Sara S
08-29-2011, 06:23 PM
from delancyplace.com:
In today's excerpt - in the 17th through the 19th centuries, an astonishing thing
happened: the countries from the tiny continent of Europe took over almost the entire
rest of the world and ran those lands as colonies. All of Africa save Ethiopia became
colonies; all of the Americas, almost all of Asia (save China, which became a de
facto colony after the opium wars). And while this was portrayed as an effort to
lift up these savage countries ("the white man's burden"), it retarded the natural
development of leadership within these countries and instead became an opportunity
for daring entrepreneurs like Cecil Rhodes to build fortunes.
The benefits to the European governments that did the colonizing was far less evident
though, and the colonies became a financial burden, which led to the unraveling
of the British, French and other empires in the aftermath of two world wars. However,
the great mineral wealth of these countries was too much for the businesses and
entrepreneurs to leave behind, so as these countries were being "de-colonized",
the sponsoring countries attempted to leave behind "friendly" leadership, even if
the result was to continued to retard the development of organic leadership and
democracy within those countries. Such was the case with the African nation of Gabon
and the "Elf affair" which splashed across European headlines in the mid-1990s.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this - which is relevant in understanding
the selection of post-colonial dictators in numerous other countries - is that
the French chose a dictator from a minority tribe to increase that dictator's dependency
on French support:
"The so-called Elf affair scandal began in 1994 when U.S.-based Fairchild Corp.
opened a commer cial dispute with a French industrialist, triggering a stock exchange
inquiry. Unlike in more adversarial Anglo-Saxon legal systems, where the prosecution
jousts with the de fense to produce a resolution, the invest-igating magistrate
in France is more like an impartial detective inserted between the two sides. ...
In this case Eva Joly, the Norwegian-born invest-igating magistrate, found that
every time she investigated something new leads would emerge. She began re ceiving
death threats: A miniature coffin was sent to her in the post, and on a raid of
one business she found a Smith & Wesson revolver, fully loaded and pointed at the
en trance. But she persisted: Other magistrates became involved, and as the extraordinary
revelations began to accumulate, they began to discern the outlines of a gigantic
sys tem of corruption that connected the French state-owned oil company Elf Aquitaine
with the French political, commercial, and intelligence establishments, via Gabon's
deeply corrupt ruler Omar Bongo.
"Bongo's story is a miniature tale of what happened when France formally relin quished
its colonies. As countries in Africa and elsewhere gained in- dependence, the old
beneficiaries of the French empire set up new ways to stay in control behind
the scenes. Gabon became independent in 1960, just as it was starting to emerge
as a promising new African oil frontier, and France paid it particular attention.
France needed to install the right president: an authentic African leader who
would be charis matic, strong, cunning, and, when it mattered, utterly pro-French.
In Omar Bongo they found the perfect can- didate: He was from a tiny minority
ethnic group and had no natural domestic support base, so he would have to rely
on France to protect him. In 1967, aged just 32, Bongo became the world's youngest
president, and for good measure France placed several hundred paratroopers in a
barracks in Libreville, con nected to one of his palaces by underground tunnels.
This intimidating deterrent against coup plots proved so effective that by the
time Bongo died in 2009, he was the world's longest-serving leader.
"In exchange for France's backing Bongo gave two things. First, he gave French companies
almost exclusive access to his country's minerals, on highly preferential terms
that were deeply unfair to the people of Gabon. The country became known as French
companies' chasse gardee - their private hunting ground. But the second thing Bongo
provided was more interesting. He allowed his country, through its oil indus try,
to become the African linchpin of the gigantic, secret Elf system - a vast web of
global corruption secretly connecting the oil industries of former French African
colonies with mainstream politics in metropolitan France, via Switzerland, Luxembourg,
and other tax havens. Parts of Gabon's oil industry, Joly discovered as she dug
deeper and deeper in Paris, had been serving as a giant slush fund: a pot of secret
money outside the reach of French judicial authorities in which hundreds of millions
of dollars were made available for the use of French elites. An African oil cargo
would be sold, and the proceeds would split up into a range of bewildering ac counts
in tax havens, where they could be used to supply bribes and baubles for what ever
[those] who controlled the system deemed fit."
Author: Nicholas Shaxson
Title: Treasure Islands
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Date: Copyright 2011 by Nicholas Shaxson
Pages: 2, 3
In today's excerpt - in the 17th through the 19th centuries, an astonishing thing
happened: the countries from the tiny continent of Europe took over almost the entire
rest of the world and ran those lands as colonies. All of Africa save Ethiopia became
colonies; all of the Americas, almost all of Asia (save China, which became a de
facto colony after the opium wars). And while this was portrayed as an effort to
lift up these savage countries ("the white man's burden"), it retarded the natural
development of leadership within these countries and instead became an opportunity
for daring entrepreneurs like Cecil Rhodes to build fortunes.
The benefits to the European governments that did the colonizing was far less evident
though, and the colonies became a financial burden, which led to the unraveling
of the British, French and other empires in the aftermath of two world wars. However,
the great mineral wealth of these countries was too much for the businesses and
entrepreneurs to leave behind, so as these countries were being "de-colonized",
the sponsoring countries attempted to leave behind "friendly" leadership, even if
the result was to continued to retard the development of organic leadership and
democracy within those countries. Such was the case with the African nation of Gabon
and the "Elf affair" which splashed across European headlines in the mid-1990s.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this - which is relevant in understanding
the selection of post-colonial dictators in numerous other countries - is that
the French chose a dictator from a minority tribe to increase that dictator's dependency
on French support:
"The so-called Elf affair scandal began in 1994 when U.S.-based Fairchild Corp.
opened a commer cial dispute with a French industrialist, triggering a stock exchange
inquiry. Unlike in more adversarial Anglo-Saxon legal systems, where the prosecution
jousts with the de fense to produce a resolution, the invest-igating magistrate
in France is more like an impartial detective inserted between the two sides. ...
In this case Eva Joly, the Norwegian-born invest-igating magistrate, found that
every time she investigated something new leads would emerge. She began re ceiving
death threats: A miniature coffin was sent to her in the post, and on a raid of
one business she found a Smith & Wesson revolver, fully loaded and pointed at the
en trance. But she persisted: Other magistrates became involved, and as the extraordinary
revelations began to accumulate, they began to discern the outlines of a gigantic
sys tem of corruption that connected the French state-owned oil company Elf Aquitaine
with the French political, commercial, and intelligence establishments, via Gabon's
deeply corrupt ruler Omar Bongo.
"Bongo's story is a miniature tale of what happened when France formally relin quished
its colonies. As countries in Africa and elsewhere gained in- dependence, the old
beneficiaries of the French empire set up new ways to stay in control behind
the scenes. Gabon became independent in 1960, just as it was starting to emerge
as a promising new African oil frontier, and France paid it particular attention.
France needed to install the right president: an authentic African leader who
would be charis matic, strong, cunning, and, when it mattered, utterly pro-French.
In Omar Bongo they found the perfect can- didate: He was from a tiny minority
ethnic group and had no natural domestic support base, so he would have to rely
on France to protect him. In 1967, aged just 32, Bongo became the world's youngest
president, and for good measure France placed several hundred paratroopers in a
barracks in Libreville, con nected to one of his palaces by underground tunnels.
This intimidating deterrent against coup plots proved so effective that by the
time Bongo died in 2009, he was the world's longest-serving leader.
"In exchange for France's backing Bongo gave two things. First, he gave French companies
almost exclusive access to his country's minerals, on highly preferential terms
that were deeply unfair to the people of Gabon. The country became known as French
companies' chasse gardee - their private hunting ground. But the second thing Bongo
provided was more interesting. He allowed his country, through its oil indus try,
to become the African linchpin of the gigantic, secret Elf system - a vast web of
global corruption secretly connecting the oil industries of former French African
colonies with mainstream politics in metropolitan France, via Switzerland, Luxembourg,
and other tax havens. Parts of Gabon's oil industry, Joly discovered as she dug
deeper and deeper in Paris, had been serving as a giant slush fund: a pot of secret
money outside the reach of French judicial authorities in which hundreds of millions
of dollars were made available for the use of French elites. An African oil cargo
would be sold, and the proceeds would split up into a range of bewildering ac counts
in tax havens, where they could be used to supply bribes and baubles for what ever
[those] who controlled the system deemed fit."
Author: Nicholas Shaxson
Title: Treasure Islands
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Date: Copyright 2011 by Nicholas Shaxson
Pages: 2, 3