Historicide: The Left's Rwandan Genocide Deniers

I guess if you are a conventional western Leftist, then it's easy for you to, say, take the side of Hamas against Israel or the GITMO inmates against the US. But, if you want to be on the cutting edge of progressive foreign policy, then of course you have to take the side of genocidal maniacs in Rwanda: Rwanda Charges American Over Articles

A Rwandan judge has charged an American lawyer with denying Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and publishing articles that threaten the country’s security, in a case critics see as the latest sign of increasing repression before national elections in August.

The lawyer, Peter Erlinder, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a five-hour court hearing late Friday in the capital, Kigali.

“It is the first time I have come to know that my obscure publications back in America were that bad and could amount to genocide denial,” Mr. Erlinder told the court. He suggested that it might be a case of misinterpretation or misunderstanding.

If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison. Judge Maurice Mbishibishi said he would decide on Monday whether to grant bail.

Erlinder is not just a lawyer, and author of "obscure publications." He is a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., and is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. He is also one of a group of lawyers serving as defense counsel for for Rwandan Hutus on trial at The Hague. And, among other things, his "obscure publications" have claimed that the plane crash that set off the genocide was orchestrated by the current regime, the equivalent of claiming that George Bush planned 9/11 or FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen.

In other words, Erlinder is a well-connected member of the International Left who thinks nothing of going to a foreign country and challenging the basic facts of a genocide that happened just 15 years ago. Whether it's deciding when Israel should defend itself, or when Columbia should be able to wage war against FARC, or parsing the details of a horrifying genocide, the sophisticated leftist always manages to use his wealth and education to choose the absolute wrong side. Naturally, only those who are past winners of the Free Will Nobels are accorded this sort of despicable treatment.

It's an odd fixation, this desire among the legal Left to intervene on behalf of the forces of darkness against the desperate remnants of civil society. Human Rights Watch, for one, thinks that the UN should pursue war crime charges against Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front for its own actions during the genocide. Yeah, all they did was invade Rwanda to stop the damn genocide. Pardon their dust.

Erlinder is apparently in ill health and has had his request for bail denied. There is also word of a faked suicide attempt, but who knows. The fact is that Erlinder picked the wrong place to play-act at Idealistic Rebel. His trial starts in 30 days.

The Fifth King Of Scotland

Nancy Pelosi may tear up over her frustrations with health care opponents and the "racist" Right. She should try politcking in Uganda where, in addition to the usual political factions, the president has to contend with no fewer than 5 kings, each a living link to Uganda's pre-colonial past: Riots In Uganda: In Whose Interest?

RIOTS rocked Kampala in support of the king of the Baganda, the country’s largest ethnic group. Shops in the capital were looted, cars burned. Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who hails from the much smaller Ankole group, ordered police and soldiers onto the streets.

(snip)

Buganda is the largest of Uganda’s five ancient kingdoms banned under the presidencies of Milton Obote and Idi Amin but revived by Mr Museveni. The Baganda make up 17% of Ugandans.

Students of human nature will not be surprised to learn that each king, and his respective ethnic group, has a long list of grievances, including demands for the return of "stolen land:"

Mr Museveni thinks the Baganda have been getting uppity. Though their kingdom is the largest and was once the most powerful, it is now a ghostly fiction, with no sovereignty and little wealth. Mr Museveni is especially weary of persistent Bagandan demands for a return of a swathe of claimed ancestral lands that were long ago distributed to pastoralists or pilfered by officials—and are most unlikely ever to be given back. Besides, generosity to Buganda would aggravate the other kingdoms, particularly neighbouring Bunyoro, whose land includes Uganda’s new-found oilfields.

And, lurking in the background is a familiar mischief maker:

Mr Museveni’s people say they have identified another villain of the piece: Libya’s president, Muammar Qaddafi, whom they accuse of giving cash to the Baganda. For several years Mr Qaddafi has subsidised Uganda’s kings and their cultural institutions as part of an exotic plan to unify Africa in a web of chiefs and kings. But his latest dollops of cash, say Mr Museveni’s friends, were meant to stir up trouble, because Mr Qaddafi has fallen out with Mr Museveni, despite helping him to win a bush war that brought him to power two decades ago.

No doubt, there are westerners who would read the above and declare that we must Do Something, but it is not clear what. Uganda may be riven with violent ethnic factionalism. It may be burdened with a bloody history of misrule. Plus, it is landlocked, which means it trades with the rest of the world with one hand tied behind its back. Yet, it has enjoyed an couple of decades of stability and growth, and even managed to fight on the winning side on the War for the Congo. It is a muddle. Dare we say it's a thriving muddle?

HUAC

The NY Times runs a story about young Somali men in Minneapolis who - for some reason that no one can understand - have left their comfortable jobs in Minnesota Nice to travel to a failed state like Somali to blow themselves up. Yeah, it's a mystery: A Call To Jihad, Answered In America

In November, Mr. Hassan and two other students dropped out of college and left for Somalia, the homeland they barely knew. Word soon spread that they had joined the Shabaab, a militant Islamist group aligned with Al Qaeda that is fighting to overthrow the fragile Somali government.

The students are among more than 20 young Americans who are the focus of what may be the most significant domestic terrorism investigation since Sept. 11. One of the men, Shirwa Ahmed, blew himself up in Somalia in October, becoming the first known American suicide bomber. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert M. Mueller, has said Mr. Ahmed was “radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota.”

(snip)

The men appear to have been motivated by a complex mix of politics and faith, and their communications show how some are trying to recruit other young Americans to their cause.

I'm sorry, but if you travel to east Africa (or anywhere else) to wage jihad, the word "American" does not apply. See you in Hell, boys.

The Parable of Arable Land, Pt 2

"Fortune" Magazine is running a story on its cover about the next great investment frontier: farmland! You may recall that we already discussed this issue here. But, if "Fortune" is writing about it, you know it's hit the mainsteam. How close are we to hedge funds investing in hard liquor and cigarettes, the ultimate bearish investments? Betting The Farm: The Land Grab For Arable Farmland

Over the past few years hedge fund gurus like George Soros, investment powerhouses like BlackRock, and retirement plan giants like TIAA-CREF have begun to plow (har har! - Psota) money into farmland - everywhere from the Midwest to Ukraine to Brazil. Canadian private equity firm AgCapita, which raised $18 million in 2008 to invest in Saskatchewan cropland, estimates that as of the first quarter of 2009, more than $2 billion of private equity money had been raised for farmland investments globally, and another $500 million was planned.

The growing flow of money into farms has persisted despite a major drop in the commodities markets last fall, prompted in part by the global financial crisis. In the spring of 2008 spiking grain prices caused food shortages and rioting in dozens of countries before falling some 50% by December. In fact, that crash has obscured a broader trend. Even after the correction, grain prices remain above their 20-year average, and food stocks around the world are still near 40-year lows. For many investors, last year's shortages are a preview of what could lie ahead.

Some of this is what you would expect. George Soros buying farmland in Argentina. The Chinese leasing land in Africa. Hedge funds dedicated to farmland opening their doors. But some investors are getting into bed with some shady operators in their pursuit of yield, crop or otherwise:

(Phil Heilberg) is putting his money into Sudan, Africa's largest country and one of its least stable. And he's hardly shy about the many ways his investment could go wrong. "I like to point out that it's a failed state, it's been sanctioned by the U.S., and it has a peace agreement that could unravel at any time and lead to armed conflict," he says. "The good thing is that you know what most of the risks are, and you can get paid for them."

With hundreds of thousands of acres of lush, undeveloped land in the Blue Nile and White Nile valleys, Sudan has the raw potential to develop into an agricultural powerhouse. Investors from Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have already reportedly made deals to lease land in the predominantly Muslim northern part of the country. But in January, Heilberg raised a lot of eyebrows by announcing that he had agreed to lease roughly 1 million acres of undeveloped land - an area the size of Rhode Island - in Mayom County in southern Sudan

Heilberg is protecting his investment in the manner of colonialists the world over: he has hired the local warlord:

(Heilberg) makes no apologies for his associates on the ground, including the aforementioned Gen. Paulino Matip Nhial, 67, a hardened veteran of the long civil war between north and south Sudan who is now the deputy commander of the army in the south. Both Matip and one of his allies, Gen. Peter Gatdet, are on Jarch's advisory board. An Amnesty International report in 2000 recorded accusations that troops under Matip's command committed war atrocities. "One man's warlord is another man's freedom fighter," says Heilberg. "If you want to be in power over there you have to control territory, and listen, that involves tribal battles. You just have to recognize who is a good man and who isn't - who's doing it for power and who's trying to better his people. Matip is a good man."

Color me reassured!

Heilberg is clearly another rich amoral lefty; note his use of the Moorian formulation for a terrorist. Even worse, he worked for AIG! And, he knows where to go to find like-minded connections in DC.

Heilberg has cultivated connections to Washington. His vice chairman is former ambassador Joe Wilson, the husband of onetime CIA agent Valerie Plame and the man who blew the whistle on the Bush administration's obfuscations about Iraq
and yellowcake uranium. Another executive is a former CIA operative.

It's good to see Ol' Joe Wilson has landed on his feet, and is as morally dubious as ever. He might be striking land deals with warlords in a pariah state that once provided a safe-haven to Osama bin Laden, but he does have good intentions!

Wilson characterizes their approach as a version of doing well by doing good. "This is a deal that's certainly fraught with political risk," he says. "But we think that it has enormous potential to open an avenue of economic development for the southern Sudanese and make them shareholders in a positive outcome. That's my theory as I look at this."

"Theory" is one word for this, I guess. Another might be "rationalization," if Joe is capable of such mental gymnastics.

The Parable of Arable Land

Here's a problem I did not realize existed - certain Second World countries are going around Africa and Asia buying farmland: Buying Farmland Abroad: Outsourcing's Third wave

Countries that export capital but import food are outsourcing farm production to countries that need capital but have land to spare. Instead of buying food on world markets, governments and politically influential companies buy or lease farmland abroad, grow the crops there and ship them back.

Saudi Arabia, China, and South Korea are especially active in this area. I would say, hey, if there's a willing buyer and a willing seller, what's the problem? But there are always naysayers:

Supporters of such deals argue they provide new seeds, techniques and money for agriculture, the basis of poor countries’ economies, which has suffered from disastrous underinvestment for decades. Opponents call the projects “land grabs”, claim the farms will be insulated from host countries and argue that poor farmers will be pushed off land they have farmed for generations. What is unquestionable is that the projects are large, risky and controversial. In Madagascar they contributed to the overthrow of a government.

It's only a few paragraphs before the article mentions "colonialism." And, I think we can imagine the reaction if Halliburton started traveling the world buying farmland. Naomi Klein would have enough material for at least another book!

I have to wonder about the "danger" of all this. There's some harrumphing about government-to-government deals with no transparency, with Bottom Billion elites grinning widely next to Hu Jintau. But, how bad a deal can this be? The land isn't going anywhere. Is China going to ship Kenyan farms overseas?

Moreover, you would think there would be some advantage to the sellers here. They have a real chance to see their arable land producing food on an industrial scale. Even if the buyers are going to operate the farms, it's hard to believe whatever techniques or technologies they use won't make their way into the hinterlands of the sellers, improving their private farming, along with the "export" farms.

Plus. I am not sure that Western Europeans have any business criticizing this. forget the "legacy of colonialism." Africa and Asia's poorer countries are now grappling with the legacy of World Bank projects, UN corruption, and decades-long civil wars that were set off by superpower rivalries during the Cold War. If you were the president of Kenya, would you rather have a bunch of Ivy League Peace Corps volunteers show your people "how to farm" (which they have been doing for millenia)? Or would you rather take a big suitcase full of cash from someone who will actually modernize farming in your country. The choice is an easy one.

All Bananas, No Republic

Meanwhile, things are plodding along in Madagascar, as the populace grapples with its new government. Madagascar’s President Quits After Weeks of Chaos:

President Marc Ravalomanana of Madagascarresigned on Tuesday and handed control of the government to the military, which then passed the power to rule this poor island off Africa’s southeast coast to his archrival, Andry Rajoelina.

This odd turn of events comes after two months of political turmoil during which Mr. Rajoelina, the former mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, repeatedly declared a parallel government with himself in charge, essentially announcing a coup in a democratic country.

(Ravalomana's) preference was that a handful of senior officers succeed him. But in a ceremony broadcast from a military camp in the capital, Vice Adm. Hippolyte Rarison Ramaroson said that he and two generals had decided to install Mr. Rajoelina as the head of a transitional government

Late in the evening it was unclear if all elements of the military were in agreement with the changeover, but it was certain that the embattled president had finally succumbed to irreversible momentum.

Note the awesome name of Madagascar's Vice Admiral Hippolyte Rarison Ramaroson. Madagascar has a navy?


Rajoelina, meanwhile, is not what you would call a Man of Destiny, although he is slim, young, and looks good in a suit:

If these events hold, it will be an astonishing triumph for Mr. Rajoelina, a former disc jockey and entertainment impresario who at 34 is not even old enough according to the Constitution to be Madagascar’s president. He takes the place of a man democratically elected in 2001 and reelected in 2006.

Mr. Rajoelina became the mayor of Antananarivo in December 2007, besting the candidate from the president’s party. Eventually, he projected himself as the people’s champion against Mr. Ravalomanana, 59, a self-made tycoon, calling him a dictator more interested in promoting his own business interests than in elevating the masses out of poverty.

Nice that a "people's champion" has deposed a democratically elected government. It almost makes you think that his populist message is a lot of progressive BS. The Madagascan community seems of two minds about Rajoelina

While Mr. Rajoelina enjoys considerable popularity, he also is widely disliked

There's a reporter with his ear to the ground! He must have taken two cab rides and gotten two different earfuls about the "Madagascar Street."


Most Madagascans, however, seem to think that Rajoelina's ascendency is due to the hidden hand of the world's last great hegemonic imperial power, whose pitiless military, smooth diplomatic corp, sinister intelligence services, and vats of stolen oil allow it to exert its influence even in the teeming streets of Antananarivo:

“The problem is France,” said Harinanga Ranilisoa, 42, a dressmaker. “It wants to again run Madagascar, and it is doing so through Andry Rajoelina.”

Hope & Change The Guinea Way

There has been a changing on the guard in Guinea with a young military man taking over from the corrupt old guard. Untried Soldier, Camara, Carries Guinea’s Desperate Hopes

The captain likes to sleep late. Most days he rises well into the afternoon. Sometimes it is not until after sunset. He governs in darkness, his aides whisper, because that is when coups happen, like the one he staged early one December morning.

Hmmm. The "captain" likes to cultivate an air of mystery. Also, he's "shredding the constitution," but no one really minds.

Captain Camara, sensing the public outrage at corruption and the drug trade, vowed to clean up the country. In a bizarre but riveting set of televised interrogations, the compact, square-jawed captain extracted confessions from some of the most feared and powerful figures of the ancien régime.

These broadcasts, which came to be called “The Dadis Show,” proved a powerful catharsis.

“It is cleansing,” said Sidya Touré, who was prime minister in the 1990s and is a prominent opposition figure. “The former government pillaged and criminalized the state. People want justice for that.

There's no word on whether employees at AIG's Guinea office will have to give back their retention bonuses.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

There's been a slow-rolling coup playing out in Madagascar over the last few weeks. Now, elements of the army seem to have thrown in with the opposition and have stormed the presidential palace. Madagascar Soldiers Aid Mayor's Coup Attempt Only there's a problem:

Madagascar's opposition leader entered one of the capital's presidential palaces Tuesday, welcomed by mutinous soldiers who apparently support his confrontation with the country's increasingly isolated president.

Soldiers stormed the presidential palace Monday night in tanks, showing some measure of military support for opposition leader Andry Rajoelina's bid to take over the government.

Marc Ravalomanana, who has led the Indian Ocean nation since 2002, remained in the other, main presidential palace with loyal ministers and was reported to be safe.

D'OH!

UPDATE: Apparently, they do things differently in Madagascar. The "Wrong Palace Coup" has managed to topple the gov't. Madagascar's President Surrenders Power