Nabil Elaraby and Indian frogs

It is an ancient game - the blame game. Suleiman can't account easily for all the blood on his hands that the waters in the Nile river can't wash away, and the sensible thing to do is to pass the buck to Mubarak. He also knows that there is an extraordinary revolutionary storm building up outside the cell where he is detained with the masses insisting that the military, the arch-reactionary segment of any society, must obey the will of the people and must craft policies so that Egypt's tormented soul is calmed.

And the fact of the matter is that the military is obeying. The Rafah crossing with Gaza is being permanently opened today. The Palestinians are no more under blockade! And Israel can't do anything about it. The Egyptian military is pressing ahead with the Palestinian unity pact despite protests by Israel, and ignoring Barack Obama's strictures.

Without doubt, Nabil Elaraby, Egypt's foreign minister - who is choreographing Egypt's new 'partnership' with US, is untying the security ties with Israel and re-engaging his country with Arab brotherhood, and is forging ties with Iran - arrives in Delhi today. Elaraby is a rare scholar-diplomat and will have many heart-throbbing, intellectually stimulating, utterly spell-binding things to narrate to the Indian leadership. And yet, our media and think tankers seem unaware who Elaraby is. They are full of the US Secretary for Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. Not a word about Elaraby! Aren't they like frogs in a well croaking at the sliver of sky above and thinking that is all that the firmament is about? The Indian foreign policy establishment which reached out to Elaraby is once again outstripping our intelligentsia and making the latter appear rather pedestrian. 

M. K. Bhadrakumar in Diplomatic Perspective. More Here.

Beware of the crocodiles in Africa

All Indian eyes are on Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh –- as if he fills the whole of Africa with his towering presence. But Africa is a huge continent and no one can be the monarch of all he surveys. The distance between Addis Ababa in the heart of Africa and Abidjan on the west coast alone makes about 7000 kilometers, which is twice the travel route from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram. Africa could contain quite a few colonial powers at the same time in the 19th and 20th centuries – Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Holland.

But Dr. Singh has no pretensions. To borrow an expression from an Indian official accompanying Dr. Singh, there is “enough space” for many outside powers to simultaneously pursue their agenda in Africa. While Dr. Singh’s prime ministerial aircraft was descending on Addis, another distinguished visitor was taking off from Abidjan – French president Nikolas Sarkozy. Their missions present a study in contrast and give a timely warning to the Indian policymaker. Sarkozy went as a conquering hero who deployed French forces to effect a transfer of power in Cote d’Ivoire. What an irony -- military power to enforce the outcome of a democratic election! Dr. Singh, on the contrary, arrived in Addis showering petals of goodwill in a continent where Gandhiji understood the magical powers of non-violence.

To go back to the Indian official, what he said is absolutely true – “The West is setting up Africa as a zone of contention. They want to pit India against China. They want us to be at each other’s throat. But this is not the 1885 Congress of Berlin where European powers decided to scramble for African resources.” From the tenor of his intellect, one can identify the Indian diplomat as someone with a scholarly sense of modern history. The point is, history never quite ended in Africa with the national liberation struggles of the 1950s. The flow of history merely got punctuated and the struggle for outside domination merely took new forms as Cold War picked up. The rivalries somewhat eased when the bipolar world gave way. A respite followed but in retrospect it hardly lasted for a couple of decades.

What should really worry India is that if the push comes to a shove, the West may use military power to assert its prerogatives. Libya is an unfolding scenario. The African swamp is full of crocodiles, indeed. Sarkozy was fairly explicit that the West will not hesitate to interfere in Africa’s internal affairs if its interests are in jeopardy. Sarkozy’s vision is diametrically opposite India’s. A pattern is emerging. In the Middle East and Africa, through the Cold War era, the West gave an ideological veneer to its agenda of dominance by pitting communism as the antithesis. Today, what is unfolding is the banner of “democracy” – and in the name of advancing freedom and human rights, the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” is being dusted up. Sarkozy is a no-nonsense type statesman and he bluntly said, “This is the new Africa policy that we shall adopt, and it’s an international policy”. Was he speaking on behalf of Dr. Singh as well? I doubt it. 

M. K. Bhadrakumar in Diplomatic Perspective. More Here

"Why Libya?"

"Why Libya, why not Cote d'Ivoire or Somalia? It's a question posed in Africa - from Cape Town to Addis Ababa, from Nairobi to Abuja. Though reasonable, the question has not yet been highly valued or clearly responded... The U.N.-sanctioned military operation is based on an assumption: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will massacre all the residents after storming the rebel's eastern stronghold of Benghazi. Thus, the crisis is latent and the operation is preventive. Also in Africa, on the western side, a humanitarian crisis looms in Cote d'Ivore. That's where hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes and nearly 500 have been killed by forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo, who clings to power despite losing to Alassane Ouattara in the Nov. 28 presidential run-off election. Why Libya but not Cote d'Ivoire?"

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni accused Western countries of using double standards by pushing for a no-fly zone and asked: "Why Libya, but not Bahrain or Somalia? While imposing a no-fly zone in a rival country like Libya, the West turns a blind eye to a similar case in Bahrain, one of the pro-West countries. We have been appealing to the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over Somalia so as to impede the free movement of terrorists, without success. Why? Are there no human beings in Somalia similar to the ones in Benghazi? Or is it because Somalia does not have oil which is not fully controlled by the western oil companies?"

The commentary concludes by rallying African opinion against the West. "In the world arena, the Africa countries have often been regarded as a 'silent majority'. In fact, Africa may not be really silent. Instead, maybe its voice has not been valued or considered. As the war in Libya faces a deadlock and turbulence in the Middle East appears to be sprawling to Africa, questions concerning Africa's situation require rational settlement, rather than any unwise approach." 

The way things are developing, the longer the western military operations in Libya continue, the greater will be the opportunity for China to rally African opinion. The decision by the African Union not to participate in the London conference last Tuesday creates a highly favorable backdrop for China's diplomatic offensive in Africa. The West has no answer to China's campaign.

M K Bhadra Kumar in Diplomatic Perspective. More Here.