₦airaland Forum

The vultures are circling and the exploitation will soon begin

France will seek a leading role in post-war Libya, Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said Friday, arguing that Libya's new leaders "owe" Paris for leading the campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafii.


Speaking in an interview to Le Monde on the day after Libya's ousted strongman was captured and killed, Longuet said France is poised to take advantage of its leading role after a successful campaign.

France "will strive to play the role of a principal partner in the country where the leaders know they owe us a lot."

"Everyone will throw their hat into the ring. We will neither be the last nor the most blatant," he said of Libya's relations with various Western countries in the coalition.

"Our involvement was not belated, mediocre or uncertain. And we have nothing to be ashamed of."

Longuet said earlier that French planes had spotted Kadhafi's convoy fleeing Sirte on Thursday, though clarifying that it was the NTC forces that ultimately destroyed the vehicles along with the former dictator.

Libya, which produced 1.6 to 1.7 million barrels of oil daily before the conflict, is a coveted market for many countries that are also eyeing potentially massive contracts for rebuilding its infrastructure.

French and British forces spearheaded the air campaign against Kadhafi's forces by the NATO military alliance, which has carried out nearly 1,000 strike sorties since March 31.

The campaign will now be "phased out" in the coming "days or weeks" and Libya's NTC will be able to announce the new government, Longuet said.

"(The NTC) is now pushed into the difficult stage of establishing a stable political system," he said.

He said the campaign owed its success to France, which "used the political weight of its agreement with Britain , to win a UN Security Council resolution and then hand the command over to NATO."

"The political setup and military readiness were the conditions for success," he said.



http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/2011/10/21/libya-owes-france-defence-minister

[quote author=alj_harem link=topic=785442.msg9383455#msg9383455 date=1319128057]One question Dayokanu

why is tinubu dressing like Awolowo, is it that he needs to be awolowo first before he can implement good services for the people of the SW region ?

Did Awolowo dress like Sango or oranmiyan before he could rule ?
[img]http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSsD64ls-SnoPEfTkzz-bH15KZGS7D7r4p8wea-wgrylsbeCOugPA[/img]

wtf [/quote]You know say u dey craze sha ?

duduspace:
All holes are equal but some are more equal than others.
Osama's hole had a comfy bed, DSTV and some fine yanriyans

You dey craze o!

all4naija:
Mister, go and sleep in your land of gold. Dream on!!!

Dream on of what Did you even read the comment or you felt you needed to blow hot air? Try making an intelligent argument instead of sparodic outbursts.Show some manners,you are a grown man ain't you?

Sun of god:
Thank you,

The middle east is being purposely distabilised for a reason - Divide and conquer!!!

The NTC are being used and screwed by the west - and they dont even know it.

The only reason Gadaffi was attacked by NATO is because of the African Monetary Fund he wanted to create not to mention his other move to create a Gold based currency.Gadaffi's problem was that he talked too much.His bragging and threats got him on the wrong side of the French.Secondly his handling of the uprising was terrible.I believe if he had reached out to the rebel leaders in the earlier days of the revolution ,he might have reached a sensible solution.

If you look at the current NTC ,quite a few of his former cronies are members.That just goes to show that the NTC itself is not a real revolutionary movement.I just hope Libya does not become another Iraq because that will be very bad taking into account that Libya is very close to west Africa.The first step now for NTC is to disarm the rebels who will not be serving in the new army.It will be a tough task but it must be done.

Sagamite:
Put your arguments up and you will see the real Sagamite.

Come on!

Try it.

I dare you.

Open a thread and invite me to debate with you and let me intellectually gut you silly like a mooron. Then you will know why you have been hearing about Sagamite and why I am hyped.
I dare you, pucci!

You intellect is below my feet!

Monkey ,why don't you do it here.You must feel so important asking someone to open a thread to challenge you.I am not queer so i don't know why you think i would have any interest in creating a thread for you.That is an extremely childish request and it shows that you still have the mind of a child.You know my username now,we will engage soon on real topics and we will see how much of an intellectual "butcher" you are.

On this topic though ,you have failed miserably to say anything intelligent or do you think bursting into a debate and cursing makes you an intellectual.

I doubt you know the meaning of the word.Imagine going on a live Tv debate and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is : You bloody cretin

eroko jati jati!

Sagamite:
You grew up in a mental hospital with certified cretins, so you ended up with a useless brain.

Yawn ,you have lost steam already.I heard you have doing this alot and getting away it.Well you have not engaged me.So this is the much hyped nairaland bully sagamite,i must say that i am pretty much disappointed.I was expecting you to spit some real fire but after a few words you are just repeating yourself like a broken record.Rather than come accross as a tough guy ,to me you seem like a confused chicken who feels shouting loudest makes him the smartest man in the room.

LMAO!

Sagamite:
Fcking foools!

Proof our education system has collapsed?

You put your people first by gunning them down?

Cretin!

You are a moooron!

Foool saying Gaddafi is best African leader ever.

Cretin!

Why are you sharing your life history?

Foool!

hehehehehe , did you just learn that word ,you seem to be repeating it a lot monkey!

Sun of god:
sagamite - I dont know how you managed to avoid being aborted after your unknown father r.aped your who.re of a mother.

But your in this world now - displaying the traits of a B.astard child here on NL.

If you know whats good for you - f.uc.k off with your comments.

You Son of a who.re  and R.apist.

Your one hell of a c.un.t.

Dont ever address me again - you degenerate.

Ps: You dont have a monopoly on foul mouthing - because you get away with it here dont feel people cant respond in kind.

Now fc.u.k off and go and find your real father so you can bad mouth him - Cun.t

Please do not abuse his parents,i know he is an  a-hole but my brother please leave his parents out of it.

He is just a raz boy who grew up with raz friends in a raz neigbourhood.That is why he is wild like an animal in the jungle.

Sagamite:
And their moronic excusers and suppporters like the fooooooooooooools we see on this thread.

You are a cretin!

I insult dumb monkeys with a single brain cell.

I saw your real photo once.A baboon will win a beauty contest if it was competing against you only.This is not oshodi my friend.This is nairaland forum,agberos are not welcome moderator or not.

I see you like repeating yourself,run out of ideas junkie? You lack the traits of a gentlemen to debate issues in a civilized manner,that is why you behave like a slave on a plantation farm.

Sagamite:
You are a cretin!

So it is OK to be brutal to those that oppose you?

He is better than Kuffour, Lumumba and co? Foooool!

Example of the kind of fcking ediots that ensure such arseholes continue to rule in Africa.

As usual you continued to display your agbero upbringing.So once you do not agree with a person's point of view,the next thing is to start insulting the person.You are a slow monkey singing from pole to pole and a "west" azzlicker who lacks the initiative to think for himself.

Afeni Fere in my books have always being a group of corrupt dinosaurs.If i were to take over the presidency today.The Afeni fere and Yoruba Obas will be immediately given the jerry rawlings treatment.Yorubas are wiser ,we don't allow ourselves to be led by anyone.We support those who mean well for us and shun those who are traitors to our people.

cap28:
Gadaffi will forever remain a hero to me - only a true hero could withstand the terrible onslaught from the world's most formidable military machine made up of over 40 european countries as well as america, canada and australia and still fight valiantly.

Gadaffi and the courageous people of libya refuse to be slaves of the europeans and americans and for that i respect and admire them.

i salute Gadaffi and his family for fighting for their right to self determination i salute them for refusing to sell their great nation to Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, the IMF and the World Bank.

I salute them for not being cowards like those bas.stards who are running nigeria, imagine if those cowards in nigeria were forced to defend nigeria from a colonial invasion - imagine how all of these criminals in power would have run away at the first sound of a gun shot.

May god bless brother leader Muammar Al Qadaffi - the lion of africa and king of kings - if this news is true Gadaffi will remain a martyr in the hearts of many.

Very True

Gadaffi may have being a brutal leader but he was only brutal to those who questioned his leadership.He was better than all Africa's leader second only to Thomas Sankara of burkina faso.

Today is a sad day for Africa.No wonder Iran is building a nuclear bomb.Africans will never try hard to see through the lies of the western media.

Even ordinary American citizens are unhappy that Gadaffi was attacked because they know that their Government is only after Libya's resources.The monster called NATO continues to slowly colonize African countries.What is worse is that we Africans are urging them on.

This is really demeaning but i guess if Baba Suwe plays his cards right ,he will become a very rich man.Imagine this happening in the USA. Chai , i go chop your dollar!

@Sunofgod, maybe the reporter just added voter's card to spice up the story.I really don't think the Governor will say such a thing.I may be wrong but you know our reporters ,they can remix better than DJ Jazzy Jef .At topic it is a welcome development,i hope they can sustain it.

Gej's Love Machine

Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was the leader of Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) from 1983 to 1987. While noted for his personal charisma and praised for promoting health and women’s rights, he also antagonised many vested interests in the country. He was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d’état led by Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987, sometimes believed to have been at the instruction of France.

Thomas Sankara was the son of Marguerite Sankara (died March 6, 2000) and Sambo Joseph Sankara (1919 – August 4, 2006), a gendarme.[3] Born into a Roman Catholic family, “Thom’Sank” was a Silmi-Mossi, an ethnic group that originated with marriage between Mossi men and women of the pastoralist Fulani people. The Silmi-Mossi are among the least advantaged in the Mossi caste system. He attended primary school in Gaoua and high school in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second city.

His father fought in the French army during World War II and was detained by the Nazis. Sankara’s family wanted him to become a Catholic priest. According to some sources, he never lost his Catholic faith despite his Marxist tendencies. Fittingly for a country with a large Muslim population, he was also familiar with the Qur’an.

Military career

After basic military training in secondary school in 1966, Sankara began his military career at the age of 19, and a year later he was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabe where he witnessed popular uprisings in 1971 and 1972. Returning to Upper Volta in 1972, in 1974 he fought in a border war between Upper Volta and Mali.

He became a popular figure in the capital of Ouagadougou. The fact that he was a decent guitarist (he played in a band named “Tout-à-Coup Jazz”) and liked motorbikes may have contributed to his charisma.

In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year he met Blaise Compaoré in Morocco. During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo a group of young officers formed a secret organisation “Communist Officers’ Group” (Regroupement des officiers communistes, or ROC) the best-known members being Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Compaoré and Sankara.

Government posts

Sankara was appointed Secretary of State for Information in the military government in September 1981, journeying to his first cabinet meeting on a bicycle, but he resigned on April 21, 1982 in opposition to what he saw as the regime’s anti-labour drift, declaring “Misfortune to those who gag the people!” (“Malheur à ceux qui baillonnent le peuple!”)

After another coup (November 7, 1982) brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, Sankara became prime minister in January 1983, but he was dismissed (May 17) and placed under house arrest after a visit by the French president’s son and African affairs adviser Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani were also placed under arrest; this caused a popular uprising.

President

A coup d’état organised by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on August 4, 1983,[5] at the age of 33. The coup d’état was supported by Libya which was, at the time, on the verge of war with France in Chad[6] (see History of Chad).

Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba and Ghana’s military leader, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings. As President, he promoted the “Democratic and Popular Revolution” (Révolution démocratique et populaire, or RDP).

The ideology of the Revolution was defined by Sankara as anti-imperialist in a speech of October 2, 1983, the Discours d’orientation politique (DOP), written by his close associate Valère Somé. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, averting famine, and making education and health real priorities.

Abolition of chiefs’ privileges

The government suppressed many of the powers held by tribal chiefs such as their right to receive tribute payment and obligatory labour. The CDRs (Comités de Défense de la Révolution) were formed as popular mass organizations and armed. In some areas they deteriorated into gangs of armed thugs. Sankara’s government also initiated a form of military conscription with the SERNAPO (Service National et Populaire). Both were a counterweight to the power of the army.

In 1984, on the first anniversary of his accession, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning “the land of upright people” in Mossi and Djula, the two major languages of the country. He also gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem (Une Seule Nuit).

Women’s rights

Sankara’s government included a large number of women. Improving women’s status was one of Sankara’s explicit goals, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government banned female genital cutting, condemned polygamy, and promoted contraception. The Burkinabé government was also the first African government to publicly recognize AIDS as a major threat to Africa[citation needed].

Sankara had some original initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some international media attention to the Burkinabé revolution:

* He sold most of the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers; * He formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard. * In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

Second Agacher strip war

In 1985 Burkina Faso organised a general population census. During the census some Fula camps in Mali were visited by mistake by Burkinabé census agents. The Malian government claimed that it was an act of sovereignty on the Agacher strip and on Christmas Day 1985, tensions with Mali erupted in a war that lasted five days and killed about 100 people (most victims were civilians killed by a bomb dropped on the marketplace in Ouahigouya by a Malian MiG plane). The conflict is known as the “Christmas war” in Burkina Faso.

Assassination

On October 15, 1987 Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a coup d’état organised by his former colleague, Compaoré. Deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one of the reasons given by Compaoré for his action. Prince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord allied to Charles Taylor, told Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that it was engineered by Charles Taylor.[7] After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days.

Sankara was quickly buried in an unmarked grave. A week prior to his death Sankara addressed people and said that “while revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”

Désiré-Joseph Katihabwa - Sunday, 3 May 2009

Writings by Thomas Sankara

■L’émancipation des femmes et la lutte de libération de l’Afrique (Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle),
■We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions
■Thomas Sankara Speaks, the Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-87[8], a 448-page collection of Sankara’s speeches
Quotes “We hope and believe that the best way of limiting the usurpation of power by individuals, military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge. Between fractions, between clans, plots and coups d’etats can be perpetrated. Against the people, a durable coup d’état cannot be perpetrated. Therefore, the best way of preventing the army from confiscating power for itself and for itself alone is to make this power shared by the voltaic people from the outset. That’s what we are aiming for, ”

August 21, 1983 press conference.

Source: [3]

“It’s really a pity that there are observers who view political events like comic strips. There has to be a Zorro, there has to be a star. No, the problem of Upper Volta is more serious than that. It was a grave mistake to have looked for a man, a star, at all costs, to the point of creating one, that is, to the point of attributing the ownership of the event to captain Sankara, who must have been the brains, etc.”

August 21, 1983 press conference.

Source: [4]

“That is the hidden side of November 7 revealed. Mysteries still remain under the cover. History will perhaps be able to speak about it at greater length and to assign responsibilities more clearly.”

August 21, 1983 press conference.

Source: [5]

“As for our relationship with the political class, what relations would you have liked us to weave? We explained face to face, directly with the leaders, the former leaders of the former political parties because, for us, these parties do not exist any more, they have been dissolved. And that is very clear. The relationship that we have with them is simply the relationship we have with voltaic citizens, or, if they so wish, the relationship between revolutionaries, if they wish to become revolutionaries. Beyond that, nothing remains but the relationship between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries.”

August 21, 1983 press conference.

Source: [6]

“I would like to leave behind me the conviction that if we maintain a certain amount of caution and organization we deserve victory[, ] You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. [, ] We must dare to invent the future.”

1985

Source: (Excerpt from interviews with Swiss Journalist Jean-Philippe Rapp, translated from Sankara: Un nouveau pouvoir africain by Jean Ziegler. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions Pierre-Marcel Favre, 1986. Used by permission in following source Sankara, Thomas. Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87. trans. Samantha Anderson. New York: Pathfinder, 1988. pp. 141-144.

“A military without political training is a potential criminal.”