Europe in the recent past. He once said, “The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live.” That was a great understatement! He also said, “We possess a European symbol which belongs to all nations of Europe equally; this is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which embodies the tradition of Charlemagne.” History shows that Emperor Charlemagne waded through a sea of blood to gain converts to Catholicism.

In our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, we wrote:

For several decades God’s Church has been warning of the emergence of Germany as the most dominant player in a European Union of nations. The Bible teaches that this force will suddenly catapult the world into the third and final world war.

Yet, even if we set aside Bible prophecy for a moment, there are more than enough modern-day Jeremiahs warning about Germany’s developing links with its fascist past. [O]ne of these modern writers [is] Martin Lee …. In his words, “Something awful was laid bare by the fall of the Berlin Wall. The fascist beast had reawakened and was on the prowl again.” Other well-known books, like Roger Eatwell’s Fascism, Bernard Connolly’s The Rotten Heart of Europe, and Margaret Thatcher’s The Downing Street Years, all serve as Churchillian warnings for a world that has proven itself prone to slumber as events grow worse. Most of the mainstream press is oblivious to the dangerous, foreboding presence developing on the horizon in Central Europe. That’s the way it was before World War ii.

We must wake up and heed the words of this handful of informed and astute political analysts. “You have not anchored Germany to Europe,” Margaret Thatcher said in 1995. “You have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.” It is Germany’s national character to dominate, she said.

While Germany lay in ruin and ashes after World War ii, Herbert W. Armstrong had the crystal-clear, prophetic vision to see a Germany that would again rise to world dominance. He knew the Nazis were not eliminated altogether. They only hid themselves, like cockroaches when the kitchen light is switched on.

Europe’s Financial Crisis

“Germany entered the euro with an overvalued exchange rate,” wrote Bernard Connolly.

It then faced a long period of high unemployment that drove wages down and restored its competitive position. But Germany was also helped at the beginning of this process by the newly established ecb …. The ecb initially set interest rates where Germany needed them—far too low for most other emu countries …. That combination, and Germany’s initial uncompetitiveness, created booms in many other emu countries. But, as in the U.S. in the 1920s and again in the 1990s, inappropriate interest rates and temporarily booming growth totally distorted perceptions of today versus tomorrow. The result has been that firms and families in these countries have massively over-borrowed and banks and investors have massively over-lent, often on the illusory security of inflated house prices (op. cit.).

The United States is currently trying to solve its debt-related problems by lowering its interest rates and making borrowing easier. This is treating the symptom: It may reduce the pain temporarily, but won’t fix anything in the long term. Nations like Greece, though, do not have even this option. They cannot change the interest rate to a level that suits them—they are stuck with whatever the ecb decides. And the ecb is most heavily influenced by Germany.

Greece isn’t the only nation caught in this trap. Spain’s economy has gone through a similar process to what Connolly described, and now the International Monetary Fund is predicting that its unemployment will reach 15 percent. Ireland and Denmark are also paying the price of overheating their economies.

Does this mean that it is over for a single European currency? Not at all.

As both the Trumpet and men like Connolly have been warning, Berlin has been planning for this crisis before it even adopted the euro. European elites knew it would eventually come. And they will soon present a solution.

In this context, it is noteworthy that the German central bank holds the second-largest reserves of gold in the world. During the first quarter of 1999, at the same time the euro was launched, Germany bought up huge reserves of gold. Enough, according to the Economic Intelligence Review, to back an entire currency (March 2000). In addition, when the 11 nations joined the euro, they signed over their gold reserves to the European Central Bank, in Frankfurt, Germany.

However it happens, Germany is prophesied to come out on top in this financial crisis. Social unrest and riots will eventually force Europeans to succumb to a strong united government of Europe, led ultimately not from Brussels, but from Berlin.

Greece is just one of the first places to have trouble. But national economies across Europe are deteriorating, and soon, if trends continue, much of the Continent will be in trouble. As the old saying goes, “Possession is nine tenths of the law.” The European Central Bank is but a revival of the old centralist designs of the Third Reich. The ecb is domiciled in Germany. Its gold reserves are held in Germany. Germany’s most influential bank is Deutsche Bank, which has massive global investments in international business. Of all the EU member nations, it is Germany that is in the strongest position to dictate terms for any bailouts sought by the EU’s weaker members such as Greece.

Watch Germany. Watch for Germany to be at the helm in a restructuring not only of EU member nations’ economies, but of the entire European Union itself! That union will be united and then guided by the Vatican.

So who is now the real super economic power in this world? Germany.

That too was carefully planned. The Germany-Vatican combine is gaining power that this world can’t even imagine!

The crisis in Greece is a forerunner of a whole rash of similar crises set to soon break out across Europe. They will provide the catalyst for the EU’s leading nation, Germany, to rise to the fore with solutions of its own making. Biblical prophecy declares that the result will be a European superstate with Germany at the helm. And that is not good news for America, Britain and the little nation called Israel. •

Italy Calls in the Army to Protect Tax Collectors

2012-05-18T14:11:00.001+01:00

Italy’s Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri announced May 13 that Equitalia, the private company that collects taxes, and Finmeccanica, an aerospace and defense conglomerate, may receive military protection after they were attacked by anarchists.

Cancellieri warned that the army may also need to protect Italy’s high-speed rail network.

The defense proposals came after gunmen shot Roberto Adinolfi, ceo of one of Finmeccanica’s subsidiaries, Ansaldo Nucleare, in the leg. The “Olga Cell” of fai (Informal Anarchist Federation) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was punishing “one of the many sorcerers of the atomic industry.”

Equitalia is regularly attacked. On May 12, anarchists threw two petrol bombs at one of its buildings.

With 30 percent youth unemployment and an unelected government, the anarchist movement should have little trouble recruiting.

The Interior Ministry said it has assigned bodyguards to 550 people. It’s increased security at 14,000 locations, and redeployed 4,200 military personnel already on duty in Italy.

The Trumpet has long forecast that the euro crisis would cause riots and unrest, which would in turn cause governments to adopt authoritarian measures.

“Social unrest and riots will eventually force Europeans to succumb to a strong united government of Europe, led ultimately not from Brussels, but from Berlin,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in 2009. For more information on how this will happen, see his article “Did the Holy Roman Empire Plan the Greek Crisis?”

Via Thetrumpet.com

Somewhere In Nigeria by Faith Abiodun

2012-05-18T13:03:00.000+01:00

Twitter. Trends. Nigeria

#somewhereinNigeria

In one sudden flash, young Nigerians have taken to Twitter like an army of vultures on post-World War II Japan. The last couple of months have witnessed such an influx of opinion makers and shameless attention-seekers to the Twittersphere, that one wouldn’t be surprised if the elderly ones start to challenge the younger ones thus: “Don’t you know I started using Twitter before you?” A daily dose of Twittercetamol always leaves one energized with entertaining contributions from ALIBABAGCFR, Denrele Edun, Don Jazzy, Eggheader, Ogundamisi, Tolu Ogunlesi, Chinedu Ekeke, MrFixNigeria and several others. No day is complete without the endless list of people begging D’banj and Darey for a retweet; no day is complete without ALIBABA’s knock-knock jokes; no day is complete without MrFixNigeria making new enemies with occasional provocative tweets, and you can trust Chinedu Ekeke and co to take him to the cleaners within seconds. Twitter is always fun, but today things are getting serious.

It has been combination of hilarious and mind-boggling comments on my Twitter timeline, just like one of those moments when everyone seeks to outwit others with their articulation of the most striking challenges in Nigeria. “Somewhere in Nigeria, a yam thief is bagging a 30-year jail term while a tremendously successful looting governor bags a chieftaincy title”; “Somewhere in Nigeria, a family is slowly dying of excess carbon inhalation from their beat-up generating set while the Minister of Power yet again lets out one of his infamous unguarded and ill-considered promises of stable power supply by 2013; “Somewhere in Nigeria, University students are getting knocked down in traffic while chasing after high-speeding vehicles with bottles of cold water and loaves of sliced bread, while their professors compose their demands in preparation for the next showdown with the Ministry of Education”. “Somewhere in Nigeria…

My mind is really heavy right now; I’ve been to this exact point severally and I’ve analyzed to the best of my abilities the numerous challenges embedded in the DNA of my country, Nigeria and I’m no better for it. Just now, news filters in that Professor Adetokunbo Sofoluwe, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos has just passed away after a cardiac arrest (quite fortuitously while doctors across Lagos are suddenly free to spend excess time with their families). Before I can compose my condolence notes, the news is seconded with the demise of Sir Dele Ige (youngest brother of former Minister of Justice, Bola Ige), also of a cardiac arrest. Oh my goodness, what’s happening today? Somewhere in Nigeria, several thousand families of less known people are equally mourning their losses – fathers, mothers and siblings dying of avoidable causes. Somewhere in Nigeria, not a few chickens are being slaughtered for dinner, and Boko Haram is planning to sentence many more (human beings actually).

Oh yeah, Boko Haram! Wasn’t it reported that Suleiman Mohammed, a senior commander of the radical idiotic group was arrested in Kano and was being flown to Abuja for questioning? My only question is “How long until he is announced to have escaped custody by some freak accident? How soon will they let him walk just like the others before him?” With due respect to the Nigerian police, there have been significant improvements in the crackdown against militants across the country, with several foiled bombings, but this really is not their fight. As much as the committed ones among them are working very hard to fulfill their mandate of keeping the country safe, their honest activities are being daily frustrated by their bosses at all levels and that has to be incredibly difficult to swallow for those of them who realize that. Somehow, in spite of the growing threats against the stability of the country, it sounds quite inconceivable that Nigeria still sends troops on peacekeeping missions to Guinea Bissau and Mali, but apparently, there’s a lot that we ordinary citizens can never understand.

Lest I forget, somewhere in Nigeria, students of the University of Ibadan are spending their third straight week at home since their forceful eviction from campus due to their protest against poor power supply, while medical students from Benue State University are taking to the streets in protest of their tiredness of spending 10 years in school without graduation, due to the non-accreditation of their course of study. What manner of country frustrates her youth with such unflinching dedication that Nigerian administrators do? One is forced to imagine the level of desperation the intending medical doctors must have sunk to after 10 years, but then when one considers the fate of the 778 medical doctors in Lagos who were recently relieved of their jobs by the Grand Commander of Lagosian affairs, other concerns begin to pale in comparison.

Somewhere in Nigeria also, youth corps members are deeply regretting the compulsory nature of the National Youth Service Corps. What happened to the ‘reforms’ brandished by the Honorable Minister of Youth Development and his stooges? How does one expect young chaps who sustain themselves with the scraps they receive from the government to survive now that their measly allocations have been suspended because “the country is cash-strapped and unable to issue monthly allocations to state governments and parastatals?” Nigeria is cash-strapped? Excuse me? Does that mean that the President will now be denied his favourite cassava bread or our legislators will be unable to receive their biscuit allowances for their seating charades because they’ve overspent the entire annual budget? Is there even an auditing agency for government spending?

Am I expecting too much from a country that expects to be one of the leading economies in the world by 2020? Am I being such an alarmist for wondering how passengers were trapped in an elevator for 45 minutes during yet another power outage at the Murtala Muhammed airport on Monday? Am I being too judgmental of the PDP for having to decide whether Justice Ayo Salami will be reinstated to his deserved position as President of the Court of Appeal? Am I unjustified to be shocked at the shameful exchange between Mrs Ndidi Onyuike-Okereke and Ms Arunma Oteh on their failed administration of the country’s financial market? Am I being unrealistic in hoping that at least one of the culprits of the recent fuel subsidy scam will be made to face a probe, even if by the inefficient EFCC?

Thankfully, it’s not all gloomy in Nigeria. Somewhere in Nigeria, some young folks are getting together to organize leadership conferences and discuss the future of the country; somewhere in Nigeria, creative artists are designing and publicizing messages of hope as best they can; somewhere in Nigeria, musical artistes are getting to the studio to record great songs and showcase their expertise; somewhere in Nigeria, young sportsmen and women are making themselves and their nation proud and preparing for the London Olympics; somewhere in Nigeria, aspiring entrepreneurs are building the products of the future and sweating endlessly to deliver qualitative services to the world. Somewhere in Nigeria, people are reading this article and nodding in agreement and making commitments to never give up on the country in the face of all odds; people are deciding that in spite of the prevailing challenges, they will persevere and help to build a sustainable future; people are deciding to put their lives on the line if need be, for a better cause.
No one knows what the future holds, but everyone knows that a beautiful future is not reserved for the weak at heart, everyone can agree that those who go forth today sowing precious seeds with tears in their eyes will doubtless come again with the fruits of a bountiful harvest, everyone can hope that somewhere in Nigeria, from the rubbles of a dead system, the wings of a phoenix will shoot forth and provide healing to 160 million broken hearts. Somewhere in Nigeria, someone just bowed their head in careful meditation and whispered “Amen”.

You can follow Faith Abiodun on Twitter @FaithAbiodun

Omojuwa interviews Senator Bukola Saraki

2012-05-18T12:46:00.001+01:00

Senator Bukola Saraki spoke to Omojuwa.com’s Japh and Fiyinfoluwa Elegbede. We spoke on issues ranging from his current travails with the police, the Senate and it’s allowances, the competence (or otherwise of president Jonathan), his tenure as Kwara State Governor and the issues around the N21 billion loan saga amongst others.

Omojuwa: In the court of public opinion, you are guilty and this is besides the fact that you are a politician. For instance, you went to get an exparte motion over an ordinary police invitation…

Senator Saraki: It was not a case of “I don’t want to go.” I felt that I was being invited to assist in an investigation but by Friday all the blogs and platforms were carrying a lot of inaccurate information. All that was going out and I was like “what’s going on here?”

Omojuwa: What was the court move supposed to achieve?

Senator Saraki: First to have my rights defined in a knotty issue where I was being invited without knowing what the invitation was for and also to object to the underhanded way the whole process was going.

Omojuwa: When you finally decided to go, you sent emissaries ahead of you…

Senator Saraki: No. I was in Abuja. People decided to go to Lagos. The perception is that being a politician, people assume the worst about you. You are never going to get the majority’s benefit of the doubt. If I wanted to mobilise people, I am going from Abuja, won’t I tell them to come and meet me in Abuja? If the objective was to mobilise, why would I be in one car and they come separately? When I went it was only three or four of us.

Omojuwa: So, why is this happening now?

Senator Saraki: Many people are upset. I think I have upset a lot of people. If you look at the reports coming out from the first quarter of this year, you’d have seen a 40 per cent drop. Our trade balances have increased, 153 people were doing that business (petrol importation) now the numbers are far less. Definitely the country is better for my bold move to reveal the petrol subsidy corruption.

Omojuwa: Your senate is the most hated collection of people in Nigeria today and you might actually be amongst the highly ranked ones especially given the recent police events. My worry is that why would someone like you go into the house and see them increase their allowances that are ordinarily extraordinarily big. And based on this 2012 budget, you had another increase. What did you do? Are you comfortable with this?

Sen. Saraki: This is what I’ve always said that we bring the issue to public fora. Our salary per se is about a million naira a month. Now what has happened is that the cost of running the office, public hearings, constituency running and all that what you can call running operations ..

Omojuwa: Cuts in…is it more than the cost of the American president running the White House?

Sen. Saraki: Because the American president you don’t see it under their salary. It’s a different item entirely.

Omojuwa: why don’t you guys make a law or something to separate your salaries from these expenses?

Sen. Saraki: Yes. It’s an issue, why don’t we like..

Omojuwa: the reason why you didn’t must be because you are able to not incur those expenses and then still add them to your salaries. Let’s face the reality.

Senator Saraki: No no no, don’t judge like that. First of all, let us first accept the fact that the word “salary” is not a true representation of what is generally put out there. Then we can now go to the next stage which is to say “okay then why do you do this? Why don’t you do this?”

Omojuwa: The reason why I am saying that is because you guys have been rightly receiving flaks for years now on your allowances and then you are saying these monies are being used to run the office which in itself may not be bad so why don’t you create…

Senator Saraki: But we have said in the past they’ve tried as much as possible to explain to the public. I mean this is not the first time…

Omojuwa: The public will not understand. When they know that what is being budgeted for constituency projects actually go into private pockets. Why don’t we have a process in place where these monies don’t have to go through the individual senator for instance, like the American president?

Senator Saraki: The American president retires his expenses, same way a British member of parliament retires his expenses. The British media does not call what is retired a salary. “This is what I have spent money on,” they retire it and they get paid. But nobody calls it their salary.

Omojuwa: That’s because we don’t have any empirical evidence of that here. And what made you guys increase it again all of a sudden? Is it because of the effects of fuel subsidy removal or do you now spend more on some other things?

Sen. Saraki: That’d largely be the operational cost because the salary has not moved. It is the cost of operations.

Omojuwa: But the salary is insignificant to what you take home!

Sen. Saraki: When you talk about salaries, I am saying the figures you are using to define the salaries are not accurate. There are things that have been lumped up to call salaries that are not salaries.

Omojuwa: But all the money gets “lumped” up for Senators to take home.

Sen. Saraki: Some people do work.

Omojuwa: Don’t you think it is too much for us to spend that much money in a country that is not being run inefficiently?

Sen. Saraki: I believe we can be more efficient and should be more efficient and should indeed try to be more efficient. But the question that this money all the members of the National Assembly just take and do nothing with them and pocket like it is part of their salary is not true. I think that there is a need to bring down the cost of government. I think that as we move ahead something will be done.

Omojuwa: When?

Sen. Saraki: Because we will do it.

Omojuwa: When? These are problems we’ve always identified.

Sen. Saraki: Mind that some of us have only done one year and I have personally made impact if you look at least the results of the fuel subsidy process. We need more daring hands in there.

Omojuwa: The Senate has been pretty useless. Apart from the corruption reports, the panels…take for instance the house of representatives has found out things in the subsidy regime, why would the senate now decide to sit over the same thing? You would say that’s the process but sometimes you have to look beyond these so called processes. Your senate will be spending extra money to find out what the reps have already found out.

Sen. Saraki: I could use that same argument. You could have used the argument that “why did the house of reps start what the senate had started?” The point is if we don’t finish the process now, it’s you same people that will say the only reason why senate has not finished…

Omojuwa: The Speaker of the House of Representatives has much more trust…I can’t even say more trust because the senate president is not trusted at all.

Sen. Saraki: The style of management is different.

Omojuwa: You are saying this as a politician.

Sen. Saraki: No. I am not. Wasn’t I the one that got up in September? You didn’t know about the core issues of the fuel subsidy. I was the first person to pin point the fraud and the unacceptable amount of money being spent on subsidy. The results are there today and nobody remembers that.

Omojuwa: Could this be the reason you are being witch-hunted?

Sen. Saraki: I am not saying that. All I am saying is let us be frank here…if I never got up to say what I said in September, how would we know what we know today? Let us say it as it is. I knew the risks. I knew a lot of people would be upset. I knew a lot of fuel subsidy businesses would be affected, but in the interest of our country I got up to say it and that is the topic of the whole country today.
Omojuwa: I am personally concerned about this issue of allowances.

Senator Saraki: If I could take that kind of risk (fuel subsidy), all these other issues you are talking about are less risky compared to this.

Omojuwa: They are all equal risks.

Senator Saraki: No they are not. You see you have lost faith.

Omojuwa: I haven’t. I am speaking for a lot of people right now.

Senator Saraki: I say it myself. I said one of the problems we’ve had over the years, we’ve lost the confidence of the people. I have been in position to understand that. I have been in this to understand that. Being a former governor, I know what people believe, “arrgh, governors are thieves” but there is something I do at the end of the day.
When I first moved the motion they said the motion will never see the light of day, when the motion did, they said “arrrgh, they will never allow it to form panel” after that they said “arrrgh, the report will never come, they have bribed all of them,” now the report has come, “arrrgh, there will be no action.”
What I am saying is that I understand where you guys are coming from. You see, let me tell you what has been happening amongst the political class. The clever ones, the intelligent ones know that it is not the same Nigeria and those intelligent ones know that what they used to do before and get away with they cannot do anymore.
If this report was 10 years ago, even 6 or 5 years ago it would never see the light of day. So all of us are beginning to see that things are changing, accountable and transparent but what has happened is cumulative.

Omojuwa: The public eye is very much on you (politicians)

Senator Saraki: Yes, and everyone has come to accept that the public eye is now on us. What used to be done before, the party is over and cannot be done again.

Omojuwa: What do you think about the Jonathan government?

Senator Saraki: The challenges are enormous. I think the president and the circumstances around him, he is doing his best because…

Omojuwa: (cuts in) the challenges he created for himself!

Senator Saraki: No, no, no. it is the environment, it is not that he created the challenges.

Omojuwa: Yar’ Adua didn’t leave this kind of challenges. Are you absolving President Jonathan of his responsibilities?

Senator Saraki: I am not. What I am saying is, before you access someone….

Omojuwa: (cuts in) ok. Do you think he has done well?

Senator Saraki: Difficult question (*Omojuwa laughs). No, I’ll tell you why it’s a difficult question. Because how can I say somebody has done well when we have these security challenges going on? So it is not a case of “has he done well?” what I am saying is that before you assess somebody, you will look at the challenges of his government and how he is trying to cope with it. Is he doing his best to cope with it?

Omojuwa: Does it look like he can cope with it?

Senator Saraki: I think he can.

Omojuwa: Has he shown any sign of that?

Senator Saraki: I think he can. People just take the issue of security; some of the successes they achieved are not out there because there is security issue.

Omojuwa: Successes like?

Senator Saraki: In being able to prevent certain attacks.

Omojuwa: Do you say that as a person or as a politician?

Senator Saraki: I say it as a person. I say the things I know.

Omojuwa: You are a member of the PDP government so I don’t expect you to say otherwise.

Senator Saraki: I have told you, when something was not okay with fuel subsidy, I got up. I am a PDP member. Those that know me will tell you, if I believe in something, I look at you and tell you “this is how it is.” That’s the way I am.

Omojuwa: Nigerians generally agree that the PDP has failed.

Senator Saraki: No. They don’t agree, that’s why they voted for the PDP.

Omojuwa: Let’s not go into the area of “voted for.”

Senator Saraki: Listen. There is no other way of acceptability. You might sit in your room and say “they’ve failed,” the only democratic means…

Omojuwa: Are you saying the PDP has been a success?

Senator Saraki: What I am saying is, under the circumstances the PDP has done…*long silence*

Omojuwa: (cuts in) I am going to make this the headline.

Senator Saraki: No, don’t make it the headline. You cannot make it the headline, let me get it right now *general laughter*
What I am saying is that the PDP has made good effort and made great achievement.

Omojuwa: That is the problem, effort is not enough.

Senator Saraki: We have achieved in certain sectors. We have achieved. We have been able to address the issue of infrastructure.

Omojuwa: Infrastructure? In what country?

Senator Saraki: In this country *general laughter*

Omojuwa: You are going to create enemies for yourself. Infrastructure? Are you talking of Aso Rock as a country?

Senator Saraki: Let me speak for Kwara. Kwara is a PDP state.

Omojuwa: Okay. I am saying Nigeria, so really if you want to say Kwara, stick with Kwara.

Senator Saraki: Okay Kwara, I am speaking for Kwara. Kwara is a PDP State.

Omojuwa: So you are speaking for Kwara, you are avoiding the “Nigeria” part of the question.

Senator Saraki: I am giving it as an example. I am not avoiding.

Omojuwa: The PDP has failed and it is easier for you to just admit that.

Senator Saraki: The PDP has not failed. You voted for us.

Omojuwa: The fact that you are even saying Kwara in place of Nigeria says something. Okay, I want to go to Kwara now considering that you’ve accepted the PDP has failed.

Senator Saraki: Nooo, I have not accepted PDP has failed. I have not accepted.

Omojuwa: I understand.

Senator Saraki: Don’t understand. I have not accepted o.

Omojuwa: I was following your government…

Senator Saraki: (cuts in) but on a serious note PDP has not failed, so put that on record.

Omojuwa: It’s okay *chuckles*
One of your projects as governor was the agriculture project and I actually heard you say at the time that Kwara would provide enough food to feed the nation.

Senator Saraki: I said this 5 years ago, go and write it down. When this country finally gets its agriculture right, you’d see that the model that’d finally work is the model I have put in Kwara. What did I do? Previous administrations had focused on subsistence farming. We moved away from that and I said “we must go into commercial farming.” And today if you see the results that we have, there are several products coming from Kwara including secondary production stages off the primary products like cassava and cassava factories for instance.

Omojuwa: A lot of people said all you did was develop Ilorin.

Senator Saraki: The Shonga Farms was not in Ilorin.

Omojuwa: I am not even speaking about farms; I am speaking in terms of general infrastructure.

Senator Saraki: The largest project I spent money on was in Kwara North. The largest amount I spent on roads was in Kwara North. Let me tell you why some people might say that. As a leader and administrator, we realised we needed a capital city that’d attract the private sector. We needed to enable Ilorin to be a hub and a distribution point for business.
Now what has happened after that investment? Ilorin has now expanded because we have increased the value of the place. The city is growing. If you see Ilorin now, it was not the Ilorin I met in 2003. Because of the expansion that is going on, all the suburbs are developing.

Omojuwa: As Governor, how many jobs did you create?

Senator Saraki: I can’t remember but I know that unemployment rate in Kwara is about 11.3 per cent, and the country’s average is 19.4 per cent and that shows you that definitely there is a difference.

Omojuwa: and that is based on your activities?

Senator Saraki: Yes, based on our activities.

Questions from the web:
Omojuwa: Thoughts on true federalism

Senator Saraki: In Kwara for example, local governments manage their own fund. For instance, I encouraged commissioners at the state level to go an run for Local Government Chairman. So when you want to run true federalism in this country, then you need to increase the capacity of the people.

Omojuwa: On your P.A and the loans

Senator Saraki: Sometimes I think it’s the responsibility of some of you guys that report. At least let us report what is accurate. He did not get any document, he got the facility based on loan to shares, there was no document.

Omojuwa: They said another P.A was able to withdraw from his account.

Senator Saraki; There was no P.A that was able to withdraw from his account. You see a lot of junks out there and majority of these are not true. And this is in the open because when the false information got out about the boy being attacked, the poor boy had been in hospital for six months suffering from diabetes. All it takes is one of you guys to just go to LUTH and they’ll confirm. When you talk about security documents, all those are not true. They are not true and all these information are available. The company got shares for loans. Most of these things, be rest assured and continue to be rest assured are not true.
I can see the loss of confidence in our leaders. As far as everybody is concerned, they just use one brush “everybody is a thief,” “everybody is this,” “everybody is that.”

Omojuwa: Are you saying, eight years of being a governor, tried to run for president and I am sure the PDP through their system must have said “sit down there.”

Senator Saraki: *Senator laughs* No. I did run.

Omojuwa: I don’t consider anybody that was not a candidate a serious contender.

Senator Saraki: I was a candidate now.

Omojuwa: No, you were an aspirant.

Senator Saraki: Yeah aspirant but under my party, to become a candidate you must win, so it’s not that the party said you should not run.

Omojuwa: I know how you guys do it.

Senator Saraki: How do we do it? *general laughter*

Omojuwa: My question, in a country like ours where a governor is very powerful and directs money here and there, are you saying that no amount of money belonging to your state passed through your account?

Senator Saraki: There was a purpose I went there. I went there to serve. Look, as I said to you…

Omojuwa: (cuts in) You never ever, not even borrowed?

Senator Saraki: No. To do what? When I was going to campaign, somebody called and was like “arggh, this silver spoon boy, walahi he is going there to steal.” *Omojuwa laughs* So they now asked me, “you that you have never seen poverty, how are you going to do it?”
I said this is the problem of us Nigerians. The man that had not seen wealth, you carry him and put him there. What do you think he is going to do when he gets there? He will first fill his stomach. I am being honest. So our system has not matured so you are guided by “what are your own values?” “what is right or wrong?” if I am governor ten to fifteen times, what legacy do I want to leave. It is not the money. It was never about the money and it will never be about the money.

Omojuwa: You stopped your dad from making another Saraki governor…

Senator Saraki: No. no. no. I didn’t stop him.

Omojuwa: Why did you go against the man that practically made you governor?

Senator Saraki: That is not the issue.

Omojuwa: What happened?

Senator Saraki: This one is a long story, you need to come back some other time, so let’s move to another one. This one will take two hours for us to discuss. I don’t want you to take this out of me.

Omojuwa: The bank loan controversy

Senator Saraki: These are companies I did have interest in having resigned when I became a governor. If you all remember in 2008 during the boom in the stock market, banks were giving out facilities to individuals and companies for the purpose of buying shares. The securities for those loans were the shares. There were no securities for those loans with property or personal cash. So when the market now collapsed in 2009, most individuals in the country, most people decided to say “well bank, since security are the shares, go and realise your security and majority of people walked away from the loan. At that time I did but may be on hindsight now may be I’d do differently. I approached the bank to reach an agreement and the bank agreed and an agreement was reached. You owe so much, pay this and we will now find ourselves…this was 2009, thisis not something new. Some people gave the impression that it was done by Layi Alabi’s management, no, it was Akingbola’s management that started the negotiation, concluded it but by the time he was to pay he had gone. The arrangement under Akingbola’s management was even better for us than what was agreed by Layi Alabi’s management.

This went through the board. The credit committee board gave approval not that one person at the more so same time over 30 other companies were the same given concession. Even the companies that were given concession were even refusing and said “why should I pay you more than the shares you are holding?”

Central bank examined the banks. If there was something that was not right they would have rejected it and said “no, this company should not pay five, they should go and pay seven, they should go and pay eight.”
We did not give ourselves waiver. Which is curious because 2010 when I was running for president under the party primaries, this matter came up, a petition was written.

Police had investigated this case before o, this thing that you are hearing in 2010. The Central Bank investigated and then this comes in at best this is a civil matter. At the very best but the bank is not complaining, Central Bank is not complaining, nobody is complaining about the transaction. The petition that the chap wrote, he did not mention my name in the entire two and a half pages of the petition. All he said was he wanted the bank to conclude and give him a statement.

So that went away. 2010 went away and this time 2012 the same week we were coming back after recess, House of Representatives were submitting their report on fuel subsidy. The timing is very curious but again these are some of the sacrifices or hazards but the way it’s been presented, which was one of the reasons why the issue of protecting ones fundamental rights comes up. It is as if it’s a criminal act. Is it the loan that is criminal, is it the repayment of the loan? If the bank is not satisfied let the bank say “ok, take your money back the money you’ve paid us are not enough, we want our full money.” I will collect my money bank and I will say “how much do you want? Your security is your shares, go and realise your shares.”

Most of these people did not even pay, they are all at AMCON, and AMCON is not even disturbing anybody, so one even looks as if looked on hindsight in trying to do the right thing one is being given the impression ….there was no physical cash that went into my pocket, the loan goes, you pay shares, they owe the shares. So it’s not that cash, came these billions were to be withdrawn as cash out of the bank. Nothing came out of the bank, they were just facility, the shares will be there and according to the agreement they are meant to sell the shares if they believed the share price was coming down in view of the loan. So the point I am making is that the impression given out there is not exactly what has happened and I said at best, at the very worst, this is a civil matter. There is no criminality along this process. It is not government fund. These loans were given to many people at that time, the percentage they were given I am sure the bank probably had like N300 billion in loans of those kind of nature. So when you are talking about a group having between 7 and N8 billion of which you pay about 4 point something billion. They were not doing a favour, all the other 34 companies they gave nobody has asked them.

There is no doubt about it, it looks as though one has just been singled out. It looks very odd. This transaction is not something that is fresh, it’s been going on for the last 3 years and every time it raises its head up if you look around the environment there is something that is happening. Something else is happening that gives one great concern. The point I am making is I have not done anything that is criminal. The issue is an agreement, the bank offered the customer agreed. The worst the bank can say is that they don’t agree but nobody is saying that.

Omojuwa: What about the whole court drama?

Senator Saraki: I agreed to go and there is evidence to show that. I said to them “I am coming on this date,” that was early on around Monday the 16th of April. When the petition took an ugly turn in the sense that things started getting posted on many platforms online and all that, I could see that there was an intentional move by the police trying to portray loan fraud and create a perception around that. First it was N21 billion, then it became down to N8billion then it became an issue of “we want to know whether this or that.” My question was that “My invitation said I was invited to assist an investigation that was not being concluded and then all of a sudden it was as if one was being treated as a prime suspect. I didn’t like that aspect at all, then I said to myself, I can’t allow myself to be given this kind of media trial in the front of the public.

And that is really what the issues are, not that I wanted to evade anything. Because there was no part of the invitation that said I was a prime suspect, it was the way I was being castigated in the media and all that. I said come, “I have rights. Are these people allowed to do this kind of thing?” not that one was shielding himself from going to the police. The process of going to court was to say “the police, even if you are pleading your issue, you must plead within the confines of the law” not to shield myself. Even before then, I’d show you that on that Monday I was ready to go to court. It was when the thing started getting ugly that I said “hey, what’s going on here? I have not done anything wrong, why are you saying loan fraud.” All these information are out there.

I offered to go, they said they were not ready on the day I offered to come and gave me another date. By the time it got to the other date, I observed certain things that were going in the process I was being investigated I did not like. And I said look, there is something here that did not follow due process that I was concerned about. So I said look “let this matter be decided in court.” And don’t forget also I said to you, there was a lot of frustration in the whole issue. Where is the criminality for heaven’s sake? Loan fraud, this and that, billions. They gave a loan, so okay, let us go to court, let the court determine that something criminal has happened. To be hounded for three years now on the same matter that has to do with a bank and its customer. You have been investigated before, not once, not twice. It gets to a point you need to get the courts to define these things. If it was something that was based on public finance or something I’d understand. This is not the first time, this has been investigated before, the reports are there you can go and check the reports. This was why I felt it had to be dealt with under the tenets of the law once and for all instead of being hounded every now and then.

Omojuwa: Why do you find joy in corrupt practices/excessive accumulation of material wealth at the detriment of the masses?

Senator Saraki: When you say corruption, where is the corruption? Even this issue that everybody is talking about, where is the corruption? They did not say it’s government money. They said I took a loan but the loan has been paid, there is no money missing so where is the corruption? Material wealth? Where is the material? People like us made sacrifices. Kwara State is number 34 on allocation, go to the State, when you see the level of development, you’d be forced to as how we did it. But majority of these people that speak don’t even bother. I am sure you now, you have never been to Kwara.

Omojuwa: of course I have.

Senator Saraki: When last were you there?

Omojuwa: I was there last October 1st

Senator Saraki: What are your thoughts?

Omojuwa: When I said to my host “this is beautiful, I’m impressed,” the impression I got was No, you just fixed Ilorin, and left the suburbs.

Omojuwa: What are you going to do to ensure the subsidy probe process is seen to its very end?

Senator Saraki: I started it and I am not someone to quit.

Omojuwa: How long do you think it will take Nigeria to develop as a nation?

Senator Saraki: When the leaders begin to see that Nigeria has changed. Young guys like yourself are beginning to ask us, beginning to question us. That kind of environment definitely corruption will reduce. It will take all our efforts to move Nigeria in the right direction. We also need to allow people with ability and capacity to lead. What used to happen in the past used we used to send our first 11 to go and be lawyers, doctors et al and the other 11 go into politics but even that is changing. As long as the quality of people running for office and getting into office continues to get better, the country will get better. I understand that things have been bad in the past.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to defend that but I think we’ve all had our own efforts. Ten years ago guys of your age were not interested in what government was doing; now I commend you for it. You are able to say “No! this is what we want’” “No! this is what this man is doing!” if they were doing that ten, twenty years ago, those legislators, governors and ministers of those days would not do what they did. Now people are becoming serious. We are still not there but it is becoming better. You cannot have a developed society until the majority care about how they are governed. It is all of us taking the fault and working to make Nigeria better for all of us.

Still on Failing State & Fading Peacekeepers by Nasir El-Rufai

2012-05-12T17:05:00.003+01:00

Last week’s column on our nation’s peacekeeping failures ruffled more than a few feathers both within the defence establishment and corridors of executive power. That was expected, because when those wasting our resources in the name of our defence become exposed in the way our peacekeeping capacity has rapidly deteriorated, all kinds of motives will be imputed to divert attention from the wanton looting of the defence and security budgets going on between the presidency and the agencies concerned.

Far more humbling and sobering for me were the number of military officers, both serving and retired that called, wrote, tweeted and sent emails to confirm the essence of what we wrote last week, and offered further stories, anecdotes and facts about the general decline of our once-proud military and peacekeeping capabilities. It seems according to one commentator, that the Nigerian military now has acquired all the sad constituents of decay that have bedeviled the country. We will share some of these today, looking a little closer at the quantity and quality of the equipment of the Nigeria Army, facts about the declining levels of our peacekeeping capacity and the disorganization and mismanagement of our defence infrastructure in the last few years.

The backbone of any Army is the Infantry, Armoured and Artillery Corps. They are the ones that fight the wars. All other corps largely provide support services. Let us look at information published in Failed States – 2030 authored by some colonels of the US Air University in 2010. So consider first, some of the equipment holdings of the Armoured Corps of the Nigerian Army, of the 129 T-55 main battle tanks owned, 29 are out of service. Similarly, only 36 of 150 Vickers Mk 3 battle tanks are functional. Out of 120 AML Reconnaissance vehicles, only 40 were functional in 2010, and only four Saxon Armoured Personnel Carriers were operational out of 75. No wonder, we can only send a few broken-down APCs to Darfur.

Take the Artillery Corps. They initially owned 48 155mm FH-77B Howitzers but only 25 are working. Out of 200 122mm D-74/D-30 Field Guns, only 84 worked in 2010, while all the eight 122mm BM-21 rocket launchers we had had broken down. The anti-tank weapons cache is slightly better, though pathetic by the standards of modern warfare. We have 3,000 RPGs for the entire Infantry Corps, explaining why our soldiers in Darfur cannot have any to repel rebel attacks. We had 240 of 3.5″ RL M20 anti-tank guns but when you have a country where equipment continually depreciates with no effort or resources put into maintenance or replacement, barely 10% (24) of those guns are functional. It does not get any better; only 12 of the 50 40mm Bofors L/60 air defense weapons are still doing what they were purchased to do. The list goes on and on with barely any of the categories having all their equipment ready for the defence job for which they are meant. And yet, we budget over nearly 1.2 percent of our GDP on defence!

It is also sad to note that one brand of the Armoured Personnel Carrier, Cobra which is in the holding of the Nigerian troops in Darfur is a topic of jest amongst other country contingents. It is reputed to be Chinese manufacture, but the engines were sourced from another country. The Cobra APCs are not up to 7 years old, yet they have all broken down. In saner climes, whoever purchased such refurbished contraption should be court-martialled or put on trial, but in Nigeria, he probably got a promotion and national honour!

Apart from our major military equipment which to a large extent are broken-down, there are quality issues with the personal equipment such as boots, blankets and bullet proof vests, which to say the least is pathetic. Some of the troops deployed to UNMIL in August to September 2010 lacked beds and mattresses; some had only mattresses, while others slept on the bare floor, and the conditions have not changed for the better.
As is usual in the case of Nigeria, the decline in quantity and quality of defense equipment is ironically not as a result of funds allocated to the sector; instead it is quite the contrary. As the government allocates more resources to the sector, there is a corresponding decline in the quality of our peacekeeping capacity. It is also evident that the defence ministry specializes in purchasing sub-standard equipment that are not durable.

There appears to be no procedure or consideration made to replace already broken-down equipment until the troops are left with nothing thereby giving room for a huge allocation to be made for the purchase of such equipment which eventually never happens.
Besides the sorry state of defence equipment, the quantity and quality of the peace-keepers are on the decline. Quality, as shown in last week’s article, is a function of training, both in hard military fighting skills which we demonstrated in Congo in 1960 and ECOMOG in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, but are unfortunately losing as shown by the ease with which our troops are being routinely disarmed and killed in Sudan sometimes without fighting back. Training in “soft skills” required in modern peacekeeping operations to address human rights and sexual exploitation, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR),etc. are absolutely necessary to enhance our peacekeeping capabilities. These soft skills training has never been our forte and it is disheartening to observe that no efforts have been put towards changing the status quo.
Quality is also measured by logistic capability of the contingent which includes the capacity and ability to transport a contingent to and from theatre using a nation’s own air force, how it maintains those troops in the theatre in terms of feeding, medicals, accommodation, water, sanitation, minor engineering, transport needs and recreation. This is the area where countries make the money UN pays them for logistics but Nigeria scores abysmally low here and our soldiers are among the worst in almost all operations we participate.

Apart from loss of money, there is the attendant loss of prestige in fielding a rag tag army that cannot cater for itself while other national contingents from even poorer African countries are doing far better with Ghana, Rwanda, and Ethiopia just to mention a few.
The MOU signed in January 2008, between Nigeria and the UN for troops deployment to UNAMID in Sudan, provides that Nigeria will be paid a sum of $83,422,020 each quarter, all things being equal, for deploying 4 infantry battalions. However, out of this amount, for a particular quarter, the country was only able to claim, a paltry $15,902,122.07 thus losing a whopping $67,519,897.93. If one takes into account that the MOU was signed in January 2008 at the beginning of UNAMID, an operation which is still ongoing, and also the fact that the logistical situation of the Nigerian units in the operations has not improved since then, and may have even deteriorated further, the losses as at present (2012) would be colossal as Nigeria would have lost a total of at least $804 million since the operation started, a potential revenue loss of N128 billion, or nearly a third of the defence budget in 2012.

Sadly, in UNMIL, the Nigerian units were rated lowest among all national contingents deployed to the operation meeting barely 60% of COE obligations thus forfeiting another $325,196,93 for the corresponding period. In typical fire brigade manner, the Nigerian government made the necessary minimal purchases for the contingents to ensure that the Nigerian units were not deactivated following the threat by the UN to do so.

Nigeria was until recently, the biggest African contributor in terms of quantity to global peacekeeping. Quantity is assessed in terms of the number of military and police peacekeepers that each member state contributes to the UN peacekeeping. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, towards the end of 1999 began to display and keep monthly records of peacekeeping contributions by each country. The countries are then ranked in order of the total number of peacekeepers they contribute monthly to the UN.
It is interesting to note that for more than 3 years unbroken, Nigeria was placed fourth largest contributor to UN peace operations behind only India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and also the largest contributor among African countries. Unfortunately, once again, rather than improve, Nigeria has slipped back a place from December 2011 to number 5 and Nigeria’s fourth position is occupied by Ethiopia, another less-endowed African country. Another record which Nigeria held up till the end of 2011 was being the highest contributor of female peacekeepers. Once again, the position has been taken by South Africa.

Until recently, Nigeria held top mission leadership positions in the UN such as Special Representative of the Secretary General, Force Commander, Deputy Force Commander, Sector Commanders and Police Commissioner. This no longer obtains due to the deterioration in the quality and quantity of our peacekeeping contributions. For instance, Nigeria lost UNAMID command to Rwanda when General Agwai was not given an extension. Nigeria also lost some positions in UNMIL Liberia. Currently, only Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari of UNAMID and General Moses Obi, Force Commander UNMISS occupy such posts. A contributory factor to Nigeria losing such positions is the dysfunctional selection process into the peacekeeping force that allows for people to be sent for missions not based on their abilities but on who they know. Eventually they compete with the best from other countries and as expected, cannot beat the competition and meet the rigorous standards of the UN.

Finally, corruption within the Nigerian Army is a major mitigating factor to any meaningful progress in the defence sector. Rather than use the UN peacekeeping reimbursements (which are not claimed in full due to our poor performance) gained from participation in peacekeeping to better equip and train the armed forces, these monies are diverted for political interests such as funding political campaigns. In 2010, there was a case where the national,assembly raised queries regarding funds earmarked to buy equipment for peacekeeping which was never spent. The issue died a natural death as soon as the relevant committee was “carried along” in Nigerian political parlance!

In conclusion, the hard earned reputation of Nigeria in international peacekeeping gained through the efforts of late General Aguiyi-Ironsi, Generals Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo and T Y Danjuma, as far back as 1960 is about to be lost as our contingents are now rated among the worst in terms of training, logistics and professionalism. Even the fighting reputation we used to have no longer exists as all it takes to disarm our ill equipped troops are rag tag bandits. Something needs to be done. Is the commander-in-chief listening, or do all Nigerians need to take up arms against the state, become militants, insurgents or terrorists to attract his attention?

Between Terrorism and Corruption – Implications For Nigeria : Paper Presented by Nasir El-Rufai

2012-05-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

Between Terrorism and Corruption – Implications for Nigeria
(Draft for Discussion)
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
Protocols
Introduction
I am pleased to be with the Silver Knights this afternoon to share my thoughts about two issues that confront our nation – terrorism and corruption. As a well-known opposition figure, I want to state clearly that the views expressed here are mine, and not of the political party I belong to – the Congress for Progressive Change. Secondly, my opinions are based on my interpretation of facts on the ground and research done by others, and not driven by politics.

At the crossroads that we have found ourselves as a nation, where a sitting government has shown no capacity and competence to confront these two challenges, we must be blunt in evaluating what has gone wrong – perhaps the moral outrage that results will be the basis for action to change things for the better. There are some preconceived and utterly wrong notions of where we are, how we got to this point and who to hold accountable that need to be questioned. There are narratives that are biased and not serving the nation well that need to be stated openly and sterilized. This is a duty beyond politics and partisanship, founded on respect for facts and logic. I will do my best to present some of these as a basis for our engagement. I thank you again for inviting me.

Terrorism and corruption are two words that now dominate our headline news more than any others. Domestic terrorism has now joined corruption as defining characteristics of our nation. It is sad that while other countries grapple with rebuilding their financial systems, upgrading their physical infrastructure and human capital, and adopting leapfrogging technologies to enhance their global competitiveness, our sensibilities are daily affronted by news of stolen trillions, multiple bombings and hapless leaders.

Terrorism

Terrorism is simply the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political goals. While to many, it appears to be a recent phenomenon in Nigeria, looking at it closely shows it has been with us in various degrees. What else do most of our political parties do other than use violence and intimidation in pursuit of political goals? Who else exemplifies these characteristics more than the ruling party? In the context of this definition, where would you place what OPC and Egbesu Boys were doing in the 1990s? What have the militants of the Niger Delta and their umbrella organization called MEND been doing for years? Now there is no dispute as to whether the anarchist Boko Haram is a terrorist organization or not. The truth is that one’s freedom fighter is the terrorist in the eyes of another.

Even with the activities of these fringe ethnic and regional groupings, Nigeria did not enter the map of terrorism-prone nations until recently. Maplecroft, a British risk analysis and mapping firm that publishes the Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) ranked our country 19th and at “extreme risk” of terrorism in 2011, ahead of Israel (20th) but safer than Yemen, South Sudan and India among others. With the escalation of attacks by Boko Haram in the north, and resumption of threats and hostilities by MEND in the Niger Delta, Nigeria is likely to jump to near the top of the TRI soon, unless something concrete is done.

Our nation and citizens are in grave danger. Our unity in diversity is at the highest levels of risk since independence. The possible break-up of Nigeria is being discussed openly not only in the Villa, but in various regional and cultural association meetings. Our democracy is in danger, and its desirable end canvassed by young people in social media. The state no longer has monopoly of violence, and no longer in exclusive control of our maritime borders. We are increasingly resembling a failed state with confused and corrupt persons at the helm of affairs who seem concerned only about enriching themselves and their coteries of choristers. How did we get to this point of near helplessness so fast?

Corruption

Corruption on the other hand refers to dishonest or fraudulent conduct by people vested with authority, and usually involves bribery or gratification. I think corruption is something Nigerians are sufficiently familiar with, so we do not need to spend a lot of time defining it. We all know it when we see it, and we see it often. For those in public office, I think the best way to determine whether that innocuous end-of-the-year gift amounts to a bribe, the question posed by Islamic jurists is appropriate – “Will this thing of value be offered to me by the person in question if I am not holding this public office?” If the answer to the question is not an immediate and unhesitant “Yes”, then the gift is a bribe, and should therefore be rejected.

You will notice I have carefully avoided referring to legislation, legal maxims and decided cases in defining either terrorism or corruption. It is not just because we have little by way of convictions for terrorism and corruption in our case law, but because many Nigerians have lost confidence in our justice system in its effort to deal with these terrible phenomena. For years, our nation has struggled with the reputation of being one of the world’s most corrupt nations. In 2002 we were amongst the bottom three, but with the emergence of EFCC and the implementation of several governance reforms between 2003 and 2007, we were out of the bottom thirty by the time the Obasanjo administration left office.

Under Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC charged eleven former governors for corruption and money laundering. With the exception of Lucky Igbinedion’s ‘plea bargain’ arranged by Farida Waziri, none of the cases have moved forward since then. Several of them now sit in the senate and chair powerful committees. Our justice system has been lax and ambivalent about dealing with cases of grand corruption, as evidenced by the recent conviction of James Ibori in London after a federal high court in Asaba had dismissed over 100 counts of money laundering and corruption against him. It is not surprising that we are now back to nearer the bottom of the corruption league table.

According to Human Rights Watch (2007), the endemic nature of corruption in Nigeria has led to the loss of US $380 billion between independence and 1999. A Global Financial Integrity Initiative report dated January 2011 estimated that US $130 billion worth of illicit financial flows occurred between 2000 to 2008. Adding these numbers to the loss of nearly $7 billion to the fuel subsidy racket alone brings our national loss due to corruption to something in the region of US $600 billion from independence to end of 2011!
In 2008, Afrobarometer reported that 57% of respondents surveyed considered the Yar’Adua government as handling the anti-corruption war badly. The same survey revealed that 30% of respondents did not trust political parties. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2010 painted a similar picture with 40% of household respondents judging the government’s war against corruption as ineffective, while political parties and the national assembly were perceived to be amongst the most corrupt bodies in Nigeria, side by side with the Nigeria Police.

This finding – that political parties, the legislature and the Police are the least trusted is not surprising because corruption takes many forms. Indeed, I am of the view that rigging elections is the foundation of all corruption because it confers power without legitimacy, and without responsibility. And in Nigeria’s fourth republic in particular, it has birthed not only financial corruption, but immorality, violent crimes and terrorism.
The scale and scope of corruption in Nigeria have moved from irritating road-side demands and under-the-table payments worth billions of naira per annum captured by officials to a multi-trillion naira business under Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Everywhere we bother to check, billions and trillions are being wasted or stolen – fuel subsidy, pension funds, inflated and unexecuted contracts, goods and services paid for that are never supplied, taxes collected but not remitted, illegal allowances and benefits collected by officials, and entire budgets for security diverted to private pockets. How did we get to this point of near hopelessness so fast?

The Unholy Trinity

Violent crimes, corruption and terrorism were referred to as the unholy trinity that would confront citizens and countries in the twenty first century by Shelley (2005). These constitute Siamese triplets that often go together. Some commentators like Sarup (2005) insist that corruption increases terrorism. Contributing at a debate about corruption in India, a judge, Justice Santosh Hegde opined that “terrorism is caused by a disease called greed.” He went to observe that “politics was public service, now it is business.” Do these sound familiar? Do these opinions apply to us in Nigeria in 2012?

In my humble opinion, our own version of the unholy trinity has roots in toxic politics, rigged elections and bad governance. Political ‘God-Fatherism’, transactional leadership and social injustice are the key manifestations of this trinity. They are a toxic cocktail that would bring down any community, nation or government sooner or later. We got to where we are because due to years of practicing a brand of politics that is neither democratic nor meritocratic, with elections that are mostly rigged in many parts of the country, and political parties that are capriciously controlled by a few people.

Undemocratic politics is based on the deployment of money, violent thugs and coercive powers of state machinery. In many states, politicians and parties have armies of “youths” that are fed with cheap drugs and then armed with machetes, swords and guns to attend political rallies and attack any perceived opponents of the party and candidate. For instance, in Bauchi, Isa Yuguda has his ‘sara-suka’ (attack and stab), Ali Modu Sheriff in Borno had his ECOMOG, and Gombe’s Danjuma Goje had his “Yan Kalare”. In Rivers State, Ateke Tom and Asari Dokubo were similarly trained and armed by the PDP initially to ‘win elections’.
What then happens after the elections are won and the supply of cash and drugs end? Society was left with young, bitter and hopeless people that happen to possess some dangerous weapons. The result – kidnappers for cash that metamorphosed into militants in the Niger Delta, kidnappers and armed robbers in the South-East and Area Boys and various NURTW thugs in the South-West, and Boko Haram in the North-East.

When ‘elected’ officials know for sure that they were not truly elected, but rigged their way to power, the organic link of accountability between the leadership and the electorate is broken. The ‘elected’ official panders to the interest groups that got his or her into office rather than the people – these could be the party Godfathers, the officials that wrote the results (INEC, Police and the SSS) or the thugs that snatched ballot boxes and so on. The structure and composition of these interest groups vary from state to state, but the overall picture is similar across the board.

Pandering to these narrow interests cost money with the result that diverting budgets, operating huge security votes and appointing hundreds of ‘aides’ that do nothing becomes the norm. It is when these interests are taken care of that the electorate is remembered. The overall outcome is capricious governance, discretionary application of resources and transactional mindset in governance. Little can be achieved under these scenarios, and this is what happens in most of our 36 states, the FCT and the Federal Government in most of the 13 years of ‘democratic’ governance.

Social and economic injustice is the sum total of these decisions and actions by the political leadership. Young people that have worked hard to get an education do not have equal opportunity to compete for jobs, because only those that are politically-connected get jobs even when they are the least qualified. The lazy drop-outs of the last few years have built mansions and drive SUVs because they were ‘youth leaders’ of the ruling party. Gutsy but brainless people that are willing to dance to the tune of the state governors end up as local government chairmen or in national or state assemblies as members earning hefty but illegal allowances for doing next to nothing.

Unintended Consequences

Our politics and its products completely inverted and reversed the incentive structure in our society. Merit, honesty and hard work ceased to be virtues in politics and public service. Sycophancy, servility and cunning were more useful qualities for getting ahead and succeeding. Our young men and women – about 4 million of them added every year to the population – have observed and appeared to internalize these distorted values. There is little or no sense of community in that generation just as the concept of social justice is unknown to them. Generally, there are just two types of young people now. The smart ones that wish to take advantage of the system and the honest but bitter ones that feel short-changed by our generation and the system they think we created.

With the exception of a minority of deeply thoughtful ones amongst them that can see through what is going on, most of our children have zero idealism. Many are uncouth, rude and abusive to everyone.They have no respect for their peers and seniors, and using the anonymity of social media, they vent their anger and frustrations on anyone that they believe is remotely responsible for their condition. They take no responsibility to be informed, educated or experienced. Such youths see everything through ethnic, religious and regional lenses. They only care about sex, expensive cars, music and European soccer leagues. When I compare the idealism with which we viewed the world in our younger days with what I read on Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger these days, I am worried about the future of our nation (or more precisely, the lack of it.)

Another unintended consequence of our toxic politics is poverty, unemployment and income inequality. Nigeria boasts of a rapidly-growing economy but has 113 million living below the poverty line of a dollar a day. For an agricultural nation, it is a shame that 41% of Nigerians – nearly 70 million – are classified as “food poor” in 2010. The zonal distribution tells a deeper story. Nearly 52% of the people living in the North-West and North-East, 39% of the North-Central, 41% of South-East, 36% of South-South and 25% of South-West are hardly able to feed themselves.

Unemployment is the primary target of every sensible nation’s economic policy, but our policy makers seem quite content trumpeting our jobless growth. Nationally, at least one in every five able-bodied Nigerians willing and able to work has no job. Again, a sample of different rates for states show a more serious disparity. In Lagos only about 8% are unemployed, and 9% in Oyo State. In contrast, it is 39% in Yobe State and 27% in Borno – the birthplace of Boko Haram. Other states’ indices are Bayelsa (19%), Akwa Ibom (26%), Kaduna (25%), Kano (26%), Zamfara (33%), Benue (26%), Nasarawa (22%) and Anambra (21%).

Income inequality is another serious problem. According to the NBS, in 2010 65% of Nigeria’s wealth is owned by just 20% of the population. This effectively means that 80% of the population share between them only about one third of the nation’s wealth. This income inequality manifests itself in conspicuous consumption by a few side by side with abject poverty experienced by the many. Income inequality, unemployment and poverty have been shown to correlate strongly with increases in violent crimes in many societies. This cocktail is what US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson referred to when he stated that Nigeria’s Boko Haram was capitalizing on popular discontent with bad governance in Nigeria in general and the North in particular. The fact that virtually all indices of development and progress have been deteriorating from 2007 in spite of being a period of high oil prices and production should make every thoughtful person to question what is happening.

Emergence of Boko Haram

In 2007, we had terribly flawed elections that brought Umaru Yar’Adua and several governors into office. In at least 14 states of the federation, ballot papers for the presidential election were being delivered when the results declaring Yar’Adua the winner were announced. The new president was decent enough to admit that the election that brought him to power was flawed and established a committee to recommend remedial measures. The judicial challenges to the various elections were going through the election tribunals slowly but surely.

The Yar’Adua-Jonathan administration inherited about US $50 billion in foreign reserves, US $27 billion in the excess crude account, and only US $3 billion in foreign debt. Yar’Adua inherited a country that was liquid and had a strong balance sheet, with BB- sovereign credit rating by both Standard & Poor and Fitch. The economic prospects were bright if the political economy was managed well. The twin deficits of electricity and rail transport were being addressed through the award of contracts to build seven new power stations and the Lagos-Kano dual-track, standard gauge railway line.

Over the ensuing four years, the federation earned another US $180 billion from oil and gas, import duties and taxes. By 2011, all these resources had been wasted with little to show for it. The excess crude account had been run down to less than $1 billion, the reserves drawn down to about US $35 billion and none of the rail and power infrastructure projects completed. What is significant is that since February 2010 when he became acting president, Mr. Jonathan has been borrowing an average of US $1 billion monthly, mostly by issuing bonds, thereby doubling our total debt levels to nearly US $42 billion and counting. The federal government is fast accelerating towards insolvency!

In April 2007, Sheikh Jaafar was murdered in cold blood while praying in his mosque in Kano by assailants that years later turned out to be suspected members of a sect to be known as Boko Haram, operating out of Bauchi State. However at the time the Sheikh was killed, an attempt was made to link the murder to the state governor Ibrahim Shekarau. This as we shall see, became a recurring pattern of behavior by the security agencies in cases of this nature – the politicization of terrorism.

In July 2009, Yar’Adua deployed the Nigerian Army to “crush” Boko Haram. The leaders of the sect were captured alive, or arrested from their homes and extra-judicially executed by the Nigerian Police. The sect believes that Ali Modu Sheriff, then governor of Borno State and the Commissioner of Police took the decision to wipe out its leadership, regrouped and went on what was essentially a revenge mission targeting the Police, the Borno State Government and other uniformed services of the Federal Government. That is how Boko Haram evolved from a largely peaceful, fringe Islamic organization to a vengeful sect and currently an anarchist threat to the Nigerian nation.

Initially, Boko Haram’s targets were symbols of authority (Police, Borno State Government, etc.) and limited geographic (Borno State) scope. The attitude of authorities to the sect’s (Northerners are killing one another, so we do not care, etc.) activities emboldened them, and when the first bomb was exploded by MEND in Abuja on October 1, 2010, the sect learnt a thing or two about grabbing national attention. As the media gave the sect attention, it mainstreamed its activities to first attack Yobe State then the Federal Capital Territory.

The watershed in the sect’s activities were the June 2011 bombing of the Police Headquarters and the August 2011 attack on the UN Headquarters. By these actions the sect established the capacity to operate in the nation’s capital, outside its original geographic location thus attracting national and global attention. Sadly, between 2009 and 2012, more than 1,000 people have lost their lives as a result of Boko Haram’s attacks in Maiduguri, Potiskum, Damaturu, Jos, Kano, Gombe, Kaduna and Abuja. In 2011 alone, Boko Haram attacked 115 times with 550 deaths resulting.

Socio-Economic Impact of Terrorism and Corruption

Terrorism raises levels of insecurity and fear among citizens. It results in movement and travel restrictions and curtailing of human rights. These have negative impact on investment flows and functioning of markets. These combine to reduce employment opportunities, wealth creation and capital formation.
According to the World Investment Report of UNCTAD, the Nigerian economy recorded a reduction in foreign direct investment from US $8.65 billion in 2009 to US $6.1 billion in 2010 due to the fear of Boko Haram. The Nigerian tourism sector which is worth some N80 billion annually has lost more than half of its value due to fear of terrorist attacks. The domestic air transport industry which generates some N3 billion annually has been hard hit by flight cancellations to destinations in the north, with nearly half of the revenues lost.

In Borno State, schools have been closed. In other affected parts of the north, normal social life is unlikely to return soon. In places like Jos, the city is so neatly divided along ethnic lines that the vibrancy and inclusion that has been its heartbeat has been lost for a long time to come. The recent attack on media houses and Bayero University has opened new areas and targets of the sect that should worry the authorities.
The north has been the hardest hit with the leading commercial centre, Kano being under military occupation since January 2012. Kaduna, a leading industrial centre has also been repeatedly attacked by the various shades of what is known as Boko Haram. Many of us believe that there are at least four variants of Boko Haram – the real BH and three other fakes that use the brand to advance their own narrow, self-centered agendas. Many in the North see the patent inaction of the authorities as the advancement of a sinister agenda to destroy an already near prostate northern economy through occupation, militarization and disruption of socio-economic activities. The federal government has done nothing to indicate otherwise, and the state governments have acquiesced to the cavalier attitude of the Villa.

Way Out of the Quagmire

Terrorism and corruption are big issues with no easy solutions. There are no silver bullets and no country has been able to eradicate corruption or be totally immune from domestic terrorism. I will make some suggestions here as a basis for discussion and way forward.
I do not think our anti-corruption strategy attacks the roots of corruption. In addition to the unsuccessful ‘arrest-and-charge’ approach that we have tended to focus on, I believe we must reduce cash transactions to the barest minimum. If all transactions are electronic, it will be harder for untraceable, illicit payments to be made. If Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s efforts in cashless banking are complemented with a national ID system that can identify, monitor and audit every resident, and his or her financial transactions when a court order is obtained, it will be harder to take bribes and launder the money.

We also need to strengthen institutions by appointing decent people to head them, respect their tenures and appoint successors from within rather than bring in political hacks to do jobs that they are neither qualified nor trained to do. Our judiciary needs revamping. The last CJN has done incalculable damage to the the most important arm of government – because without an honest and decent judiciary, nothing will ever work in this country.

Terrorism is a harder nut to crack. I am of the view that a multi-track approach is necessary to increase the chances of its’ success. First, the prevailing narrative in the Jonathan camp must be discarded. This narrative is what the national security adviser tried to communicate at the Asaba summit of south-south leaders, but he was misunderstood by the media. Jonathan and his inner circle believe that Boko Haram is a northern conspiracy to prevent Jonathan enjoying his presidency. And northern political leaders like IBB and General Buhari are the sponsors and financiers of Boko Haram.

This narrative is believed by most Niger Delta leaders because of their own experience in organizing, training and arming the militants and providing funding for MEND during the period of ‘resource control’ agitations of the Obasanjo administration. Because theirs was a conspiracy of the political elite, they think the North must be doing the same. And they also feel that Boko Haram largely kills northerners or “parasites” as one presidential aide, Reno Omokri tweeted; so the more they are killed, the lesser the burden on the ‘oil-rich hosts.’ Another presidential aide actually said these words to an old ex-OPC friend of his in London in June 2011. With this narrative wired in the brains of Jonathan’s inner circle, they spent their first year trying to link some of us in opposition to Boko Haram instead of honestly tracking the real problems. While wasting time on us, the sect grew stronger, bolder and better trained. The first step therefore is to unwind this narrative and honestly ask the right questions.

It is of course disingenuous to believe the narrative, but I assure you that they believe it. Boko Haram’s first bloody confrontation with the authorities was under a northern, Muslim president in 2009. And Obasanjo is not a northerner but governed without Boko Haram. Anyone can see that it is indeed northerners and Muslims that constitute the bulk of the victims of the insurgency. And I think the insurgency escalated not because Jonathan became president by whatever means, but because the government did not care to address it early enough. Now things have spiraled out of control.

Secondly, I believe the fundamental roots of the insurgency challenge – rewarding those who take up arms against the state with the cash hand-outs called amnesty program has to be reviewed. Any society that rewards bad behavior with cash creates a moral hazard that may consume that society. Those giving out the cash should know that they are doing no favors to anyone. Indeed, they are fostering an entitlement culture that would ultimately be the undoing of that part of the country. Boko Haram does not appear to be motivated by money, so those thinking of an amnesty-like program may need to go back to the drawing board.

Thirdly, the corruption, inequality, poverty and unemployment cocktail that creates the breeding ground for violent crimes and terrorism need to be addressed through well-thought out and targeted programs of investment in education, healthcare, skills development and training, and infrastructure building that will provide employment opportunities in various communities. In addition, the authorities must criminalize the existence of political thugs by whatever name and of whatever description, and ensure elections are henceforth free, fair and credible. The political parties need to be reformed, leadership selection be guided largely by merit, while the electoral institutions need to be alive to their responsibilities.

Fourthly, as a medium term, structural measure, we must work to restore our federalism to the broad outlines embedded in the 1963 republican constitution, devolving more powers and responsibilities to the states and making the federal government less of a busy body. This would require that states like Bauchi whose annual internally-generated revenue is N7 billion should not run a government costing N58 billion because of monthly hand-outs from Abuja. Each state should learn to live within its means and seek to actively develop its comparative endowments. This also means the states would have greater say over their policing and security, natural resource royalties and taxation. State governors will then be compelled to use their resources better and not point fingers at the federal government.

Finally, in addition to reviewing the failed military strategy now in place and scaling back what has become the militarization of the north, the government must work with community leaders in Borno, Yobe, Plateau, Kano and Kaduna States to identify interlocutors that would enable honest discussions with Boko Haram to establish what they REALLY want. The arrest and prosecution of those that murdered their leaders would certainly be one demand, but there may be others that the government knows but would not want us to know. The Maitatsine sect was easily defeated in the 1980s because the surrounding communities despised them and their methods. The current situation in Kano and Borno States is one in which the military occupiers are killing more innocent people than Boko Haram, which injustice is tilting sympathy in their favor and against the Army. Unless the reckless killings of unarmed men, women and children stop, these communities would revolt sooner or later.

There is nowhere in the world where insurgencies like Boko Haram have been defeated purely through military force and occupation – ask the Americans about Afghanistan and Iraq, or the British about Northern Ireland. Those saying “crush them” should know that recent history of the war on terror is not on their side. We want a country that works for everyone, and this senseless loss of lives must end soon. The government that has the responsibility for our security must bend over backwards to deliver it. If they continue to fail in this regard, they will not be in government for too long.

To Your Tents, O Nigerians! By Faith Abiodun

2012-05-12T15:50:00.000+01:00

Why is everyone tired of Nigeria? Rather, why shouldn’t they be tired of Nigeria?

It was about 8:30am and I needed to make a quick stop on my 4-hour drive from Syracuse to the United Nations headquarters in New York City. I pulled over at the closest gas station somewhere around Philadelphia and went into the store to conduct quick business. Ten minutes later, I emerged with my breakfast and set about resuming my trip, but wait, I needed to grab an extra bottle of water. I went back into the store and returned with a bottle but noticed someone tailing me as I exited. I swung around and came face to face with a young man who was smiling intently at me. Wait a minute, what’s this about?

“Hi, do you mind if I ask you a quick question?”
“Sure, go ahead”
“What country are you from?”
“Nigeria”
“Ah, I guessed right! I’m Nigerian too. I just noticed something about you and I instantly knew that you were Nigerian. My name is Kingsley. I’m glad to meet you. Do you live around here?”
“No. My name is Faith and I’m headed to New York City for a meeting at the UN. Good to meet you. Maybe we should talk some time. It’ll be great to get to know each other”.
“Okay then, let me give you my number”
“Oh, I’ll just give you my card and you can call me anytime”.
“Have a safe trip”
“Yeah, bye”

What just happened there? How did Kingsley know I was Nigerian?
Surely, there was nothing differentiating either of us from any other African-American in the US, so what gave me away? I pondered on that question all day on Friday 9th of March, but my thoughts soon shifted to other things. On my return trip, I got a call from Kingsley and we talked for a while. Apparently, his intuition was just perfect earlier that day. Nothing gave me away. After we had talked for a while, I realized why Kingsley never told anyone that his name was actually Adewale. Almost nobody knew that he was Nigerian; he was ashamed of his country. Before hanging up, he told me that he was proud of me for sticking to my Nigerian roots. I assured him that I really didn’t have a choice; for me, Nigeria has earned a bad name in the world because of the relentless efforts of people like me who chose to maximize their talents for everything evil and I know that it is up to people like me to relentlessly seek to change the story. He wished me well and promised to keep in touch. “What an encounter”, I told myself as I settled back to my routine, “the road ahead will surely be tough”.

Kingsley is the face of the average Nigerian youth in the Diaspora, doing everything possible to run away from their history. Do I blame them? Definitely not! They are highly justified! They have every reason to be ashamed of their country, because their country clearly does not deserve them; their country has done everything it could to push them away and encourage them to never return. Every time I engage in discussions with Nigerians in the US, the same question pops up: “Do you really intend to go back to Nigeria?” Quite curiously also, my folks at home really don’t want me to come back either. Seeing me stay abroad is a mark of hope for them – they are happy that at least someone from their circle has managed to escape the horrors of Nigeria and is now in a better place. They encourage me to seek employment where I am and live the American dream; hopefully they’ll be able to join me someday and we would live happily ever after.

Why is everyone tired of Nigeria? Rather, why shouldn’t they be tired of Nigeria? At this point, I’m really sick of explaining to curious Americans that the University where I spent almost 6 years earning a 4-year undergraduate degree is now closed down because of poor power supply. I’m tired of explaining that a petty thief who shivered before a British judge indeed strolled majestically in the corridors of power for eight years and came very close to being our president. I’m frustrated with having to explain that Boko Haram is neither a religious fundamentalist group nor a bunch of desperately hungry morons; that indeed they are a political contraption funded by the same elite that has worked to disintegrate the nation for decades! Who ever thought that the day will come when bombs will sound off on street corners like Christmas knockouts? Who ever thought that the day will come when suicide bombing will not be foreign to the Nigerian lingo? Who ever thought that the day will come when terrorists will go on YouTube to state their demands to a democratically-elected government?

Nigeria is a parody of a nation and a shame to the continent. Never in our history has the failure of leadership been as glaring as it is; every step we make in the direction of progress seems to be seconded by five steps into retrogression. This is probably an opportune moment to heed Prof Wole Soyinka’s suggestions of every state and region for themselves; it is probably time to abandon the notion of nationhood and seek survival by all means. Centralizing governance in Abuja has not earned us anything but constant heartaches. This shameful nation of ours is in desperate need of responsible leadership and no one seems to have answers for us. To your tents, o Nigerians!

Follow Faith on twitter: @faithabiodun

Musings From 35,000 Feet By Faith Abiodun

2012-05-12T15:41:00.003+01:00

I’m sitting precariously at 35,000 feet above the earth, on a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Syracuse, New York; thinking back on the activities of the weekend. I was at an event in Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday where former US President, Bill Clinton was guest speaker. I’ve always been fascinated by the Clintons, and it’s barely three weeks since I was listening to Hillary talk about the role of young people in building a better world. Hillary spoke directly to me on Monday April 23, 2012 when she said “Be skeptical, but don’t be cynical”. She was talking about why young people need to be engaged with
the political system and seek ways of being involved in birthing a new world. I’m guessing someone must have let slip to Hillary that I was completely disillusioned with politics and had sworn to never be involved with the ‘dirty game’. This time, it’s Bill’s words that I recall: “creative cooperation works”; he was speaking about the possibility of each person being a change agent and realizing that all human beings are connected together irrespective of their location in the world. He said; “whether we like it or not, our futures are bound together”. The Clintons are very smart people and between Bill, Hillary and Chelsea, the world has seen a model of a family devoted to public service and seeking social justice. “I hope I can build such a family some day”, I began to think to myself.

The plane is jolted sharply as we run into some thick clouds, and I’m snapped back to reality. “What a weekend I had! It felt so good to be away from my daily routine and spend some precious time with friends and family; now I’m headed back to my life as usual.” Just before taking off, I engaged in a few discussions about the importance of hard work, even in America, especially for those of us who realize what it took to get to the white man’s land. We mourned the decrepit state of social services back home and made light jokes about how impossible it was to have so many houses built without fences; in fact, I have not seen a single fenced house in all thirteen American cities that I’ve travelled in recently. “What kind of superior thinking led these people to realize that the best form of security lies in keeping one’s doors slightly open for all to see? That’s weird, isn’t it?”

I’m peeking out of my window now and I can see the entire city of Atlanta sprawled beautifully under me. “What an amazing view! This is surely God’s own country. How long, if ever, will it take us to build cities like this in Nigeria? How soon will we get over the needless bickering and petty politics that we seem so hung up on and get about delivering social services to people and creating structures that encourage further development? Random thoughts are jostling for attention in my mental cavity and I remember the email I received from a friend last week; he pastors a church in Syracuse and he had read a post in an online magazine about pastors in Nigeria encouraging their followers to respond to the recent spate of bombings in the north with equal violence. He thought that this admonition negated the principles of Christianity and wanted to get my views on it. I was quite enraged as I skipped over the article. With rapid fire, I mailed the following response to him:

“A lot has been made about the tensions in the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south, but in my opinion, the lines are not so clearly drawn. The south is divided into the South-West, South-East and South-South. The South-East and South-South are mainly Christian, though several Muslims live there too, however the South-West where I’m from, is evenly split between Christians and Muslims.
For all I know, in all three regions in the South, there have been few religious wars in recent times. The wars seem to always emanate out of the North and the line of attack has often been on churches. That, I believe camouflages the war as being religious, however, the roots of the war are political and economic. I don’t know that Muslims are riled against Christians because they antagonize Christianity; what I believe is that they have taken to attacking Christians because the former President (1999-2007) was a Christian from the South-West and the sitting President (2011 till date) is a Christian from the South-South.

Their grouse is not against Christianity, but underdevelopment in the North. Mostly all developmental projects in the country are concentrated across the south; to the detriment of the North. Literacy rates in some states in the north are as low as 20% and conditions of living up there are the worst in the country. However, because much of the culture is based on Islam, and much of the instruction is given through the religious leaders, the first line of attack in channeling their grievance is through religious institutions, hence the attack on churches. I believe that they are merely expressing their disappointment at the level of underdevelopment in their regions when contrasted with the resources available in the country.

That being said, I have not heard a single Christian preacher motivate his audience to respond to the attacks with violence, as some have said. Of course, I have heard Christians complain about the killings and voice out their frustrations, but I guess commentators are over-stretching their imaginations by saying that Christians are actually considering violence. As recent as the latest attacks yesterday, I read about Christians being puzzled as to the way forward, but I sincerely doubt that violence is a serious consideration. Christians have been very civil about this all along, knowing that this really is not a religious war, but a manifestation of the challenges of underdevelopment.
We all pray for solutions soon, but none seems to be coming from the current crop of political elite in the country, quite sadly.”

We’ve been traveling for more than two hours now. I can still see the lights in the far distance even though we’re now several miles above earth. There’s a feeling of serenity all over the aircraft as we take in the beautiful sunset. My thoughts quickly shift back to Bill Clinton; he made some simple yet profound statements in his 30-minute speech yesterday. He spoke about his presidency and some of the achievements that were made while he was in office. “You know how many websites there were when I took the oath of office? Fifty! Now there are over a billion websites and several more are being created every minute”. He challenged the people in the audience to think deeply about the future: “you have to decide what you want the world to look like when your children are sitting in your seat…it’s a terrible burden when you know you can do something, because you gotta do it…when we think we know it all, we’re on our way to ruin…Thomas Jefferson spoke about each individual being endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness; what matters is the pursuit of happiness, that’s where the joy is! Working hard to see that the world is a better place brings happiness, and then you wouldn’t even see it as work!”

“Tell them, Bill. Tell them! You need to tell this to the despots who populate Aso Rock; let them know that they need to stop dancing around the issues of social justice and economic development and get busy with rebuilding the country. How long are we going to wait for them to get their act together?” Wait a minute; Bill wasn’t really talking about politicians, was he? He was encouraging young people to be agents of change across the world and break through the glass ceiling of incompetence and discouragement. “Well, well, we’ve heard that all our lives. Why does the older generation continue to motivate the younger generation to seek ways of cleaning their mess? Why couldn’t they just clean up after themselves so that we can get our creative juices flowing without having to worry about undoing some of the damage they have created?”

“We will be arriving Syracuse in about 15 minutes, you can expect beautiful weather this evening…” the air hostess’ voice punctuates my inner musings.

“I guess I have to bring my thoughts to a close then, what’s the way forward? Nigerians are intensely frustrated with the direction of the country, and rightly so. What kind of people would we be if we have endured so much hardship and found no avenues to channel our grievances? Of course, we have to protest and protest loudly, but then what? What really is the way forward? Young people are fleeing the country to get degrees in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia; parents are retiring to the Caribbean islands, some to obscure spaces as far away as Bahrain; working professionals are seeking to extend their careers abroad and stave off the day when they have to return home; in short, everyone is running away from Nigeria. But what about those who are unable to leave the country? Is there really a way forward for us?”

“Please fasten your seat belts; we’re encountering a little turbulence….” I hear the captain’s voice this time. The plane shakes uncontrollably for a couple of minutes and everywhere around me, people are clutching their seats tightly and making frantic prayers under their breaths, while trying to appear calm. No one wants to be seen as a sissy, though their heart rates have just tripled. I smile lightly and wave at the little kid seated across from me. “This is not the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced”, I tell myself.

“We would be landing shortly, please turn off all electronic devices and stow them away safely and ensure that your seat is in the upright position…”

People are still quietly praying for a safe landing, so I join in prayer. I whisper a couple of words to God for direction as I seek to understand my place in helping to rebuild Nigeria; “I really want to be involved in changing my country, so God please show me what you would have me do”.

“Sir, please turn your laptop off, we’re close to landing…”

“Alright”

A strange thought crosses my mind; “what if we never land?” Well, my friends and family know that I’m committed to seeking a better world and that I love all things good. They know that I love to work hard and encourage people to reach inwards for their true selves and above all, to stay dedicated to their values and never lose sight of what’s important. They’ll always retain positive thoughts of me. Wait a minute, am I crafting my final thoughts? No way, we’re surely going to land. This plane is going to land in a few minutes; I need to power my laptop off and prepare for landing. I’m going home tonight. I have to get back to work tomorrow. When I get home, I’ll continue to think about the words of Bill Clinton and I’m sure I’ll think of a way to help Nigeria find her foot again. I am a change agent. For now I have to console myself with the thought that slowly but surely, we will rise again. I know we will.

You can follow Faith Abiodun on Twitter @FaithAbiodun

Rashidi Yekini Was Murdered By Segun Odegbami

2012-05-12T14:18:00.000+01:00

This is one of the most difficult articles I have ever written.

I now believe that the universe sought me out some months ago for an assignment, to bear witness and to testify in the unfolding events surrounding the life and death of Rashidi Yekini! But why me?
Within the football circle I believe I am one of a very few persons that Rashidi Yekini was comfortable with. Secondly, in the past three months I have had the closest interaction with the man up till the time I received the shocking information that he had died. I could not relate the news with the circumstances of his life during this period. Some things simply did not fit the picture being painted. And someone needed to testify, clarify and debunk the ugly and false stories being peddled around to justify Rashidi’s death.

Since I received a call from him three months ago, I have learnt a great deal more about him, the things that happened to him, why he lived his life the way he did, that he was not physically or mentally unstable, that he ran into some misfortune and that he needed support and help to get back on his feet. I have known Rashidi since our days together in the Shooting Stars FC team in Ibadan, when as twin strikers in the 1984 African Club championship we had terrorised defenders all over Africa, freely banging in goals on our way to that year’s finals where we lost! That was to be my last year with Shooting Stars and indeed with football. It was his first year!

Beyond that we had kept a good relationship from a distance. Through the years I had tried to understand his choices of the kind of life he lived without criticising or even counselling him. His decision to join Abiola Babes FC of Abeokuta, his choice of going to play in Cote D’Ivoire, moving to Europe, making the Chairman of Africa Sports FC of Abidjan, an Ivorien, his agent and manager throughout his career, all were totally of his own independent making. This clearly defined his character, that in spite of his obvious limitation in terms of academic capacity from the onset, he left no one in doubt that he was his own man and would choose his own path. He was very fiercely independent minded, never getting involved in the agitations, the politics, the power-play and the intrigues between officials and players, and even amongst the players themselves. All he cared about was to get on the field where he was extremely competitive and play football. He loved scoring goals and hardly ever exuberantly celebrated his goals. Thats why his first goal in the World Cup of 1994, against Bulgaria, and the manner he celebrated it remained the most memorable picture of that years’ championship.

As a player Rashidi was as reclusive as could possibly be. In camp players, that players had to share rooms in pairs, was the reason he lived with anyone. He was that kind of person. He would have preferred to be alone and enjoyed the solitude of his chosen way of life. Football gave him the only outlet to the rest of the world. Otherwise, you would find him sleeping, or saying his prayers, or playing pranks and cracking jokes with the players that visited his room.
Beyond football, Rashidi did not want anyone coming too close to him, to know too much and to meddle in his business. He kept his activities very close to his chest. So, even as we interacted as often as certain events brought us together I noticed his cautiousness. He was a very sensitive person. he tried never to hurt anyone, preferring to cut off any relationships that threatened his regimented sequestered lifestyle. One thing I was very sure of about him was that he never asked anything from anyone, and never wanted to depend on anyone for anything.

Football for him had provided all his needs. In short, for Rashidi Yekini, football was everything and the only thing in his life. It offered him the opportunity to escape from the pangs of poverty and he decided that the safest and best way to secure his future was not to fall victim to any smart Alecs, or scammers, or fraudsters, or business persons with sweet tongues that could talk him into parting with his hard-earned money. He did not want to be used or confused. So he built an impregnable wall around his existence, trusting only very few (he felt safer amongst the Hausa community, and did most of his very few business dealings with them). He worst fear was to lose his money. Thats why his celebrated one and only marriage crumbled after 3 months. He did not trust the motive of his wife for marrying him. So, he left the marriage before it even started. The same attitude underlined his relationship even with his family members. He took care of them, and provided for them, but from a safe distance.

t was a dangerous mixture – to be rich and famous and to be reclusive. Stories were bound to regale such an existence and with Rashidi they came in torrents. Yet, I fully I respected his choice of life and how he chose to live it, even though my every instinct wanted to support and guide him through the turbulences that I knew he would have to face managing unprecedented fame and fortune for a young man coming from his background.

No one knew this whole scenario would become the apparatus for his tragic end.
Rashidi’s death now raises many questions with no answers. The stories about his state of mind have clouded the circumstances of his death that should have been thoroughly investigated to show how, where, why he died the way he did.

I know a mad man when I see one. I can testify unequivocally along with some others that knew Rashidi from close-up that there was nothing wrong with him at the time he was abducted and died. Indeed, he was hale and hearty. Rashidi was not ill. He was fit and sound of mind and body. He even trained on the day he was forcefully taken away by people that have not come out to tell the world why they took him, where they took him, what happened there, who treated him for what ailment, what he died of, and so on. I can also testify that it was the misfortune that befell him a few years ago, that caused him great distress to the extent that he almost lost his life and his mind when his partner was killed and he lost most of his investment in their joint venture. That period was what some of his family members are saying to justify their wicked action in forcefully leading him to his death.

Rashidi was very so much into himself. He had very few close friends and kept even them in the dark about his plight and pains, preferring to deal with the issues himself. So, he did some ‘irrational’ things. So what?. Who would not do irrational things if they lost almost their entire fortune in one fell swoop? It took Rashidi a while to get over it (some two years or so). Playing his football daily, watching movies at his closest friend’s video shop, seeking some spiritual help, avoiding the public and public places, and bearing his own grief alone gradually eased the pain.
Thats where his life was when from out of the blues he rang me up. Rashidi had never done that in all our relationship. I was the one who always did the initial contacting. But some three months ago, he called me himself, and so started a new relationship that was going to bring Rashidi Yekini back to the game he loved with uncommon passion. I had assured him, after he had assured me he would fully cooperate, that he would never be far away from the game again. I assured him that the game could still help restore his lost fortunes. That he had to play it differently this time with kids as his instruments of change. He would help to nurture them, by showing and teaching them how to do the things he did best – position himself at the right place at the right time, evade tackles, and shoot accurately and powerfully with both feet, and score goals on the field of play. He was excited and raring to go. We had started discussing with companies and organisations in Lagos that would provide funds and logistical support.

Then everything came to a shuddering halt. The light of our great dreams was extinguished last week. The news came that a hale and hearty Rashidi, who finished training one evening, and had driven himself home, had been abducted by some family members, taken to an unknown destination for medical purposes, kept there for weeks without anyone’s knowledge but the perpetrators of the act, had died under circumstances that no one has been able to explain to the public.

Again let me emphasise: Rashidi was not sick at the time he was abducted. Rashidi was never mad. He could have had periods of some depression but those were in the distant past. The Rashidi that I saw, drove in his car, sat with for over one hour planning for the future, that called me up several times after that, that met with my emissaries after that, that kept in touch even with my office, that I wrote about in my column some 5 weeks ago, was not sick, or ill, or suffering illusions, or delusions, or hallucinations.
I am here testifying that Rashidi must have been ‘killed’ either ignorantly, deliberately or even inadvertently by those that did not understand what was going on with him, that had their own motivation for doing what they did by forcefully taking him away to an unknown destination for some kind of unclear, unauthorised spiritual or medical intervention that eventually killed him. That neighbours even witnessed the abduction and described it in gory detail requires that the law enforcement agencies should take up the matter immediately, to investigate what exactly happened and why Nigeria’s national hero and treasure, an African football legend in the true sense, should die the way he did.

Rashidi will not rest properly until justice is done.
Rashidi’s death must not be swept under the carpet. He died under circumstances that reek of conspiracy and murder!
That's why the police must step in today!
Culled from Mathematical 7 (Segun Odegbami’s blog)

Britain Tells Germany to Rearm by Richard Palmer

2012-05-09T14:42:00.000+01:00

Britain’s military establishment has a shockingly shallow grasp of history. British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said Germany must recognize “that it can’t continue to be the dominant economy in Europe without also significantly increasing its military capability,” after talks with his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere in Germany, May 2

Hammond chastised Germany for its “historic reluctance to deploy and operate overseas” and called on it to deliver “more usable firepower” to nato.

This view goes beyond the defense minister. On May 4, the House of Lords European Union Committee published a report on European defense, where it drew the same conclusions. For the EU to have “an effective security and defense policy,” Germany must play a bigger role, it said.

It sees America pulling its military out of Europe, making cuts and focusing on the Pacific. “Europe really does have to start to get its act together, and the only player that’s really missing in that is Germany, Europe’s powerhouse,” the chairmen of the committee, Lord Teverson, told bbc Radio 4’s Today program.

Even America takes the same view. Former U.S. representative to nato Nicolas Burns testified before the Lords committee. “The U.S. was, however, concerned about the diminishing budgets of most of its European allies, especially Germany, Italy and Spain,” the committee’s report states. “Ambassador Burns was particularly critical of Germany’s low level of spending on defense. Germany should make a greater commitment to collective defense and the modernization of its own military, and be more willing to deploy in difficult areas.”

U.S. President Barack Obama made similar statements last year, when he told German Chancellor Angela Merkel: “The world today does not fear a strong Germany. It is, rather, disappointed when Germany is too reserved.”

The committee also encouraged Britain to support more cooperation on defense within the EU. Their report states that Britain should drop its longstanding opposition to an EU operational headquarters.

Lord Teverson dismissed any concerns about Germany’s history by saying the war was over 60 years ago, and that even today, Eastern Europe is more worried about Russia.

How shallow. In a deeper view of history, 60 years is not that long.

The famous document agreed by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference read: “It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world” (emphasis added).

The document goes on to use phrases like “break up for all time.” These men were thinking in longer terms than just 60 years.

Winston Churchill repeatedly warned about the rise of Germany, prior to World War ii. These warnings, based on Germany’s history, were ignored.

Commenting on the buildup of World War i, he said both politicians and the public thought a great European war was “too foolish, too fantastic” to happen. “Civilization has climbed above such perils,” they told themselves. “The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, liberal principles, the Labor Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible,” he wrote. “Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.”

Churchill’s warning could have been written today.

The Trumpet has long warned about this threat from Germany. The Bible prophesies that Britain will go to Germany to help in defense. This is exactly what is beginning to happen right now. Britain’s special relationship with America is breaking down, so it is building a new special relationship with a German-led Europe.

But it doesn’t take an understanding of Bible prophecy to see the danger here. It just requires a deep understanding of history. Unfortunately, our leaders don’t even have that.

It was Churchill’s understanding of history that enabled him to see Germany was a threat while everyone else thought they were safe. He knew people had lulled themselves into a false sense of security throughout man’s past. Today is no different—even the arguments saying it is have been used before.

This history carries a powerful warning for us today. For more on this warning from history, read our free booklet Winston S. Churchill—The Watchman. •

Merkel and Monti Revive Old Berlin-Rome Axis by Ron Fraser

2012-05-09T14:17:00.000+01:00

Ron Fraser examines the next step for Germany as it has already lost an ally in Nicholas Sarkozy as he lost the election to Francois Hollande. Angela Merkel looks to Mario Monti for a new partnership.

Sixty years of work by European elites to create a united Europe consummated recently in two events that bring the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire much closer to being a current-day reality.

First, the “Berlin Group,” a fringe EU group of nations formed out of a German idea promoting the regular meeting of foreign ministers of the European Union’s leading economies (excluding Britain), recently launched the idea of creating the office of a European supremo.

They have recommended that a powerful new presidency be created within the EU—a super-president—a veritable “Charlemagne” having power over all EU institutions.

Shortly after the “Berlin Group” came out with that startling recommendation, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, anticipating the now current demise of France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy—whose candidacy she endorsed in France’s national elections—turned to Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti to forge a new alliance in the leadership of the EU. Berlin and Rome will now dominate EU policy decisions from here on.

These are game changers in Europe, the effects of which will soon be felt worldwide. The balance of power is changing in Europe, and the fallout will have prophesied global effects of massive proportions!

Since the European Community’s inception, joint Franco-German leadership has been taken as a given. France wanted to keep a close eye on Germany to ensure that nation would never repeat its incursions across France’s borders such as had occurred in 1871, 1914 and 1939. The postwar French view was that Germany was slated to take on the role of the economic engine of Europe, while being marginalized from direct political influence. France was to take the lead European political role. It seemed an ideal arrangement to the Western allies.

Things continued in that preordained manner till two major disruptions began to fracture this arrangement.

The first was the implosion of the Soviet Union, which had two effects: the reunification of Germany in 1990, and the resurgence of Roman Catholicism in post-Communism Eastern Europe.

The second disruption occurred when economic crisis struck Europe in 2008. All of a sudden, Germany, by far Europe’s most powerful economy, found a political voice to match its economic weight.

Using the economic crisis as the catalyst, Germany started to call the tune Europe-wide. This it has done to its own mighty advantage by promulgating policies that are leaving EU nations largely subject to diktats from Germany’s political power base in Berlin and its financial base at the European Central Bank (ecb) in Frankfurt.

A third catalyst now works to change the whole balance of power in Europe: the failure of Nicolas Sarkozy to gain reelection in the French presidential elections over the weekend. This will prove to be a watershed event in not only Franco-German relations, but in Berlin’s political relationship with the EU.

Gone is the lynchpin partnership that held the EU together since the Treaty of Rome established the European Community in 1957. The German chancellor has quickly moved to align herself with Rome through her overtures to Italy’s Prime Minister Monti as a replacement for her old EU political partner Nicolas Sarkozy.

In place of the Franco-German alliance as of this moment is a new partnership. In reality it is none other than the resurrection of the old Berlin-Rome Axis of 1939.

To think of that old Axis being resurrected—given its historically destructive consequences of just 70 years ago—is a fearful thing indeed!

Yet this is the reality. And it was all prophesied in your Bible millennia ago!

Back in 1954, Herbert Armstrong declared: “Nothing can prevent Germany from completely dominating Europe. Soon there will be the prophesied United Europe—the resurrected Roman Empire—with Germans in complete domination. It’s prophesied! It is hurling on toward the destruction of America and Britain” (co-worker letter, Sept. 18, 1954).

Three years later he wrote: “No one else is telling what prophecy says Germany and fascism in Europe are starting under cover. You’ll soon see it—the United States of Europe—the resurrected Roman Empire!!” (ibid, Nov. 20, 1957).

No-one else was!

Herbert Armstrong was the lone voice crying out in a wilderness of confusion and declaring to the world the sure prophecies of God! Declaring decades ago that a final resurrection of the old Holy Roman Empire would arise to powerfully disrupt the world again!

In 1978, Mr. Armstrong specifically declared, “Undoubtedly Germany will head the new resurrected ‘Holy Roman Empire’” (ibid, Aug. 14, 1978).

One year later, in the January 1979 Plain Truth magazine, he published an article declaring emphatically:

I have been proclaiming and writing, ever since 1935, that the final one of the seven eras of the Holy Roman Empire is coming in our generation—a “United States of Europe,” combining 10 nations or groups of nations in Europe—with a union of church and state!

The nations of Europe have been striving to become reunited. They desire a common currency, a single combined military force, a single united government. They have made a start in the Common Market. They are now working toward a common currency. Yet, on a purely political basis, they have been totally unable to unite.

In only one way can this resurrected Holy Roman Empire be brought to fruition—by the “good offices” of the Vatican, uniting church and state once again, with the Vatican astride and ruling (Revelation 17:1-5).

That prophesied union of church and state could not effectively emerge till the Franco-German bloc was broken and a new balance of power established in Europe—a Berlin-Rome axis! Just such an axis emerged recently with Chancellor Merkel’s capitulation to Rome’s behest on her policy regarding the handling of Europe’s economic crisis.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and European Central Bank head Mario Draghi are of the same Jesuit mind in their approach to the crisis. Merkel’s joining forces with them places the control of the EU’s purse strings—plus the influence of Europe’s dominant political power, Germany—directly under Rome’s influence.

To adapt a famous statement of Winston Churchill’s to the fulfillment of the prophesied resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, this newly forming Berlin-Rome axis is not the end-fulfillment of the great prophecies relating to this event, but it has every indication of being “the end of the beginning”!

Chancellor Merkel has lost significant face with the demise of her endorsed candidate for France’s presidential elections. Her Christian Democratic Union/Federal Democratic Party coalition continues to lose power at state and parliamentary levels in ongoing state elections in Germany. As per the trend over the past year, her coalition lost further ground in the weekend elections in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

With the Rome-Berlin axis now in place, with a Bavarian pope at the helm in the Vatican engaged in a great crusade of “new evangelization,” with Rome’s men at the head of both the ecb and the Vatican’s home base nation, Italy, all that remains to complete the prophetic picture in Europe is for the new “Charlemagne” to arise and pull together the final prophesied 10-nation combine under the “super-president” office as proposed by the Berlin Group.

Is this indeed the formula that will catalyze the ultimate fulfillment of some of the most powerful Bible prophecies for our time?

Those prophecies foretell of great devastation to be brought upon the Anglo-Saxon nations in the wake of this seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire!

These most recent dynamic events in Europe indicate more than ever that, even as Jesus Christ declared of these times we are living through, it’s time to “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36). •

This Is Germany’s Moment! by Brad MacDonald

2012-05-09T14:03:00.001+01:00

In this article Brad MacDonald provides an insight into events around Europe and what steps the Germans are taking to take full advantage. Happy reading.

It appears the current phase of Europe’s debt crisis is entering its last hour. We’ll know soon, but it’s possible the weekend of May 5, 2012, will be remembered as a transformative moment in the history of Europe.

Once again, the nation at the center of it all is Germany.

On Sunday, a noteworthy chain of events will culminate in France’s run-off presidential election. While many of the events in this chain appear unrelated, with each unfurling in its own distinct way in a city or within a government in a different country, they’re threaded through with a common theme: frustration with Germany, and specifically, Berlin’s unrelenting demand for Sparmaßnahmen (austerity).

On Tuesday, millions of Europeans hit the streets in May Day protests that centered on their governments’ efforts to follow Germany’s demand and impose austerity on Europe’s ailing economies. Spain, a nation dancing with default, had the largest turnout, with large demonstrations in 80 cities. Tens of thousands more hit the streets of Portugal. In France, over 300,000 demonstrated in 290 different rallies, more than four times the number that turned out last year. France’s largest union, the cgt, has even told its members not to vote for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a key Merkel ally and supporter of Germany’s demand for austerity, in Sunday’s presidential election.

Europe’s southern states aren’t the only ones struggling to comply with the German-led quest for austerity. Last week, many were shocked when Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands—and another key German ally—resigned and announced the termination of his coalition government. Rutte’s resignation came as a result of the Party of Freedom, the right-wing party of Geert Wilders, withdrawing its support for the governing coalition due to disagreements over the imposition of austerity.

If Holland, a stalwart German ally in much better fiscal health than many others in Europe, can’t find a way to enact the austerity Germany is demanding, how in the world are states like Spain, Portugal and Italy ever going to manage it? Meanwhile, throughout Europe national political parties that oppose austerity and the German/EU demand for it are winning votes and gaining political power.

As unemployment lines grow, as revenue shrinks and riots and protests increase, Europe’s national governments are increasingly setting aside the interests of Berlin and Brussels and putting national interests first. European Parliament President Martin Schulz noted the trend toward “re-nationalization” in a speech before the European Commission Wednesday of last week. Facing intense domestic pressure, governments across Europe are turning inward, “arrogating more and more decisions to themselves,” and bypassing EU institutions, including the European Parliament and Commission. For the first time in its history, the collapse of the European Union is a “realistic scenario,” Schulz warned.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy is also concerned, warning last week that the “winds of populism” are blowing through Europe.

Populist winds will undoubtedly be blowing in Greece this Sunday when people head to the polls to elect a new government. Greece has received two bailouts from Europe, both of which at Berlin’s request were given on the condition that Athens make major cutbacks, lay-offs and slashes to government spending. Frustrated by what they know to be German-imposed austerity, millions of Greeks are ready to rebel. After months of tapping into this widespread, anti-German spirit of rebellion, many of Greece’s marginal political parties—some of which promise to reverse austerity (as do some mainstream parties)—are poised to make historic gains in Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Depending on the outcome Sunday, Athens may have a tough time meeting the conditions necessary to continue receiving bailout money—thrusting Greece, yet again, to the precipice of financial default.

Finally, there’s the run-off presidential election in France, which could have enormous impact on Germany and Europe. From the moment the debt crisis began in 2008, the responsibility of fixing it has rested primarily on the German-French axis. Truth be told, President Sarkozy’s main responsibility has been to embrace the solutions coming from Berlin, giving them added legitimacy in the eyes of Europe and the rest of the world.

If Socialist candidate Francois Hollande is elected, Germany loses its French toady.

That’s not all. When it comes to solving Europe’s debt woes, Hollande’s view is the antithesis of that of Angela Merkel and German public opinion. He’s already stated that he won’t support the fiscal pact as it currently exists. When it comes to Europe’s finances, he said last week, “It’s not for Germany to decide for the rest of Europe.” He also believes that instead of austerity, the solution to Europe’s debt woes is printing and spending more money. “So many people in Europe are waiting for our victory,” he said recently, “I don’t want a Europe of austerity, where nations are forced on their knees.”

Read between the lines of that statement. This man isn’t merely campaigning for leadership of France, he’s making a play for leadership of Europe. In another recent address, Hollande told supporters that “the people of Europe expect that we, the people of France, will provide Europe with another perspective, another direction, another orientation.”

They say Hollande lacks personality and charisma. Well, he makes up for it in audacity. He sincerely believes the rest of Europe wants him elected so France can replace Germany at the helm of Europe!

That’s never going to happen. France lacks both the financial health and political muscle to replace Germany as the arbiter of this crisis. Nevertheless, France’s dissension under Hollande could throw Europe into financial and political turmoil. Spiegel Online reported recently that “for France’s neighbors and the fight against the sovereign debt crisis in Europe,” Hollande’s election “will set everything back to square one” (emphasis added).

As you can see, Europe’s financial crisis isn’t even close to being over—though it is likely entering a new, more exciting, more dramatic, more sobering chapter!

It’s possible, likely even, that the convergence of these events—the widespread resistance to German-imposed austerity, the renaissance of nationalism, Spain’s imminent default, the collapse of the Dutch government, and the inconveniently timed national elections in Greece and France—will produce a moment of historic importance. As this unfolds, don’t take your eyes off the nation at the center of it all.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote, “The epicenter of Europe’s political crisis may soon be Germany itself.”

We must watch for Germany’s response. It will have a colossal impact on Europe, and on the rest of the world.

From the moment Europe’s debt crisis began, Berlin has managed to maintain the precarious balance between rescuing drowning eurozone states with bailouts, while not abandoning its Teutonic principles of wise financial stewardship. Until now, Berlin’s solution has been to give bailouts, but with strict conditions. But the ferocious backlash against austerity, both on the street and within national governments, is not only making Germany unpopular, it’s threatening to catapult Europe much deeper into crisis.

Soon, it will be impossible for Germany to sit on the fence. Conditions will force it to make a momentous decision.

It has two basic options. First, it can stick to its guns. This means refraining from giving bailouts, or confining its support to rare, insufficient, halfhearted bailouts that come saddled with strict conditions. This will continue to arouse the ire of its counterparts and isolate Berlin further. More importantly, given the level of debt and the pervasiveness of Europe’s debt woes—not even Germany has near enough money to bail everyone out—the decision by Berlin to remain tight will mean that it has accepted the inevitable financial collapse of one or more eurozone states. Maybe Greece, Portugal or Spain—perhaps all three?

If Germany allows states to default, we can expect the eurozone, the euro, and possibly even the EU as it is constituted today, to fracture and crumble too. This would come with many painful consequences for Berlin. But it would also come with an enormous opportunity. As Europe’s largest, healthiest economy, Germany would be left with the responsibility of rebuilding Europe!

Second, Berlin can compromise, or at least give the appearance of compromise. As events converge and the possibility of an all-out meltdown grows, Germany could choose to throw its weight behind the far-reaching solution that many believe will rescue the likes of Spain, Greece and Portugal, soothe the financial markets and bolster global confidence in the long-term viability of the EU and its institutions. The essence of this solution is further fiscal integration and more centralized control, and it will only work if Germany is on board and leading. Even now, many experts believe the current situation could soon result in a German-backed euro bond.

If Germany decides to double down and throw its full weight behind the EU by agreeing to such far-reaching measures as a stronger central fiscal authority, a debt union, and a euro bond, you can be sure it won’t come cheap to the rest of Europe. Berlin will never underpin the EU, putting its own financial well-being at stake, without first extracting major political and financial concessions from those it is rescuing.

The moment it extracts these concessions, Germany will become the unchecked and absolute power in Europe!

It’s hard to exaggerate how important it is that we watch events in Europe, especially in Germany, in the time ahead. In particular, events seem to be converging this weekend, when the French and Greeks head to the polls. Europe’s debt crisis is likely to intensify after this weekend. As it does, Germany will find itself under extreme pressure to act decisively and with dramatic, far-reaching measures.

It’s hard to know precisely what Berlin will do. What we do know, however, is that conditions are about to bring out a side to Germany that we haven’t seen in a long time. Stay tuned! Only time will tell, but the weekend of May 5, 2012, could be a major milestone in the prophesied emergence of the final resurrection of the German-led Holy Roman Empire!

Russia's Strategy by George Friedman

2012-04-24T17:33:00.000+01:00

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 reversed a process that had been under way since the Russian Empire's emergence in the 17th century. It was ultimately to incorporate four general elements: Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Siberia. The St. Petersburg-Moscow axis was its core, and Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine were its center of gravity. The borders were always dynamic, mostly expanding but periodically contracting as the international situation warranted. At its farthest extent, from 1945 to 1989, it reached central Germany, dominating the lands it seized in World War II. The Russian Empire was never at peace. As with many empires, there were always parts of it putting up (sometimes violent) resistance and parts that bordering powers coveted -- as well as parts of other nations that Russia coveted.

The Russian Empire subverted the assumption that political and military power requires a strong economy: It was never prosperous, but it was frequently powerful. The Russians defeated Napoleon and Hitler and confronted the far wealthier Americans for more than four decades in the Cold War, in spite of having a less developed or less advanced economy. Its economic weakness certainly did undermine its military power at times, but to understand Russia, it is important to begin by understanding that the relationship between military and economic power is not a simple one.

Economy and Security

There are many reasons for Russia's economic dysfunction, but the first explanation, if not the full explanation, is geography and transportation. The Russians and Ukrainians have some of the finest farmland in the world, comparable to that of the American Midwest. The difference is transportation, the ability to move the harvest to the rest of the empire and its far away population centers. Where the United States has the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio river system that integrates the area between the Rockies and the Appalachians, Russia's rivers do not provide an integrated highway to Russia, and given distances and lack of alternative modes of transport, Russian railways were never able to sustain consistent, bulk agricultural transport.

This is not to say that there wasn't integration in the empire's economy and that this didn't serve as a factor binding it together. It is to say that the lack of economic integration, and weakness in agricultural transport in particular, dramatically limited prosperity in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. At the same time, the relative underdevelopment of the empire and union made it impossible for them to successfully compete with Western Europe. Therefore, there was an economic motivation within the constituent parts of the empire and the union to integrate with each other. There could be synergies on a lower level of development among these nations.

Economics was one factor that bound the Russian Empire and Soviet Union together. Another was the military and security apparatus. The Russian security apparatus in particular played a significant role in holding first the empire and then the union together; in many ways, it was the most modern and efficient institution they had. Whatever temptations the constituent republics might have had to leave the empire or union, these were systematically repressed by internal security forces detecting and destroying opposition to the center. It could be put this way: The army created the empire. Its alignment of economic interests was the weak force holding it together, and the security apparatus was the strong force. If the empire and union were to survive, they would need economic relations ordered in such a way that some regions were put at a disadvantage, others at an advantage. That could happen only if the state were powerful enough to impose this reality. Since the state itself was limited in most dimensions, the security apparatus substituted for it. When the security apparatus failed, as it did at the end of World War I or in 1989-1991, the regime could not survive. When it did succeed, it held it all together.

In the Russian Empire, the economic force and the security force were supplemented by an overarching ideology: that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which provided a rationale for the system. The state security apparatus worked with the church and against dissident elements in other religions in the empire. In the Soviet Union, the religious ideology was supplemented with the secular ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The Soviet Union used its security apparatus to attempt a transformation of the economy and to crush opposition to the high cost of this transformation. In some sense, Marxism-Leninism was a more efficient ideology, since Russian Orthodoxy created religious differentials while Marxism-Leninism was hostile to all religions and at least theoretically indifferent to the many ethnicities and nations.

The fall of the Soviet Union really began with a crisis in the economy that created a crisis in the security force, the KGB. It was Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, who first began to understand the degree to which the Soviet Union's economy was failing under the growing corruption of the Brezhnev years and the cost of defense spending. The KGB understood two things. The first was that Russia had to restructure (Perestroika) or collapse. The second was that the traditional insularity of the Soviet Union had to be shifted and the Soviets had to open themselves to Western technology and methods (Glasnost). Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a reformer, but he was a communist trying to reform the system to save the party. He was proceeding from the KGB model. His and Andropov's gamble was that the Soviet Union could survive and open to the West without collapsing and that it could trade geopolitical interests, such as domination of Eastern Europe, for economic relations without shattering the Soviet Union. They lost the bet.

The Soviet Collapse

The 1990s was a catastrophic period for the former Soviet Union. Except for a few regions, the collapse of the Soviet state and the security apparatus led to chaos, and privatization turned into theft. Not surprisingly, the most sophisticated and well-organized portion of the Soviet apparatus, the KGB, played a major role in the kleptocracy and retained, more than other institutions, its institutional identity. Over time, its control over the economy revived informally, until one of its representatives, Vladimir Putin, emerged as the leader of the state.

Putin developed three principles. The first was that the security system was the heart of the state. The second was that Moscow was the heart of Russia. The third was that Russia was the heart of the former Soviet Union. These principles were not suddenly imposed. The power of the KGB, renamed the FSB and SVR, slowly moved from a system of informal domination through kleptocracy to a more systematic domination of the state apparatus by the security services, reinstituting the old model. Putin took control of regional governments by appointing governors and controlling industry outside of Moscow. Most important, he cautiously moved Russia back to first among equals in the former Soviet Union.

Putin came to power on the heels of the Kosovo war. Russia had insisted that the West not go to war with Serbia, what was left of the former Yugoslavia. Russia was ignored, and its lack of influence left President Boris Yeltsin humiliated. But it was the Orange Revolution in Ukraine that convinced Putin that the United States intended to break Russia if someone like Yeltsin led it. Ukraine is economically and geographically essential to Russian national security, and Putin saw the attempt to create a pro-Western government that wanted to join NATO as Washington, using CIA-funded nongovernmental organizations pushing for regime change, attempted to permanently weaken Russia. Once the Orange Revolution succeeded, Putin moved to rectify the situation.

The first step was to make it clear that Russia had regained a substantial part of its power and was willing to use it. The second step was to demonstrate that American guarantees were worthless. The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 achieved both ends. The Russians had carried out an offensive operation and the Americans, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, could not respond. The lesson was not only for Georgia (which, similar to Ukraine, had also sought NATO membership). It was also for Ukraine and all other countries in the former Soviet Union, demonstrating that Russia was again going to be the heart of Eurasia. Indeed, one of Putin's latest projects is the Eurasian Union, tying together Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, a large economic and military part of the former Soviet Union. Add to this Ukraine and the former Soviet Union emerges even more.

Remaking the Union

For Russia, the recreation of a union is a strategic necessity. As Putin put it, the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe. Russia needs the economic integration, particularly given the new economic strategy of post-Soviet Russia, which is the export of raw materials, particularly energy. Aligning with states such as Kazakhstan in energy and Ukraine in grain provides Moscow with leverage in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe. As important, it provides strategic depth. The rest of the world knows that an invasion of Russia is inconceivable. The Russians can conceive of it. They remember that Germany in 1932 was crippled. By 1938 it was overwhelmingly powerful. Six years is not very long, and while such an evolution is unlikely now, from the Russian point of view, it must be taken seriously in the long run -- planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Therefore, the heart of Russian strategy, after resurrecting state power in Russia, is to create a system of relationships within the former Soviet Union that will provide economic alignment and strategic depth but not give Russia an unsustainable obligation to underwrite the other nations' domestic policies. Unlike the Russian Empire or Soviet Union, Putin's strategy is to take advantage of relationships on a roughly mutual basis without undertaking responsibility for the other nations.

In achieving this goal, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a godsend. Until 9/11, the United States had been deeply involved in peeling off parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltics and integrating them into Western systems. With 9/11, the United States became obsessed with the jihadist wars, giving Russia a window of opportunity to stabilize itself and to increase its regional power.
As the United States extracts itself from Afghanistan, Russia has to be concerned that Washington will supplement its focus on China with a renewed focus on Russia. The possible end of these conflicts is not in Russia's interest. Therefore, one piece of Russian external strategy is to increase the likelihood of prolonged U.S. obsession with Iran. Currently, for example, Russia and Iran are the only major countries supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Russia wants to see a pro-Iranian Syria -- not because it is in Moscow's long-term interests but because, in the short run, anything that absorbs the United States will relieve possible pressure on Russia and give more time for reordering the former Soviet Union.

The crisis in Europe is similarly beneficial to Russia. The unease that Germany has with the European Union has not yet matured into a break, and it may never. However, Germany's unease means that it is looking for other partners, in part to ease the strain on Germany and in part to create options. Germany depends on Russian energy exports, and while that might decrease in coming years, Russia is dealing with the immediate future. Germany is looking for other potential economic partners and, most important at a time when Europe is undergoing extreme strain, Germany does not want to get caught in an American attempt to redraw Russian borders. The ballistic missile defense system is not significant, in the sense that it does not threaten Russia, but the U.S. presence in the region is worrisome to Moscow. For Russia, recruiting Germany to the view that the United States is a destabilizing force would be a tremendous achievement.

Other issues are side issues. China and Russia have issues, but China cannot pose a significant threat to core Russian interests unless it chooses to invade maritime Russia, which it won't. There are economic and political issues, of course, but China is not at the heart of Russia's strategic concerns.
For Russia, the overwhelming strategic concern is dominating the former Soviet Union without becoming its patron. Ukraine is the key missing element, and a long, complex political and economic game is under way. The second game is in Central Asia, where Russia is systematically asserting its strength. The third is in the Baltics, where it has not yet made a move. And there is the endless conflict in the northern Caucasus that always opens the door for reasserting Russian power in the south. Russia's foreign policy is built around the need to buy time for it to complete its evolution.

To do this, the Russians must keep the United States distracted, and the Russian strategy in the Middle East serves that purpose. The second part is to secure the West by drawing Germany into a mutually beneficial economic relationship while not generating major resistance in Poland or an American presence there. Whether this can be achieved depends as much on Iran as it does on Russia.
Russia has come far from where Yeltsin took it. The security forces are again the heart of the state. Moscow dominates Russia. Russia is moving to dominate the former Soviet Union. Its main adversary, the United States, is distracted, and Europe is weak and divided. Of course, Russia is economically dysfunctional, but that has been the case for centuries and does not mean it will always be weak. For the moment, Russia is content to be strong in what it calls the near abroad, or the former Soviet Union. Having come this far, it is not trying to solve insoluble problems.

The Dutch Government's Collapse and the European Implications

2012-04-24T17:13:00.001+01:00

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that his Cabinet would resign April 23. The announcement came after the government failed to agree on budget cuts with its key partner the Party for Freedom, whose support had boosted the minority coalition to a parliamentary majority.

The collapse of the Dutch government comes as no surprise; tensions among the political parties have been simmering for weeks. This does mark the first collapse of a core eurozone government since the European debt crisis erupted in 2010. The upcoming elections and the intervening domestic political paralysis will have wider European implications.

Analysis

Rutte's liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) formed a government with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) after the elections in 2010. A special agreement with the right-wing and eurosceptic Party for Freedom (PVV), ensured the government had enough votes to secure a narrow parliamentary majority.

The three parties spent March and April attempting to negotiate budget cuts that the Netherlands needs if it is to reduce its budget deficit and comply with the three percent deficit target set by the European Union. The Netherlands has violated the deficit rules set out by the Maastricht criteria since 2009. The government is expected to present its budget plans to the European Commission on April 30 to be reviewed under the excessive deficit procedure, which requires countries to reduce their deficits under the commission's supervision.

PVV leader Geert Wilders stopped negotiations with the coalition the weekend of April 22 and said that the austerity measures under discussion would hurt the Dutch population. He likely withdrew his support hoping that his party (which is having internal struggles after a PVV lawmaker left out of protest against Wilders' leadership) would not be affiliated with the implementation of future austerity measures.

A Wealthy but Troubled Economy

The Netherlands is one of the richest countries on the Continent in per capita terms and is one of four remaining triple-A rated countries in the eurozone (the others are Germany, Finland and Luxembourg). Along with other northern European countries, particularly France and Germany, The Hague has pressured peripheral countries to implement drastic austerity measures since the beginning of the European debt crisis.

Although the Netherlands has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union, the country is currently in recession and is experiencing a real estate crisis that has increased household debt levels and reduced an already low domestic consumption. Because of the ongoing recession, the Netherlands is expected to carry a budget deficit of 4.6 percent gross domestic product in 2013 if no additional budget cuts are implemented. The Dutch government was negotiating cuts of around 14 billion euros ($18.4 billion). The government reportedly planned to increase certain student and medical fees, raise the retirement age to 66 in 2015 instead of 2020, freeze salaries in the public sector and increase the value-added tax.

The Netherlands, a core eurozone country, is now less able to comply with the EU deficit rules that it supported in the past. Rutte is expected to lead a caretaker government and to iron out an agreement with opposition parties that will allow him to present a half-finalized budget plan to the European Commission on April 30.

From Eurozone Anchor to Source of Uncertainty

The European Commission will likely not take concrete measures to enforce Dutch compliance, showing that the institution, especially as regards core EU countries, is not fully capable of enforcing its own rules. At a time when countries such as Spain and Italy have already softened their deficit goals, peripheral European countries will use the Dutch to justify their own resistance against austerity and their failure to achieve deficit targets. This will make it more difficult for Germany to ensure fiscal compliance with the fiscal rules.

The Netherlands has a low threshold for entry into parliament, which makes it harder for a single party to win an outright majority. Because of the high number of parties in parliament, forming a government coalition takes a relatively long time. Elections in the Netherlands would take place no earlier than June. Due to electoral laws, however, they will likely take place in September. Current polls show that Rutte's VVD would remain the strongest party in the country but would still be required to form a coalition. Until then, the Netherlands will remain an uncertain force at the core of Europe, which so far has supported the German and French attempt to stabilize the eurozone in order to ensure containment of German power and the push for austerity measure implementation in the periphery.

Apart from leading to higher borrowing costs, the coming months of political paralysis in the Netherlands will weaken current and forthcoming eurozone rescue measures.

Ratings agencies have indicated that the country's political uncertainty could lead to a downgrade. A loss of the Dutch triple-A rating could have wider European implications because the country's rating affects the rating of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the only European bailout fund currently in place.

Furthermore, the Dutch Parliament has not yet ratified the second and permanent European bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which is supposed to replace the EFSF in July. The Dutch Parliament in its current situation is not certain to ratify the ESM, which could mean that the ESM will not be operational by July. This would create new market tensions and a reluctance by the International Monetary Fund to help Europe.

The Netherlands has not yet ratified the fiscal compact. Several parties oppose the pact, which they see as a dictate from Brussels that imposes budget rules that are too strict. While Dutch participation is not required to make the fiscal compact functional, it would be a big defeat for Germany if its immediate neighbor does not sign up.

A Key Moment for Austerity and Euroscepticism

These three points are likely to lead to further market pressure. To some degree they will force the Dutch parties to collaborate and form a government as soon as possible. Once again the European Central Bank will have to step in as the only institution able to delay a further severe expansion of the eurozone crisis.

So far the Netherlands has remained stable throughout the crisis. The government's April 23 fall means the country is apt to become a source of uncertainty and trouble. The upcoming Dutch elections will show how strongly voters in a core eurozone country stand behind austerity as a solution to the crisis and how strongly voters support eurosceptic parties.

China-Philippines Standoff Intensifies

2012-04-23T16:43:00.000+01:00

From theTrumpet.com

China’s belligerency is on display on the world stage once again.

Beijing intensified a 10-day standoff between the Philippines and China on Friday by sending a third ship to a shoal in the South China Sea where both sides claim sovereignty.

The confrontation at the Scarborough Shoal began on April 10 when a Philippine warship accused eight Chinese fishermen of illegal entry and poaching in Philippine waters, and attempted to arrest them. Philippine officials said the vessels held endangered marine resources such as giant clams and live sharks, which it is illegal to catch. The Philippine officials attempted to arrest the fishermen, but were stopped by the arrival of two Chinese government vessels, which ordered the Philippine warship to leave Scarborough, saying it was Chinese territory. The Philippine ship refused to back down, saying that the territory lies well within Philippine waters.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea designates a country’s exclusive economic zone as 230 miles from its coastline, and the shoal in question is only 140 miles from the Philippine coast. China’s closest territory to the shoal, Hainan province, is 542 miles away from the Scarborough Shoal.

On Tuesday, the Philippines asked China to bring the simmering dispute to a United Nations-linked international court. “[W]e fully intend to humbly invite our Chinese friends to join us in the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea,” said Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario. “The whole world knows that China has myriad more ships and aircraft than the Philippines. At day’s end, however, we hope to demonstrate that international law would be the great equalizer.”

But, in a move revealing how little regard China has for international law, Beijing ignored the proposal and reiterated its demand for the Philippines to withdraw its ships from the shoal in order to “restore peace and stability there.” Instead of taking the simmering dispute to court, China dispatched another patrol vessel to the shoal. Beijing said the third vessel was deployed because the Philippines had dishonored China’s jurisdiction.

The standoff is being closely monitored by regional players to see how far Beijing will go in its increasingly belligerent stance on territorial claims there. “We understand that the world is watching, and the issue at hand has a wider implication on how China is asserting its territorial claims, which have no basis in international law,” said Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez.

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims in the South China Sea, with China claiming almost the entire sea. The area is disputed largely because it straddles some of the world’s busiest sea lanes, has rich fishing waters, and is believed to contain vast oil and natural gas reserves.

China has long said the disputes should be resolved bilaterally, but the Philippines and other nations have been quick to call upon the United States and international community for assistance. China has consistently expressed displeasure over external involvement, and over the waters of the South China Sea being a site for military drills for the U.S. and other powers. But last Monday, as the standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels continued, thousands of U.S. and Philippine soldiers undertook joint military drills in those very waters. The military exercises, involving 4,500 U.S. troops and 2,300 Filipino soldiers, were planned before the standoff came to a head, though Manila called the display of U.S.-Philippine solidarity “timely,” in light of the conflict.

“Given the international situation we are in, I say that this exercise, in connection with all those that we have had in the past, is a timely and mutually beneficial event for us and our U.S. counterparts,” said Philippine Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Jesse Dellosa.

However, the U.S. has said before that it may not always be willing to support its longtime ally the Philippines, and a time approaches when American backing will not be available for any of the nations China threatens. As China’s might continues to grow and American will fades, watch for Beijing’s belligerent behavior to simultaneously increase. The Philippines and other Asian nations will be compelled to abandon the sinking U.S. ship, and to set aside their intercontinental disputes. This shift will lead to the establishment of a colossal Asian power bloc and—ultimately—to the most hope-filled event in history! To understand more, read Russia and China in Prophecy. •

EU to Create New ‘Super-President’?

2012-04-23T16:31:00.001+01:00

From theTrumpet.com Another idea from the ‘Berlin Club’

A group of EU foreign ministers discussed the idea of merging the European Union’s top jobs into one on April 19, the EU Observer reports, coining the term “super-president” to describe the new top job.

The jobs of European Council president, currently held by Herman Van Rompuy, and European Commission president, currently held by José Manuel Barroso, may be merged. “The new super-president would also chair General Affairs Councils (gacs)—monthly meetings of foreign ministers which discuss internal Union affairs,” writes the EU Observer. Its source reports that experts believe this can be done without a treaty change.

The idea emerged from a meeting of 10 EU foreign ministers organized by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to discuss closer European integration. Sometimes called the “Berlin Club,” the group usually has 11 members: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. The French foreign minister, however, was not able to attend this last meeting.

These ministers see that for Europe to become better integrated it needs a strong central leader. As the euro crisis pushes those nations that are committed to remaining in the euro closer together, watch for this idea to become more popular. Europe knows it needs a strong central leader to respond to the dangers of today’s world.

With Submarines against Pirates

2012-04-14T21:48:00.000+01:00

German government advisors are pleading for using submarines in the war on piracy at the Horn of Africa. Thanks to their "highly modern sensor technology," German submarines are not only capable of "covertly observing the pirates' vessels" and following their course, but also of "observing the pirates' potential bases both day and night," according to a statement just published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). The bases could therefore be attacked with greater precision, as the EU decided Friday - in spite of warnings that this could lead to a further escalation of the conflict in Somalia. Geostrategic considerations are at the core of the militarization projects, being promoted by the Bundeswehr. The Indian Ocean has become extremely important in global policy and it will play a pivotal role in future conflicts with China. Under no circumstances should the "new momentum in the greater region of the Indian Ocean" be neglected, warns the director of the SWP. Military strategists are underlining the importance of a strong naval presence in the ocean between Africa and Southeast Asia.

In Violation of International Law

The appeal of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) for new militarization projects corresponds to the decision taken by the EU's foreign ministers last Friday, to combat piracy also on shore in the future. According to this decision, not the pirates themselves, but their weapons, vessels, fuel and even food supplies should be attacked and destroyed. This should be permitted "on shore," but the military seeks to avoid clarifying, what exactly is meant by "shore," and what is being targeted. The Federal Cabinet plans to endorse these new regulations on Wednesday and the endorsement by the German Bundestag should follow as soon as possible. Experts had explicitly warned against the extension of the mandate, fearing an uncontrollable escalation of the conflict. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.) Even parliamentarians of the opposition, who, in principle, support the war on piracy, point to the illegality of on shore military attacks on pirates. Reinhard Buetikofer (Green Party) reminds that pirates are "criminals and not enemy combatants." To "attack them on land, without them posing a direct danger, is simply in violation of international law."

Combat Unit "Berlin"

These regulations are of particular importance to Germany, not only because of the endorsement by Berlin's foreign minister, but also because of the prominent role the Bundeswehr is currently playing in the EU Operation Atalanta. The Bundeswehr had just dispatched its combat unit logistical support vessel "Berlin" to the Horn of Africa - "not as a logistical support vessel, but as a combat unit," the German Armed Forces underlined. The "Berlin" is therefore carrying more personnel than usual - military police and a so-called boarding team, but also two "Sea King" helicopters. These helicopters are equipped with machine-guns, to be used against alleged piracy infrastructures, in line with the EU's decision. "Particularly the Bundeswehr, at this point" can launch these attacks, writes the press, "because it has the appropriate helicopters in the theater of operations."

Very Experienced in Surveillance

SWP is now proposing another militarization project for the Horn of Africa and calls on the German government to dispatch German submarines to the Somali coast. The crews of the submarines are "familiar with deployment in shallow waters and reconnaissance missions." Thanks to their "highly modern sensor technology," the submarines are not only capable of "keeping potential pirate bases under surveillance day and night with great perseverance (...) and rapidly signaling the surveillance results." They are also capable of localizing pirate vessels and following their course. Other warships, or their board helicopters, could open fire, if Berlin still seeks to avoid the deployment of special forces. The current official EU position does not permit ground troops to engage the pirates on shore. The SWP author, who, during his career in the Navy had served as a submarine commander as well as a fleet command operations officer, points out that submarines, unlike helicopters and reconnaissance aircraft, can operate "undercover" - they are undetectable by the pirates. The German Navy has extensive experience. "For years it has been participating in NATO's undercover surveillance operations in the Mediterranean."

Geostrategic Competition

These militarization plans are certainly not a reaction merely to considerations of how to combat more effectively piracy off the coast of Somalia, but to geostrategic considerations as well. For example, last year Volker Perthes, Director of SWP, pointed out that the "interests" behind the countries' sending their naval vessels to the Horn of Africa are not "limited to the war on piracy." Perthes explains that, over the past few years, the importance of the Indian Ocean, where piracy is being fought in its western sector, has enormously grown. "One third of the world's maritime trade" crosses this route, with the trend rising rapidly. Particularly East Asian countries, especially China, are making large infrastructure investments in the bordering countries - port facilities or transportation means -, which are "also elements of the geostrategic competition." It is, after all, "it goes without saying" that China and even India have "an interest in protecting their maritime links." Even though the United States "will remain the strongest maritime power in the Indian Ocean, for the foreseeable future," it will soon "no longer be the sole maritime power." Perthes warns that "the new momentum in the greater region of the Indian Ocean" should not be neglected and one must also be involved.

The Decisive Maritime Region

Parting from this premise, military experts are emphasizing the need for the strongest possible naval presence in the Indian Ocean. "With the growing geostrategic significance of the Indian Ocean region, the influence also grows for those, participating in the political military architecture of the region," according to a military policy analysis published last year in a renowned Austrian military review. "A gigantic power struggle is currently taking place in the Indian Ocean," a high-ranking Swiss officer is quoted saying. "The navies of China, Japan, India, the USA, the Europeans, the NATO, and the EU are taking up positions, ports are being built, and naval forces are being equipped." The officer sees world historical upheavals. "For the first time since the 16th Century," he writes, "we are seeing the downfall of a western maritime power in this decisive maritime region."The military activities in the Indian Ocean, even at the Horn of Africa, will determine who, in the future, will predominate over an ocean, characterized by the former director of the German Combined Chief of Staff in the Defense Ministry, ret. Vice Admiral Ulrich Weisser as the "decisive region for the seas of the world" and characterized it as "decisive for the future power structure in Asia." (german-foreign-policy.com reported. This is the context, to be considered, if one wants to take up the proposal to station German submarines in the western sector of the Indian Ocean.

From www.german-foreign-policy.com

Russia Planning Troops Deployment On Iran's Northern Border And Waiting For A Western Attack By F. Michael Maloof

2012-04-13T19:39:00.002+01:00

"Information Clearing House" --- WASHINGTON – The Russian military anticipates that an attack will occur on Iran by the summer and has developed an action plan to move Russian troops through neighboring Georgia to stage in Armenia, which borders on the Islamic republic, according to informed Russian sources.

Russian Security Council head Viktor Ozerov said that Russian General Military Headquarters has prepared an action plan in the event of an attack on Iran.

Dmitry Rogozin, who recently was the Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, warned against an attack on Iran.

"Iran is our neighbor," Rogozin said. "If Iran is involved in any military action, it's a direct threat to our security." Rogozin now is the deputy Russian prime minister and is regarded as anti-Western. He oversees Russia's defense sector.

Russian Defense Ministry sources say that the Russian military doesn't believe that Israel has sufficient military assets to defeat Iranian defenses and further believes that U.S. military action will be necessary.

The implication of preparing to move Russian troops not only is to protect its own vital regional interests but possibly to assist Iran in the event of such an attack. Sources add that a Russian military buildup in the region could result in the Russian military potentially engaging Israeli forces, U.S. forces, or both.

Informed sources say that the Russians have warned of "unpredictable consequences" in the event Iran is attacked, with some Russians saying that the Russian military will take part in the possible war because it would threaten its vital interests in the region.

The influential Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper has quoted a Russian military source as saying that the situation forming around Syria and Iran "causes Russia to expedite the course of improvement of its military groups in the South Caucasus, the Caspian, Mediterranean and Black Sea regions."

This latest information comes from a series of reports and leaks from official Russian spokesmen and government news agencies who say that an Israeli attack is all but certain by the summer.

Because of the impact on Russian vital interests in the region, sources say that Russian preparations for such an attack began two years ago when Russian Military Base 102 in Gyumri, Armenia, was modernized. It is said to occupy a major geopolitical position in the region.

Families of Russian servicemen from the Russian base at Gyumri in Armenia close to the borders of Georgia and Turkey already have been evacuated, Russian sources say.

"Military Base 102 is a key point, Russia's outpost in the South Caucasus," a Russian military source told the newspaper. "It occupies a very important geopolitical position, but the Kremlin fears lest it should lose this situation."

With Vladimir Putin returning to the Russian presidency, the prospect that he again would order an attack on Georgia as he did in August 2008 also has become a possibility, these informed sources say.

The Russians believe that Georgia would cooperate with the United States in blocking any supplies from reaching Military Base 102, which now is supplied primarily by air. Right now, Georgia blocks the only land transportation route through which Russian military supplies could travel.

Fuel for the Russian base in Armenia comes from Iran. Russian officials believe this border crossing may be closed in the event of a war.

"Possibly, it will be necessary to use military means to breach the Georgian transport blockade and establish transport corridors leading into Armenia," according to Yury Netkachev, former deputy commander of Russian forces in Transcaucasia. Geography of the region suggests that any such supply corridor would have to go through the middle of Georgia approaching Georgia's capital of Tbilisi given the roads and topography of the country.

In September, the Russian military plans to hold its annual military exercises called Kavkaz 2012. However, informed Russian sources say that preparations and deployments of military equipment and personnel already have begun in anticipation of a possible war with Iran.

These sources report that new command and control equipment has been deployed in the region capable of using the Russian GPS system, GLONASS for targeting information.

"The air force in the South Military District is reported to have been rearmed almost 100 percent with new jets and helicopters," according to regional expert Pavel Felgenhauer of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation.

In 2008, Felgenhauer pointed out, Kavkaz 2008 maneuvers allowed the Russian military to covertly deploy forces that successfully invaded Georgia in August of that year.

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov already has announced that new Spetznaz, or Special Forces units, will be deployed in Stavropol and Kislovodsk, which are located in the North Caucasian regions.

Russian sources say that the Russian military believes that if the U.S. goes to war with Iran, it may deploy forces into Georgia and warships in the Caspian Sea with the possible help of Azerbaijan, which since has stated that it will not allow its territory to be used by Israel to launch an attack on neighboring Iran.

There had been speculation that given the improved relations between Israel and Azerbaijan, the Jewish state may use bases from which to launch air attacks on neighboring Iran's nuclear sites. Israel recently agreed to sell Azerbaijan $1.6 billion in military equipment.

A further irritant to Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili is the prospect that Russian assault airborne troops, or VDV units, with helicopters could be moved into Georgia's two breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These two provinces were taken by the Russian military during the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war. Initially they were declared by Moscow to be independent countries, but now the Kremlin is indicating they may be annexed to Russia.

Similarly, Lt. General Vladimir Shamanov, commander of the VDV, has announced that Russian troops in Armenia will be reinforced by paratroopers, along with attack and transport helicopters.

"The Russian spearhead (from the Transcaucasia region) may be ordered to strike south to prevent the presumed deployment of U.S. bases in Transcaucasia, to link up with the troops in Armenia and take over the South Caucasus energy corridor along which Azeri, Turkmen and other Caspian natural gas and oil may reach European markets," Felgenhauer said.

"By one swift military strike, Russia may ensure control of all the Caucasus and the Caspian states that were its former realm, establishing a fiat accompli the West, too preoccupied with Iran, would not reverse," he said.

"At the same time, a small victorious war would unite the Russian nation behind the Kremlin, allowing it to crush the remnants of the prodemocracy movement 'for fair elections,' and as a final bonus, Russia's military action could perhaps finally destroy the Saakashvili regime."

Putin has made no secret that he despises Saakashvili and with his return to the presidency, he may consider taking out the Georgian president as unfinished business. Just as in 2008, Putin will not have much to worry about if he sends Russian troops into Georgia, since there was muted reaction from the U.S. and the European countries to the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation.

F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for WND’s G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He can be contacted at mmaloof@wnd.com.
This post originally appeared at G2 Bulletin.

US Gives Iran 'Last Chance' Warning by Guy Adams

2012-04-13T19:32:00.002+01:00

"The Independent" -Iran must immediately close a large nuclear facility built underneath a mountain if it is to take what President Obama has called a "last chance" to resolve its escalating dispute with the West via diplomacy.

Other "near term" concessions which must be met in the early stages of talks to avoid a potential military conflict, include the suspension of higher level uranium enrichment, and the surrender by Tehran of existing stockpiles of the fuel, senior US officials said yesterday.

The demands were outlined as Iranian state TV announced that crucial negotiations over its disputed nuclear programme will begin in Istanbul on Friday, allaying fears that disagreements over the venue would derail the important and long-scheduled talks.

US diplomats, who will join counterparts from the UK, China, Russia, France and Germany, at the bargaining table, told reporters that they will insist on Iran's leadership giving up the Fordow enrichment plant, which is just outside the Shia holy city of Qom.

The facility is buried deep in a mountain, apparently to protect against air strikes, and is at the centre of Israeli fears that the country's military leadership is secretly developing weapons that could mount a long-range strike across international borders.

A senior US official told The New York Times that the White House has "no idea how the Iranians will react" to the demands, and "probably won't know after the first meeting".

But he said that more serious talks cannot proceed unless they are met. Another US source told Reuters that the country must also export its entire stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 per cent purity if they are to stave off potential military action, saying, "20 per cent and closing Fordow are near-term priorities" for the Obama administration.

The negotiations are hugely delicate, both on the international stage and in the US, where in the run-up to November's election, President Obama is anxious to challenge Republican claims that he has been "soft" on Iran.

Many of Mr Obama's predecessors have taken a gung-ho approach to foreign affairs prior to their re-election battles, perhaps banking on the theory that the patriotic fervour of an America at war is more likely to give its incumbent President a second term.

The current debate over Iran isn't quite so straightforward, though.

Firstly, there is no guarantee that the US electorate would back intervention there, given the cost and mixed outcome of their country's interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secondly, an unpredictable conflict in the Middle East could cause oil prices to spiral, threatening America's economic recovery and directly impacting the financial resources of voters, who are already voicing disquiet at fuel costs that are approaching record levels.

With this in mind, the White House hopes to persuade its allies that a mixture of crushing sanctions and diplomacy can be more effective than intervention. It has repeatedly pressed Israel to hold off pre-emptive military strikes until sanctions are proven to have failed.

Iran Warns West Against Military Intervention in Syria

2012-04-07T19:19:00.000+01:00

A senior Iranian cleric warned the West and Saudi Arabia on Friday against taking military action in the Syrian crisis.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said that the West, “the Arab hardliner regimes, and the Saudi Arabian government, all should know that if they intervene militarily in Syria, a fire would be started that would burn themselves before anyone else.”

The ayatollah’s comments come at a time of escalated violence in Syria, which is Iran’s most important regional ally. This week, Syrian forces have intensified attacks against opposition just days before an internationally sponsored ceasefire is set to take hold. This crackdown has prompted thousands of Syrian refugees to flee into Turkey in recent days.

Iran fears that the upheaval in Syria provides the West and Saudi Arabia with an opportunity to sever Tehran’s critical alliance with Damascus.

The Trumpet believes that, as international pressure against the Syrian government continues to mount, Iranian fears will be realized. A split between Iran and Syria is on the horizon.
From thetrumpet.com

EU Militaries Pool Resources, Reduce Dependence on America

2012-03-27T20:34:00.003+01:00

EU defense ministers attend a Defense Ministers Council on March 22, at EU headquarters in Brussels.
(Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images)

From Thetrumpet.com

EU nations will invest in joint military projects such as air-to-air refueling and field hospitals as they try to save money and reduce their dependence on the United States, defense ministers from across the European Union decided March 22.

Meeting as part of the European Defense Agency’s Steering Board, they signed declarations of intent in these areas and said they would increase cooperation in procurement and research.

“The EU-led nato operation in Libya last year also exposed hardware and technology deficiencies in the EU military,” wrote the EU Observer.

“Gaps in the EU military were already identified in Afghanistan,” it writes. “The former U.S. defense minister Robert Gates last year said Europe’s lack of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets rendered even Europe’s most advanced jet fighters useless. In Libya, the U.S. was also instrumental in air-to-air refueling.”

Hence the EU’s decision to develop air-to-air refueling as “a matter of priority,” as the European Defense Agency’s press release says. It is also working to fix its shortcomings in other areas.

The United States is encouraging Europe to become more militarily independent, as it focuses its attention more on the Pacific.

European militaries have a lot to gain from working together. Combined, they have a military budget second only to the U.S. They have the potential to be a major military power if they work together.

Many EU nations want to go much further toward a common military. “The UK is reluctant to go ahead with this, but everybody else wants to, so we should move forward,” said Finland’s Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja earlier in the month (March 9).

As Britain becomes increasingly sidelined, expect EU nations to integrate their militaries much more. Watch for them to continue to overcome their weaknesses—with American encouragement—so they are less reliant on the U.S. This is something America will deeply regret, however. For more on the agenda behind Europe’s military desires, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “The Holy Roman Empire Is Back!”

Poland's Vulnerability Amid Missile Diplomacy

2012-03-27T20:21:00.002+01:00

JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L), German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (C) and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Berlin on March 21

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski visited Berlin on March 21 to meet informally with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The visit, while part of a cooperation and discussions framework, underscores Poland's sensitive position at the center of rising tensions between Russia and NATO over missile defense. Warsaw finds its national security very concretely threatened by the missiles system that Russia reactivated in Kaliningrad and is set to step up its search for supplemental and alternative regional security arrangements.

Analysis

The March 21 meeting marked the second annual reunion of the discussion and cooperation group formed by the foreign ministries of Russia, Germany and Poland in May 2011. Russia pushed for this cooperation format as a counterweight to the "Weimar Triangle" arrangement, which is composed of France, Poland and Germany.
Russia is at a critical juncture in its resurgence. Moscow hopes to take advantage of the economic crisis roiling the Continent to bolster its own efforts to re-establish its control in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia's former area of influence. NATO's level of engagement in Central and Eastern Europe is as low as it has been since the end of the Cold War. But Moscow still faces a critical hurdle regarding the continued implementation of the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Central European countries, which it sees as a strategic threat.
The Kremlin has continued to push back against the BMD deployment. Moscow most recently escalated tensions by reactivating the S-400 missile defense system in its Kaliningrad exclave and has threatened to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad before the end of the year.
Moscow's attempts to gain negotiating leverage with Washington over the BMD present Poland with an untenable strategic threat: the potential to have Russian short-range ballistic missiles placed along its northern border. Vladimir Putin's re-election to Russia's presidency and his assertive foreign policy rhetoric during the electoral campaign will do little to allay Polish concerns. But Warsaw has a limited hand to play.
The U.S. position on BMD has generated a military buildup and more aggressive rhetoric from Russia, leaving Poland with few realistic options to counter the threat to its national security. This general security imbalance is not new to Warsaw -- it has long known that Russia was on the rise again, that NATO was growing increasingly disengaged in Central Europe, and that the European Union has continued to struggle with its own political and economic crisis, which makes it unlikely to ever become a satisfactory guarantor of security.

In response to these security concerns, Poland has sought to form regional strategic and military cooperation groups within larger EU and NATO structures. The creation of the Visegrad Group in July 2011, under the EU Common Security and Defense Policy, was one such effort. Poland has also recently been looking to establish greater security cooperation in the Baltic region, particularly with Lithuania, with which Warsaw recently agreed to coordinate positions on NATO's missile defense plans in Europe.

However, such plans are in their nascent stages and have so far proved to have little effectiveness. Poland's limited success in this arena is partly due to its focus on issues other than the strategic counterbalance of Russia. Warsaw has concentrated most of its diplomatic efforts on the West -- the source of Poland's continued economic prosperity even amid the crisis -- and on seeking a greater role within the changing EU architecture. In late 2011, Sikorski himself said he saw the collapse of the European Union as Poland's primary existential threat and even called for increased German leadership within the union.

Stratfor expects the recent military buildup in Kaliningrad to remind Poland of its dearth of security options regarding Russia. While any concrete reaction by Warsaw is unlikely, countering the Russian threat will certainly move to the forefront of Polish foreign policy. Poland will intensify its efforts to craft regional strategic and military counterweights, seeking further commitments within and outside NATO and EU structures, though this will not likely achieve Poland's security goals concerning Russia in the short term.