Equatorial Guinea – “Once Upon a Coup” Airs on PBS.ORG November 11, 2009

A failed coup attempt…a British mercenary in a notorious African prison…a dictator suspicious of Western powers…and beneath it all, a spectacular underwater oil reserve that the world’s major powers would love to get their hands on.

It may sound like the latest John LeCarré bestseller, but in fact it’s the real-life intrigue of Once upon a Coup, WIDE ANGLE’s penetrating look at the mysterious goings-on in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation newly rich with oil and infamous for corruption. The story begins in 2004, when a group of mercenaries, including a British ex-special forces officer named Simon Mann, is arrested in Zimbabwe.
Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, accuses them of plotting a coup against him. When Mann is sentenced to 34 years in Equatorial Guinea’s notorious Black Beach prison, he claims to be only one piece of an international plot to control the country’s vast oil resources. Once upon a Coup travels the globe to unravel that plot, which stretches from Africa to the U.K., from a prime minister’s son to Zimbabwean arms dealers, from South Africa to Spain.

But as this all plays out, another actor is bidding for a share of the oil: China. The Chinese government has showered the country with glittering new buildings and a new administrative capital. If President Obiang has grown skeptical of Western intentions, he has welcomed China as a new business partner. Starting with a small West African nation and stretching around the globe, Once upon a Coup sheds light on the uncomfortable realities of oil politics in the 21st century.

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

 

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Why you should listen to her:

In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

Adichie builds on the literary tradition of Igbo literary giant Chinua Achebe—and when she found out that Achebe liked Half of a Yellow Sun, she says she cried for a whole day. What he said about her rings true: “We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.”

“When she turned 10 and read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, about the clash between Igbo tradition and the British colonial way of life, everything changed: ‘I realized that people who looked like me could live in books.’ She has been writing about Africa ever since.”

Washington Post

Somali Pirates: Their Fight Against Western Nuclear Waste Dump and Overfishing in their Seas!! April 13, 2009

As the old saying goes, there is always “two sides to every story.” Unfortunately, the media coverage of the capture and rescue of the US captain has been grossly one sided. The issue of piracy in Somalia has largely been blamed and oversimplified as one of the woes of a failed state. While I don’t disagree with the former, I think if the issue of piracy is now at the forefront of international debate, then all sides of this saga should be examined, including the pirates’ own side of the story.

While western countries decry Somalia as a fallen state, the truth is they have not missed a golden opportunity to exploit the situation in this poor country. Somalia’s seas have become the dumping ground for nuclear waste, while they also loot Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood.

A 2005 report released by the UN following the Tsunami, revealed that nuclear and hazardous wastes dumped on Somalia’s shores were infecting Somalis in the coastal areas. The report revealed the existence of uranium radioactive waste, leads, heavy metals like cadmium and mercury, industrial wastes, hospital wastes, chemical wastes, you name it. Nick Nuttal, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) remarked to voanews.com that “It’s not rocket science to know why they’re doing it because of the instability there.” He remarked that “on average, it cost European companies $2.50 per ton to dump the wastes on Somalia’s beaches rather than $250 a ton to dispose of the wastes in Europe. He also said the Asian tsunami dislodged and smashed open the drums, barrels, and other containers, spreading the contaminants as far away as 10 or more kilometers inland. Health problems currently faced by Somalians from the wastes include problems ranging from “acute respiratory infections to dry, heavy coughing, mouth bleedings, and abdominal hemorrhages, what they described as unusual skin chemical reactions.

According to voanews.com Somali officials said the country was vulnerable to illegal dumping, as Africa’s longest coastline is not patrolled and the country has no coast guards, or health officials and facilities to test whatever is inside the containers.

The truth is Somali pirates emerged out of growing frustration with the exploitation of their coastal waters. Local fishermen lost their livelihoods in a country which already sufferers from mass starvation. Reports indicate that, the so called “pirates” are ordinary fishermen who have decided to police Somali seas in attempts to keep the exploiters away. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters… We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.” It is not enough for Obama to pledge to fight piracy at sea, but to also address the exploitation by foreign countries in Somalia.

As Johann Hari nicely put it “Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about “evil.” If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause – our crimes – before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.”

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