ARTICLE 1
Mali’s Tuaregs ‘ready’ for talks amid huge gains – Al Jazeera – April 2, 2012
Mali’s Tuaregs ‘ready’ for talks amid huge gainsIn just a few weeks, Tuareg rebels in Mali have managed to achieve what has eluded them for more than 40 years. They now control a vast desert area that stretches from Kidal in the east to the ancient city of Timbuktu to the west – including the garrison town of Gao. Now the rebels say they are ready to negotiate. This comes after coup leaders who seized power last month asked their West African neighbours to help them halt the offensive by the Tuaregs seeking to create a separate homeland in the north. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports from Bamako.
Rebel group proclaims “independence of Azawad” following gains in northern Mali, as Algerian consulate staff abducted. Last Modified: 06 Apr 2012 15:54
Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have proclaimed the “independence of Azawad” in a statement on their website and through a spokesperson in Paris.
“We solemnly proclaim the independence of Azawad as from today,” Mossa Ag Attaher said on Friday, adding that the rebels would respect “the borders with other states”.
The Tuareg have declared the city of Gao as the capital of their new country.
Mali has been gripped by instability, following a coup by army officers in the capital Bamako and advances by Tuareg fighters and other armed groups that have seen a string of northern towns fall under their control in the broadly triangular area of desert in northern Mali
The MNLA statement on Friday stressed the group’s “firm commitment to create the conditions for lasting peace [and] to initiate the institutional foundations for a state based on a democratic constitution for an independent Azawad”.
Declaration questioned
However, the move was immediately questioned by the Ansar Dine, an Islamist group which also joined the fight against Malian government forces, who claim to be against independence.
Tuareg rebels claim the Azawad region of northern Mali
“Our war is a holy war. It’s a legal war in the name of Islam. We are against rebellions,” Ansar Dine military chief Omar Hamaha said.
“We are against independence. We are against revolutions not in the name of Islam.”
He was speaking in a video exclusively obtained by the AFP news agency and France 2 television filmed after the Islamist group’s takeover of Timbuktu, where they have imposed Islamic law, forcing women to cover themselves and burning down bars.
Hamaha said they had “more than 120 prisoners” including thieves.
“We have tied them up and taken their weapons. We beat them well and it’s likely we will slit their throats,” he added, while it was not clear if this threat was aimed at all prisoners.
In the city of Gao, Ansar Dine kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats, according to witnesses and the Algerian foreign ministry.
Ag Attaher, speaking on behalf of the MNLA, called the kidnapping “deplorable”, adding that his group had been against that action but finally went along with the move so as to spare lives.
“We are a liberation movement and we support the principles and values of democracy,” he said.
“We distance ourselves completely from any Islamist movement and their fight for religious law.”
International condemnation
A series of international condemnations of the group’s “independence” declaration rolled out as bodies around the world discussed the announcement.
Algerian consulate workers abducted
A statement from the office of Jean Ping, the African Union’s commission chair, called the announcement “null and of no value whatsoever”.
“[Ping] calls on the international community as a whole to fully support this principled position of Africa,” it said.
France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, dismissed the declaration of independence, French defence minister Gerard Longuet said.
“A unilateral declaration of independence which is not recognised by African states would not have any meaning for us,” Longuet told the Reuters news agency.
Ahmed Ouyahia, Algeria’s prime minister, was quoted by France’s Le Monde newspaper as saying the neighbouring country would “never accept questioning Mali’s territorial integrity”.
The UK Foreign Office released a statement saying they had temporarily suspended all in-country services, including consular services, and withdrawn their staff from the embassy in Bamako.
Alessandra Giuffrida, an anthropologist in the African Studies Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the UK, psoke to Al Jazeera about the legality of creating an independent state for the Tuaregs.
“They are taking advantage of a new situation, which is the lack of a constitutional government in Bamako, which means the MNLA was able to claim, according to international law, independence, and this is a new fact which has never occurred before in the history of the Tuareg,” she said.
“According to international law experts, this actually gives the Tuareg some ground to fight legally for the independence of their state.”
Giuffrida said the reaction of the international community was important because “they have an interest in maintaining the status quo”.
“There is economic interest in the north of the country after the discovery of mineral resources,” she said.
‘Strange situation’
“The coup leaders were of the view that they would get more support from the people because of the failure of the military establishment to cope with the situation,” said Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Bamako.
“But they suddenly found themselves in a strange situation – the coup leaders lost control of half of the country, and they’re now hoping for international support.”
The MNLA, which on Thursday said it had halted military operations as a result of their capture of the Azawad, called on the international community to recognise its independence.
“We completely accept the role and responsibility that behoves us to secure this territory,” Ag Attaher said. “We have ended a very important fight, that of liberation … now the biggest task commences.”
But a Malian military source told the AFP news agency that Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly wielded more power in the north, with the backing of alleged regional al-Qaeda fighters.
“From what we know, the MNLA is in charge of nothing at the moment … it is Iyad who is the strongest and he is with AQIM,” the source said, referring to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Salafist Flag
Witnesses told AFP that raiders had hoisted the black Salafist flag that has been the emblem of rebels who had overrun Gao, Timbuktu and other northern towns.
Amnesty International warned that north Mali was on the brink of a “major humanitarian disaster” while Oxfam and World Vision said crippling sanctions against the junta could have devastating consequences.
“All the food and medicine stored by major aid agencies has been looted and most of the aid workers have fled,” said Gaetan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher on west Africa.
“The population is at imminent risk of severe food and medical shortages that could lead to many casualties especially among women and children who are less able to fend for themselves.”
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Congrats to the Tuareg on gaining their own homeland! Heres what Tuaregs need to do now.
a) Allow any diplomats who wish to, to remain. All those who do not recognize sovereignty should be put on the next flight out.
b) Allow all citizens from dissenting nations to put up their properties for sale and then depart, or take an oath of citizenship
c) Contingents and military outposts at all legal borders to guard sovereignty.
d) appoint ambassador to UN based in New York.
e) cut diplomatic ties with all nations who refuse to recognize, disallow all nations which do not recogmize to enter the Tuareg nation
Most importantly :
f) form a government with formal posts acceptable to and perhaps with UN/NAM advisors invited to oversee the process
g) redistribute (and use GPS for conformation of land title positions and locations, equally all available land not owned by foreigners via Allodial Title to all Tuareg nomads so that any invasion of Tuarag will be considered against individual owners who do not want ‘invasion and occupation’
h) adopt Tuareg as the national language and perhaps send delegations to the OIC, BRICS and NAM if UN representation is overwhelmingly against Tuareg sovereignty
If the Tuareg are peaceful and non-violent in all actions, respect existing foreign citizens as above, Tuareg Sovereignty even if recognized by a handful of states (BRICS being most important), the Tuareg can still function with the rest of the world while ignoring all ‘Western nations’ and even be armed by BRICS nations.
The following link, AFTER all the above items have been established, I will leave for the Tuareg to consider. Speak for Saif-Al-Islam Gaddafi who’s father committed much human rights abuses but armed the Tuareg and even declare the man a constitutional monarch with limited powers? Or leave Saif-Al-Islam Gaddafi to his own fate at the Hague? – http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=138298
Tuaregs will decide Saif-Al-Islam Gaddafi's fate . . .
ARTICLE 2
Another killing: RELA time bomb explodes – the buck stops with Najib and Hisham Featured – Written by Mathias Gomes, Malaysia Chronicle – Monday, 02 April 2012 06:09
The brutal murder of an alleged Nigerian rapist, Onachie Martins Nwanko a student, by seven RELA paramilitary members in Kajang, Selangor was a time bomb waiting to explode.
These partially trained volunteers are a real menace especially to foreigners. Ask any foreigner and they will all have tales to tell, which sad to say, will be 99% truthful.
In recent years, there has been a five fold increase of this RELA force in Malaysia and suddenly today, we have 2.5 million volunteers in the country – of which about 20% alone are in Selangor.
These paramilitary can run down the police force any time with their sheer numbers, and yet how qualified are they, is a question that badly needs to be answered by the authorities.
The fact is, you only need to posses only a legal Malaysian Identity Card to be a RELA volunteer. Is this enough and are any background checks performed? The response from the authorities so far seems to be “No need lah, only like jaga-kereta boys, so why need background checks?”
7 vs 1 in the true spirit of RELA 1 Malaysia
So this means we have 2.5 million jaga-kereta boys in Malaysia who are empowered to rope in the ‘illegal foreigners’ we allowed into the country legally in the first place.
Even the so called rapist is a 35-year-old student from Nigeria. Which College actually enrolled him? Indeed, Malaysia seems to be becoming the world’s largest college-hub in the world, with schools in every nook and corner teaching almost every available subject under the sun. No wonder, it is easy passage into the country for moon lighters.
What did Onachie Martins do to deserve death as a penalty? According to news reports, he hugged and kissed and showed his private part to a cleaner on the 15th floor of a condominium in Kajang. The terrified cleaner alerted the building management who allegedly sent the RELA men to investigate. The cleaner ran towards the approaching RELA personnel and barely minutes later, the Nigerian came down to the ground floor as well.
So our RELA guys caught the Nigerian and beat him up before tying him and informing the police. When the police arrived, he was motionless and the police then arrested the 7 RELA men. Just imagine 7 men raining blows on one man and he dies. FOLKS, THIS IS RELA 1 MALAYSIA for you.
It was a huge shame, with the African community in the Kajang community protesting the death of their compatriot. As usual, the Umno-controlled press has reported it in such a way that it was the unruly Africans who staged a riot. Would not Malaysians do the same if a Malaysian was beaten to death for senseless reasons by hooligans dressed up in official uniforms by a banana-republic dictator-government?
The buck stops with the cousins
This is the time bomb that a lot of concerned Malaysian citizens have been warning Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government was waiting to happen. But did he and his cousin, the Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, listen?
Of course not. Instead, it is during Najib’s tenure as PM and Hisham’s as Home Minister that there has been such a huge jump in RELA officers. Ad if they continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear, more such bombs will go off, that’s for sure.
The RELA recruitment jump has prompted speculation that Umno, which is Malaysia’s biggest political party, is involved and it has evil thoughts about using RELA to do a whole spectrum of dirty deeds, especially in Selangor, when the 13th general elections are held.
Should not the Pakatan Rakyat opposition and not to mention Bersih, the electoral watchdog, do something about RELA before the power-crazed cousins and their Umno-BN coalition go completely out of control?
Can the BN government justify the 2.5 million and growing numbers of RELA force? Do we really need these people on top of the police to safeguard the people? The Opposition has been crying foul for years, accusing the government of using these members to carry out fraud and even to stir up violence in the coming general elections.
Something stinks and is a huge drain on national resources
The question here is, do the government and the police need to have such a huge block of poorly-trained volunteers to safeguard the country against illegal foreigners when other arms of the same government had legally allowed them entry in the first place?
Under the pretext of issuing block approval for the outsourcing of permits to dubious foreign workers, local recruiting agencies have in hand thousands of calling visas for these foreigners. In other words, we actually brought in these illegals immigrants and in the 6P programme, we further registered about 1.5 million of them. And then, to control them lest they get up to mischief, Najib and Hisham recruited 2.5 million RELA members to protect the rest of the country.
No wonder, the Opposition smells a rat and Idris Jala – the minister in Najib’s department – has predicted bankruptcy for Malaysia by 2019.
Malaysia Chronicle
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
As of this posting Malaysia still has not complied with or amended laws to be compliant with :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
When migrants arrive in Malaysia, they are unaware of the extreme corruption, also socio-political conditions here, and the extreme prejudice and racism backed by fundamentalist attitudes (not a great majority but this African happened to step out of line and these ‘society sharks’ were just waiting to take out their anger on someone) . . . who better than the ‘black man’ . . . MLK would have turned in his grave . . .
Could we have some of those high profile anti-racism politicos (perhaps a black Senator, heck send Obama’s Uncle along for good measure, that guy looks like he needs the opportunity and though this suggestion smacks of nepotism, a speech or 2 and a small retainer (not 750K funeral big) for a several month stint addressing RELA type groups in Malaysia wouldn’t hurt, seeing as from all reports ‘Uncle Onyango’ (pictured standing far left) isn’t doing very well and hardly is able to retire, might even get deported from USA?!? . . . ) who are African AND Muslim AND American to educate or address RELA type groups, familiarise them with black persons so that this will not occur again?) that accompanies the same. Waddya say President Hussein (Obama)?
Obama and Family
ARTICLE 3
‘We couldn’t even eat the seeds’: Drought affecting millions in Africa’s Sahel – 2012-04-05 05:01:00
UNICEF correspondent Chris Niles reports on Executive Director Anthony Lake’s visit to Chad highlighting the looming nutrition crisis in the Sahel. The emergency threatens over 1 million children with deadly malnutrition.
Ndjamena, Chad (CNN) — The Arabic nomads in central Chad always have moved from place to place, following the rains with their camels and cattle. But in that parched stretch of Africa, some nomads have stopped moving, saying the droughts now come too often.
‘We couldn’t even eat the seeds’: Drought affecting millions in Africa’s Sahel
Ndjamena, Chad (CNN) — The Arabic nomads in central Chad always have moved from place to place, following the rains with their camels and cattle. But in that parched stretch of Africa, some nomads have stopped moving, saying the droughts now come too often.
Chad is one of eight countries on the Sahel, a belt of arid land that stretches across Africa below the Sahara Desert. The region has always been prone to drought, but residents and aid workers say this year is the worst they’ve known.
The situation has prompted the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to launch a global social media campaign to raise awareness about the region’s children, who are now in urgent need of food aid.
One of those children is an 18-month-old boy named Goni, who lies in a nutritional center, his hands bandaged so he doesn’t pull out the feeding tube that keeps him alive. His mother, Saidi Mohamed, sits next to him in despair.
“This year, I didn’t harvest anything. Even the seeds didn’t grow. We couldn’t even eat the seeds because everything was lost,” says Mohamed.
Like others at the center, Mohamed used to depend on money sent by relatives working in Libya — but when the revolution took place there last year, her family fled and the help disappeared. Now, she can’t afford food at the market because the prices have risen so high.
“I have some hope because my child is feeling better,” Mohamed said. “When he arrived, he couldn’t even open his eyes. (But) when he recovers fully, I will have no other option but to go back to our village.”
Across the Sahel, the crops have failed and hunger and malnutrition loom large. UNICEF says more than 10 million people are in danger of starving to death, and that 1 million children are at risk of malnutrition.
Halima Adoum says she had to watch her son die because he didn’t have enough to eat. After locusts and droughts destroyed her crops, she wasn’t able to pay for food.
Adoum resorted to feeding grass to her 4-year-old son Ahmed, who then died.
“When my son died, I was in shock. I was just in shock,” Adoum said.
She said she has nothing for her remaining four children. Her one thought is of getting by.
“Every day, I am just thinking, ‘How am I going to get food?’ Again and again, ‘How am I going to get food? How am I going to get food?'”
The crisis was set in motion last year with a lack of rains and drought, and it has grown worse because the drought has continued, UNICEF officials say.
With less food being grown, people are starting to sell their personal belongings and livestock so they get by in the coming weeks — but that doesn’t take care of their needs long-term, said UNICEF Executive Director Tony Lake, who spoke to CNN on a dry plain in Banda, south of Chad’s capital, Ndjamena.
Rising food prices are another problem. And Mali, another country in the Sahel, is coping with thousands of refugees after a military coup there last month.
Lake said it’s clear the region is on the threshold of a crisis and that now is the last chance to act.
“If you have an earthquake, or if you have a flood, you don’t have much in the way of advance warning — a little with a flood, none with an earthquake — so you have to respond as quickly as you can,” he said. “Here we know it’s coming. Here, there’s absolutely no excuse.”
UNICEF’s campaign, called #SahelNOW, asks users on Facebook, Twitter and other social media to post messages to spread word of the problem and raise funds for affected children.
Read more about the campaign
The fund hopes to raise $120 million to treat and feed the region’s children. At this point, UNICEF says it has about $30 million on hand.
In Chad alone, more than 6 million people have been affected by the crisis, with 3.5 million of them younger than 18. An estimated 127,300 children under age 5 are already suffering from severe acute malnutrition, UNICEF says.
The country also has the highest numbers of polio cases in Africa and is dealing with a meningitis outbreak, diseases that could complicate children’s needs amid the crisis, the organization says.
For more information about the situation in the Sahel and how UNICEF is involved, please visit: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sahel_62137.html
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
10,000,000 for all drought stricken African nations (not just Chad alone, none of the geopolitical favouritism please . . . ), divided by 192 nations means 52,000 people per hosting nation. This could mean at 1 acre allotments, 52,000 people divided by 4 (each acre can support 4 very comfortably, less comfortable would be half an acre, rather uncomfortable would be a quarter acre) acres of land needed per hosting nation to be distributed FOC at 13020 acres per host nation. Throwing money at the problem will not work as YEARLY this shortage of REAL ‘aid’ can occur and no country can afford to do this, though to GIVE 13,020 acres of land is a PERMANENT solution. Giving LAND in farmable areas by the hosting nation is a permanent solution.
Giving people fish or merely teaching people to fish is never going to work, much like a degree that causes debt without jobs available means nothing no matter what country, and harms the now indebted young person, that above people need a FISH POND *TO FISH FROM* or land to farm on.
Or access to a society or climate that they can work or grow crops in, doing jobs that ACTUALLY produce REAL GOODS, not shuffle papers, push pens or count beans – all quite useless and a waste of effort. Any non-technical Education sectors are NOT goods producing jobs, and cannot in themselves contribute to an economy, much like corporate raiding or printing of useless fiat paper currency with lots of zeros amounts to no real wealth but inflation – fiat in fact being not even needed if barter paradigms are considered – are not properly accountable to citizens, can be printed and distributed in secret to cronies and between governments unaccounted for as access to records are NOT open and under ‘Official Secrets Act’ type laws which ensure opacity and non-transparency!
Freedom of Information Laws need to include these considerations of PUBLIC ACCESS to how much fiat is being printed, otherwise corruption between governments at the top level will doubtless occur (See note 1 below) , we would never guess how much ‘money’ (these are worthless scraps much like India was likely being BRIBED with recently by England but honestly turned down the ‘cash aid’ . . . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096628/British-foreign-aid-India-tells-Britain-dont-need-peanuts-offer-us.html . . . those scraps of paper do not quantify wealth, England is drowning in public and external debt as of now from salaries of civil service that are increased many times more than GDP growth (salary increments cannot be higher than GDP growth otherwise the Private Sector will be destroyed by taaxpayer funded subsidies written into law – a vicious cycle ) . . . printing scraps of paper of course is easy so lets add a few zeros to ‘Monopoly Money’ hold flashy ‘World embracing (more like smothering)’ conferences with golden parachute over-paid Fat Cat bankers (who take bonuses from banks that have made no profit in the past 10 years – impoverishing the stockholders) full of monetised debt repackaged as wealth, and generously ‘give aid’ . . . ). Try BARTER and REAL Goods. 90% of the world’s economies could well collapse as the (0.1 to 5% real value) stock market, parasite banking system and fiat money system (that includes reserve Currencies) which supposedly represent ‘wealth’ is an empty shell of lies.
Note 1 : Take Thaksin Shinawat / Lee Kuan Yew Telecoms USD$2.2 billion tax evasion case to cite an example . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01thai.html – with the Lees ‘getting’ away with the offence internally in Singapore as there is no Opposition in Singapore to file suits and also because Singapore is a military base more than anything else to ‘Western interests’, Thailand of course could file law suit but a larger global ‘cartel’ issue renders any such law suits quite useless even as IMF itself only serves to bankrupt nations ‘helped’ . . .
malaysiandemocracy 