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Jacque Chirac Sinks Lower - "Great Article" |
Current rating: 0 |
by Robert Wise
Email: robertw (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
21 Feb 2003
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This is just a good article. Maybe things are never so clear as the French and American left want you to believe. -Robert |
Jacques Chirac Sinks Lower
By Marc Carnegie
Published 2/21/2003 12:05:00 AM
With a bit of a breeze you might just catch the reek wafting off the Champs Elysées since yesterday. The French presidential palace never smells particularly good but this one, as the wine connoisseurs say, has got quite a nose. The occasion is the Franco-African summit, at which President Jacques Chirac has pledged to launch France's "new partnership" with the troubled continent. As a former colonial power, France knows quite well what Africa's troubles are; it continues to be responsible for many of them. But Chirac, who appears to believe he has of late restored France's glory and prestige in the world, is going to use the summit to do something extraordinary. He is going to make those troubles worse.
The summit has already gained notoriety for the presence of one man who shouldn't be here, and the absence of another who should. Chirac invited Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, despite a European Union travel ban on the Maximum Leader and dozens of his henchmen. Mugabe earned his ban with a quaintly named "land reform" scheme that ordered white farmers -- native Zimbabweans -- off their land. The seizures have been enforced by armed gangs of vigilantes. Several white farmers have been murdered; thousands have fled. The country is now desperately short of food, because those who have taken over the land have neither the means nor the ability to farm it. It was a story you might have read about a few months ago -- before the Mugabe government ordered all foreign journalists out of the country.
The man who should be here is Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo. The G's are silent but the man is not. He is in fact talking quite loudly, if nervously -- insisting the peace accord he agreed to in France under the tutelage of Chirac, to end a civil war that has raged since September, was not really binding as such. The accord provided for rebels to get the key posts of defense minister and interior minister in a new power-sharing government. The Ivory Coast army says the rebels can have some of the power, but that those two seats are out of the question. The country is now effectively split in two, with rebels in control of the mainly Muslim north and the army holding down the mainly Christian south. In between them sits the French army -- 3,000 soldiers the "multilateralist" Chirac dispatched without as much as a by-your-leave from either the European Union or the nation itself. Gbagbo has decided not to attend the summit. He is staying at home, ever more tenuously clinging to power.
The unhappy truth is that no one in the rest of the world would care about this particular bit of French meddling, but for two salient facts: one, Ivory Coast is the world's top producer of cocoa, and the chaos has wreaked havoc on the commodities market. Two, Ivory Coast is a former French colony, and there are 16,000 French citizens still there. The rest have been escorted out by the French army, fearing for their lives. French interests are being targeted, and protesters in the street regularly hold up signs begging for help. From the United States. To get rid of the French.
"We are putting Africa back at the center of France's priorities," Chirac said before the summit, without noticeable irony. What he is doing is holding European policy on the suffering continent hostage to France's interests. The European Union canceled its African summit because it did not want Mugabe around; but Chirac argued that there was no hope of "progress" without a chance to talk face-to-face. You can imagine how closely Mugabe will heed the French president's "concerns." Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe won independence in 1980, giving him as much insight as anyone into how France operates on the continent. He was in power in 1994, when the French army in Rwanda did nothing to stop the genocide of 800,000 people, while escorting to safety the widow of the president and other relatives involved in the slaughter. He has seen the flood of French companies -- in oil and construction -- carve out their respective fiefs. Jacques Chirac may well have illusions about France's role in Africa. Robert Mugabe, it is safe to say, does not.
Mugabe will return to Zimbabwe with the imprimatur of the summit, having had an audience with Chirac and a seat at the table with the continent's other leaders. The worthy EU snub will have been diminished, and Mugabe's grimy luster polished. Meanwhile the French presidency announced at the summit late Thursday that French troops will now "enforce" the shaky peace deal in Ivory Coast. It is symbolic of France's policy-making that the French troops have already been accused of working in favor of both the rebels and the government. The nation is in chaos, and at war. Chirac will continue to meddle and muddle. And we will hear how France is taking the necessary steps for the good of its "new partnership" with Africa.
But we will not hear of the one good thing that France could do for the dire, blood-soaked, impoverished continent -- because Chirac will not do it. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy enacts a baroque system of tariffs and quotas which, according to the Wall Street Journal Europe, means that EU residents pay nearly three times the world price for sugar. The exorbitant price leads to a huge surplus, which then gets dumped in African countries at much lower prices. African sugar-producers are blocked from EU markets abroad, and have to compete against cut-rate product at home. Chirac's government has fought bitterly to maintain the subsidies as the European Union expands eastward. The subsidies hurt Europeans and Africans dearly; the estimated cost to EU citizens alone is $1.5 billion every year. And the number-one recipient of the EU's farm payments? Need you ask?
Marc Carnegie is a journalist in Paris.
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Comments
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Yeah, Bob, Things Aren't So Simple |
by *
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2003
Modified: 04:27:40 PM |
France has hardly greeted Mugabe with open arms. And don't forget that Chirac is a hidebound conservative and not at all representative of the feelings of the French people about Mugabe. Besides, isn't such a visit a lot like Bush welcoming some of his clients to the White House for a visit, like say the Saudi royal family. Bush never seems to have trouble holding his nose over human rights abuses if their is profit involved. So you're being a bit hypocritical here. Anyway, in the interests of a more balanced view about this situation, I offer the following story and links to other, more finely nuanced articles than the hatchet job that Bob posted.
Tension surrounds Mugabe visit
Jon Henley in Paris Jon Henley in Paris
Friday February 21, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,900000,00.html
To all but one of the African leaders at the opening ceremony of yesterday's Franco-African summit in Paris, a jovial President Jacques Chirac proffered the regular Gallic greeting of a kiss on each cheek.
Robert Mugabe got a grim nod and a cursory handshake, as the French president kept courtesies to a minimum and went on to warn all his guests that those who abused their power should no longer be able hide behind the immunity of office.
"Violence must be denounced wherever it comes from. Those who perpetrate it now risk punishment at the hands of the International Criminal Court, which extends its protection to all citizens worldwide," Mr Chirac said in his opening speech. "The days of impunity, or when people were able to justify the use of force, are truly over."
For Mr Chirac, whose quest for a weightier global role for France has brought him into open conflict with the US and with some of his European partners over Iraq, the summit is a moment to impress a parade of leaders from 52 African states with Gallic grandeur.
"Africa lies at the heart of France's priorities," Mr Chirac said, adding that the summit should be the start of a "new partnership" for France and Africa. He added that France was increasing development aid to Africa to help fight Aids, poverty, famine and violence.
"Chirac, Africa's Godfather" was the double-edged verdict of the left-leaning Lib¿ration newspaper. But some African critics found the tone altogether too much. "The French are acting as if they were in another era," said one west African delegate to the 22nd Franco-African summit.
Over at the sprawling glass and concrete Palais des Congr¿s at Porte Maillot in western Paris, several hundred police cordoned off the many entrances to stop protesters interrupting proceedings.
But once past the metal detectors and into the hushed corridors of the conference centre, there was little chance of finding out what was actually going on. The keynote speeches, such as Mr Chirac's and that of Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, were carried on CCTV screens.
But the rest of the summit was "informal": a chance for leaders to hold bilateral and multilateral talks - in or out of the sight of Mr Chirac - and to try to solve some serious regional problems, such as the crisis in Ivory Coast.
Across town, dozens of demonstrators tried to protest against Mr Mugabe's invitation. Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist who on Wednesday filed a complaint aimed at getting Mr Mugabe arrested for torture, was arrested with a fellow human rights campaigner before he had even emerged from the metro.
Mr Tatchell, who had planned to ambush the limousine bringing Mr Mugabe to the French foreign ministry, was detained by police for more than an hour with a Zimbabwean activist, Alan Wilkinson.
A dozen journalists covering the would-be protest were also herded on to a pavement by riot police and denied permission to leave until the banquet had finished two-and-a-half hours later.
"We were prepared to do anything peaceful that we could to shame and embarrass Mugabe," Mr Tatchell said later. "But it feels like a police state here. The right to protest has effectively been suspended."
Though Mr Mugabe has stolen the headlines, human rights campaigners also criticised Mr Chirac's willingness to rub shoulders with other less scrupulous rulers.
The president's reference yesterday to the new International Criminal Court, due to open this spring, was timely: two of its earliest cases could arise from Congo and the Central African Republic, both present yesterday.
But it was Mr Chirac's much-criticised personal invitation to Mr Mugabe that most infuriated Britain. Mr Mugabe has been theoretically banned from travelling to the EU since his disputed re-election a year ago.
"This will be marked out as the grubbiest handshake of the year," the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, Alan Duncan, said minutes after the two leaders shook hands.
"The thought of Mugabe gorging himself on French food tonight while his people starve is morally repugnant. By rolling out the red carpet for Mugabe, Jacques Chirac has placed himself firmly on the moral low ground."
The British government was equally disapproving. "We don't think, and most of the rest of the world don't think, that talking to Robert Mugabe right now or entertaining him in the way we expect him to be entertained in Paris is going to deliver better things," a British official said.
Even Le Monde came down against the visit, saying Mr Mugabe's presence in France was "an insult to the victims of his arbitrary reign".
More reporting:
http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,1009,53535,00.html
http://paris.indymedia.org/
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Re: Jacque Chirac Sinks Lower - |
by Joe Futrelle
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2003
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The quotes around "Great Article" say it all. The debate about the French position has apparently degenerated to accusing them of *smelling bad*, and that's supposed to be "great"? |
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