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The Crimes of Bongo – Conscious Being Alliance
Apartheid and Terror in Africa's Gardens of Eden
keith harmon snow
December 3, 2009
The June death of Gabon's little 'Big Man'–President Al Hajji Omar Bongo Ondimba–inspired praise worldwide. Cameroon's President Biya saluted Bongo's wisdom while French President Sarkozy called Bongo the "great and loyal friend of France." Equatorial Guinea declared three days of national mourning and a 'saddened' U.S. President Obama lauded Bongo's role in 'shaping' U.S.-Gabon relations for 41 years and his dedication to nature conservation and conflict resolution. "At a continental level," bemoaned Zambia's President Banda, "he was a pan-Africanist who tirelessly and tenaciously worked for the unity of the African continent."
Behind the crocodile tears the news of Bongo's death saw police and troop reinforcements hitting the streets of Gabon–France's private Eden in Africa–as the old crocodile's teethy security apparatus clicked into lockdown. Who are the white secret service agents behind Bongo (See the ancient photo of Gabon's then new President, Albert-Bernard Bongo, circa 1965.) And then there's Halliburton, nuclear weapons, secret societies… Who was Omar Bongo really?
In September 2003 the National Geographic unveiled the first in a series of feature stories about the world's 'least spoiled' and 'most threatened' tropical forests. The 'Saving Africa's Eden' series showcased elephants walking on white sand beaches, silverback gorillas in lush greenery, and hippos surfing in the salty sea. Omar Bongo–"a self-possessed man with a wide mustache and a warm smile"–was the African hero who created thirteen new national parks literally overnight.
The National Geographic series followed the adventures of the requisite modern day white-skinned Tarzan personified by American biologist J. Michael Fay–the 'man who walked across the continent of Africa'–and photos showed Fay trekking through the equatorial jungle, crisscrossing savannahs and, later, surveying the wilderness with the charismatic black-skinned then U.S. Secretary of State–fresh out of a helicopter for a photo op–General Colin Powell.[1]
Forest elephants cross a saltwater estuary at Loango National Park, Gabon, the terminus for J.Michael Fay's 'megatransect' across equatoria. Photo keith harmon snow, December 2004.
It was all so captivating that I got the idea I had to go there. And so I did. Intrigued by the stories in National Geographic–which I recognized as the propaganda of the corporate empire[2]–in late 2004 I took a 'vacation' from the beauty and bloodshed in the big Congo (Kinshasa) and hitchhiked across the (not-so) little Congo (Brazzaville) for a visit to 'paradise'.[3]
From Libreville I flew to Gamba, in the south of Gabon, took a boat to Sette Cama, and spent Christmas 2004 with my base camp on a bluff some 50 feet above the ocean in Loango National Park, the jewel of Gabon's largest new protected area, the 1,132,000 hectare 'Gamba Protected Area Complex.' It is also the heartland of Shell, Halliburton and Schlumberger operations in Gabon.[4]
"Blue seas, white sand, elephants, whales, sea turtles, monkeys, bush pigs, unbelievable scenery," biologist Fay was quoted to say. "Gabon has it all. It has everything that everyone ever dreams about in paradise, as far as I'm concerned."
- Michael Fay was right, I said to myself, many times, surrounded by beauty and wildness, warm (90 degree) mists on the ocean and elephants on the beaches, soaring ospreys and chimpanzees falling out of trees, and the peace of the deserted shores of one of the most fantastic enduring wild places on earth.
But J. Michael Fay skipped the dirty details. Fay didn't mention the poverty and suffering of black Gabonese villagers whose mud-hut and malaria suffering stands in sharp juxtaposition to the swimming pools and golf courses for highly paid white expatriates, sport fisherman or adventure tourists. Or that the Gamba Complex is a private zone controlled by Shell Oil, with checkpoints and guards, where pipelines, oil barges, well-heads and huge toxic flames burning off natural gas are more visible than the elephants. And the medical waste, dumped at sea, that litters the 'pristine' beach: one day I picked 48 syringes with 2 inch needles out of the white sand where I was walking barefoot. J. Michael Fay became a personal adviser to Omar Bongo, but he didn't tell us about the terror Gabonese people live and die with.
"It ['Saving Africa's Eden'] is unbelievable," Marc Ona Essangui told me, in Libreville. It was just like another film about Africa." In April 2009, Marc Ona received the Goldman Environmental Prize [5] for his selfless grass roots struggle to exposing corruption and human rights violations and protect Gabon's environment, and he was threatened, arrested and illegally detained by the Bongo government.
"They announced that setting up these new Gabon parks would bring one million tourists a year, but even Kenya couldn't do that. The pictures in National Geographic suggested that it's easy to encounter these animals, but it's not. It would take many days. Even though the whole world may perceive that conservation is proceeding in Gabon, this is not the reality."
"Why did Bongo create [gazette] these thirteen new reserves? Because of scandals that took place in the past few years, like the financial scandal with FIBA Bank and the fraudulent presidential elections here, and to create tension and play off the United States against France. Bongo needed to find some way to repair relations with the United States."
Welcome to Gabon, a small otherwise unheard of Banana Republic in equatorial Africa. Hippos in the surf… gorillas in the mist… the adventures of the great white Tarzan, National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, J. Michael Fay, "the crazed American, the wild child who footed his way across all those nearly impassable forests and swamps, who sat half-naked atop the Inselbergs, who brought back photos and tales of a Gabon that Omar Bongo himself hadn't known existed."[6]
Now he's bushwhacking through tropical lianas and serpent filled trees with machete… now's he wading through leech-filled crocodile swamps… his trusty negro porters and trackers at hand… now he's being gored by an elephant… Welcome to the state-of-the-art cartography and explorer-conqueror genre: Fay's private helicopter almost daily dropping supplies in the jungle to the tune of hundreds of thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars and mom & pop conservation donations…
The coup des grace on all this propaganda was the portrait of Omar Bongo–the altruistic African President more interested in saving the environment than selling it off for the glitter of gold or the bling bang of diamonds or for parquet floors and plywood. President Omar Bongo was portrayed as the intent listener, the wise philosophical leader, the humanitarian negotiator. He was not–according to the spin-doctors of the propaganda system–your usual African dictator who packs people's severed heads in his refrigerator (Idi Amin) and later has his ears cut off (Samuel Doe).
The National Geographic photos of Eden unveiled were splashed all over cyberspace. Films were made and speeches given to capitalize on the momentum of public interest. Maps and guides were mass produced, DVDs and coffee table picture books, interactive features–even "classroom companion African resources" to properly influence the kiddies. The travel agencies jumped on board. Everyone was echoing the mantra: "Could Gabon be the next ecotourism destination?"
The National Geographic series was a sort of public relations pitch for the big money conservation non-government organizations–Bi(g) NGOs or BINGOs–who get all the funding: corporate entities like World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, Fauna and Flora International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. But the series also introduced and paved the way for the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP), a predatory USAID[7] initiative involving some seven African countries, U.S. logging companies, NASA, the Pentagon and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, launched under President George W. Bush.[8] In 2002, Walter Kansteiner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, paid a six-day visit to President Omar Bongo to negotiate the CBFP, and "Saving Africa's Eden" whitewashed the Kansteiner story as falsely as they did the Bongo regime.
National Geographic was selling ecotourism and wildlife protection as a panacea to 'save' Africa's idyllic gardens of Eden. But it was all a smokescreen, a blanket of propaganda draped over the primitive realities of the country of Gabon. The script was written by big business masquerading as conservation: the Wildlife Conservation Society wrote Colin Powell's speeches, delivered in Johannesburg. Kansteiner was described as a humanitarianism possessed with the need for democracy, health care and peace, but the Kansteiner family profits by exploiting Africa as ruthlessly as King Leopold. Trading in columbium tantalite (coltan) out of the bloody Kivu provinces of D.R. Congo, Kansteiner is also a director of Moto Gold, a company that sprouted out of the genocide in the DRC's bloody Ituri districts.[9]
Today the blanket of propaganda is being draped over the casket of Albert-Bernard Bongo, the elfish little man who for forty-one years ran the country of Gabon as a private enterprise for himself, his family, his foreign backers and protectors. Articles that mildly illuminate the corruption of the Bongo government merely serve to distance Western governments and cover for multinational corporations and state sponsored terrorism by blaming everything on Bongo.[10]
This was not my first visit to Gabon. In 1997 I was focused on the murder of Ken Saro Wiwa and the petroleum genocide in the Niger River Delta.[11] I wanted a visa for Nigeria, and I passed through every country around or near Nigeria trying to get one. But the country was closed under dictator Sani Abacha–the butcher–and I was too frightened to enter Nigeria without a visa.[12]
Ghana was an Anglo-American stronghold, but the others I passed through were all Francophone dictatorships: Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, Cameroon–and Gabon. It was a wake-up call to the structural violence that enslaves Africa and enriches the West and its comprador class agents like Omar Bongo.[13] (Of course, U.S. President Obama's recent criticisms of corruption and cronyism in Africa are extremely hypocritical, at the very least.)
In Libreville I met Thierry (not his real name). Thierry quietly told me he had worked in human rights until he became a very outspoken critic of the government. He was on the run, living 'underground' and existing by moving, one day to the next, through networks of friends. He was an intellectual, and he described a climate of terror in Gabon involving extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture, all run by Bongo's intelligence operatives and the Deuxieme Bureau, also known as the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE), the French secret service.
The most egregious repression occurred in 1990, Thierry said, when civilians were massacred during the 'pro-democracy' protests in Port Gentil. The true human rights situation is hidden, he said, even after numerous letters were sent to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
"President Bongo knows everything that goes on in Gabon," said Thierry. "Everything. Nothing happens that he does not know about. And there are very sophisticated forms of terror, like torture, disappearing, ritual killings, using plain-clothes operatives, in designer blue jeans or NIKE tracksuits. Bongo knows all about it–he is involved–and they have killed a lot of people with no one knowing about it. People just suddenly disappear or turn up dead."[14]
A white woman named Catherine who worked in language translations confirmed the 1990 massacres. "There are a lot of things you can do in the United States that you cannot do here," Catherine told me, acerbically, "and one is to be politically curious. You just don't go around asking these kinds of questions here. You would never get away with it but even if there was an attempt to investigate the massacres it would be blocked."
I also met a white expatriate consulting in the oil sector. He had just come from Port Harcourt, Nigeria but he shuffled around between Cameron, Nigeria, Gabon and Angola. "Foreigners who work in Gabon work in wood or in oil," he said. He confirmed that killings were routine before the mid-1990's, and that massacres occurred in Port Gentil just as Thierry had said. He said that the stories about protestors being arrested and tortured were true. "It was not just a few people killed," he insisted. "It was a lot of people. Protestors were taken out over the ocean in oil company helicopters and pushed out, alive or dead. It's more than just a rumor."
Togolese and Nigerian refugees in Benin, human rights activists in Cameroon, all have described these terrorist tactics involving petroleum sector helicopters. One Togolese refugee explained that in Togo they didn't just push people out, they hang them from helicopters and fly low over the 'jungle communities' to instill them with terror.[15]
"Bongo used to just kill anyone he wanted, openly, before 1990," a local Gabonese man, Maconi, told me in Libreville. Maconi's family is involved in the timber sector in Gabon, and his mother is French and he moves within the French community. "Bongo would just kill them without trying to keep it quiet. Now [2004] it is different, it is subtle, quiet, you don't see it, but it hasn't stopped."[16]
From the very beginning, circa 1865, Gabon was the focal point from which France projected its military and economic power across the continent, serving as an intelligence-gathering base much as Burkina Faso has historically served that role for Israel and the Congo (Zaire) has for the USA.
In fact, France forced Gabon's independence movement to accept France's full economic control as a pre-condition for 'independence'.
Gabon's first President Leon M'ba–and his early one-party dictatorship–set the stage for the Bongo regime both through sheer corruption and the Gabonese state's nefarious military and intelligence alliance with the French. A rapid intervention by French Foreign Legion commandoes secured M'ba's presidency after an attempted coup d'etat in 1964: M'ba was said to be a close friend of Charles De Gaulle. Many of Mba and Bongo's French supporters considered Gabon their private domain and were threatened by Gabon's 'independence' after decades of French colonial occupation. When M'ba died of illness, Bongo took the reins and with the help of France he consolidated absolute power: one of the fledgling President's first actions was to immediately dissolve all political parties and replace them with the 'Democratic Party of Gabon.'
Charles de Gaulle and his 'Monsieur Afrique,' Jacques Foccart directly installed Bongo in 1967. Bongo was the choice of a powerful group of Frenchmen–the Clan des Gabonais–composed of key members of the French government and influential Gabonese in alliance with strategically placed French nationals who controlled the economy of Gabon.[17] Foccart maintained French control in the former colonies through the Reseau Foccart, an intricate 'network' who collaborated with the French military and major French economic interests to guarantee access to strategic minerals. Former French ambassador and close M'ba adviser Maurice Delauney was a central figure in the Foccart network and the man who handpicked Bongo as Mba's successor.[18] French mercenaries and legionnaires like Bob Denard were (and remain) members of the Clan des Gabonais, using Gabon as home base for intelligence, covert operations and terrorism from Sao Tome to Madagascar.[19] French soldiers operate within the Gabonese military and French pilots in the Air Force; elite Mirage and Jaguar aircraft from the French air force are based on the military side of the Leon Mba airport in Libreville.
Petroleum exploration in Gabon was begun in the early 1930s by the French national oil company and Gabon was the first African country to host French oil giant Elf in the 1960s, from where Elf operated as a state within a state, serving as a base for French military and espionage activities, and for many decades Libreville remained the French nerve center of covert operations in central and southern Africa.[20]
Shell Oil entered Gabon in 1960 (Nigeria in 1958). Other oil companies in Gabon today include: AGIP (Italy), Amerada Hess (USA), AMOCO (US), BP (British Petroleum), Occidental Petroleum (USA), Energy Africa Gabon (South Africa), Pan African Energy, Marathon Oil (USA), Exxon/Mobil (and subsidiary Esso Exploration West Africa), Broken Hill Petroleum and Tullow Oil, a U.K.-based profiteer also involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in eastern Congo and Uganda.[21] The French oil conglomerate Total acquired Belgium's PetroFina in 1999 and Elf-Acquitaine in 2000, creating one of the world's nastiest multinational oil companies.
For almost 50 years, France's entire international security policy–its classified nuclear weapons strike force (le force de frappe atomique) and atomic reactor complex –revolved around access to uranium from Gabon and Niger. Uranium in Gabon was discovered in 1956 and exploitation began through the Compagnie des Mines d'Uranium de Franceville (COMUF), a consortium involving multinationals like Total and AREVA, in 1958.[22] COMUF is 68.4% owned by French multinational COGEMA, which is also one of Canada's largest uranium producers; COGEMA is partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy in the production of nuclear fuel for the U.S. weapons complex. The infamous U.S. multinational Union Carbide, responsible for crimes against humanity in Bhopal, India, was heavily involved in another catastrophe: uranium mining in Gabon. A hospital near the remote Mounana uranium mine has documented the long history of under five children living and dying with disfigured bodies, gynecological tumors, blood and skin diseases, cancers and leukemias, or the epidemics of radiation poisoning that quietly obliterated so many adult miners over 38 years of operations.[23] It is the same, ugly story in Niger, only uglier, due to higher populations of Tuareg and Toubou nomads; National Geographic writers who have whitewashed Gabon hide the same ugly imperial realities of uranium.[24],[25]
Also involved in uranium in Gabon are: Motapa Diamonds (U.S.A.); Mineral Services International (Cape Town, Vancouver, London, Gaborone and Libreville); Pitchstone Exploration (Canada, U.S.A.) and CAMECO (U.S.A., Canada)–a DeBeers connected company also tied to the Washington D.C. law firm Winston & Strong.[26], [27], [28]
Manganese is essential for superalloys essential to the western aerospace and defense complex: Gabon is the second largest producer behind South Africa and manganese is Gabon's third largest export earner. U.S. Steel owned 44% of Gabon's manganese producer, the Compagnie Miniere de l'Ogooue (COMILOG), which U.S. Steel set up with France in 1953; U.S. Steel reportedly sold out in the 1960's, but 60% of COMILOG was controlled by French and U.S. interests until 1996 when Eramet Group (France) bought 57%, leaving the Gabon government with 27% and 'other private parties' (read: U.S. & French businessmen) with 16%.[29] COMILOG has a capital value of over $80 billion and its profits soared from US$ 4.2 million in 2003 to US$ 183 million in 2004; about one-third of COMILOGs production is used by Eramet's manganese plants in France, Norway and USA (two-thirds goes to China, India and Ukraine).
COMILOG also controls the TransGabonese Railway–crucial to the massive devastation of rainforest logging. (Due to heavy metals emissions, Eramet Marietta is under fire in Ohio and West Virginia for epidemics of disease.[30]) Repression in the logging sector in Gabon is widespread: foreign companies penetrate rural areas, dividing and conquering forest people with cash and conflict, bringing alcohol, hunting, prostitution, traffic in endangered species, and direct paramilitary violence. The entire western NGO (e.g. BINGOs like WWF, WCS, Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the Great Apes Survival Project, Jane Goodal Institute) narrative on the 'bushmeat trade' ignores the role of state repression backed by western institutions and the private profits and white supremacy of the BINGOs.[31]
Directors of the mighty French nuclear conglomerate AREVA also serve on the boards of Lloyd's of London, Goldman Sacs (USA), Power Companies of Canada, Euro Disney, Total Oil and others. AREVA's connections to the Belgian establishment include intelligence insider Viscount Etienne Davignon, a man deeply tied to the depopulation of the Congo (DRC) through his long-time directorship of Belgium's Societe Generale–one of the DRC's longest and most lasting enemies and the copperbelt giant Union Miniere. Davignon is also an affiliate of Donald Rumsfeld and George Schultz through Gilead Sciences, a U.S. pharmaceutical (read: biowarfare) firm, and he is a director of Kissinger Associates.[32] Davignon was Belgian Minister of State during the 'independence' transition (1960) and the installation of Colonel Joseph Mobutu. A 2001 Belgian parliamentary enquiry explored Davignon's role in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, but the enquiry was a political tool from the start and, naturally, exonerated Belgian officials of all but 'moral responsibility' in the assassination.[33]
Successive government's of Japan have also supported the corruption and terror in Gabon through mining and oil and direct financing provided by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to the Bongo regime.[34] Mitsubishi holds four major petroleum concessions, one in partnership with Tullow Oil, but Gabon was also critical to Japan's nasty atomic reactor industries.
The stranglehold of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) economic austerity plans led to civil unrest as labor taxed, wages were cut, education and public health sectors, never much to begin with, were gutted. By the late 1980's Bongo was overseeing a massively oppressive regime predicated on state terror backed by France and, more poignantly, multinational corporations.
With the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Perestroika the veneers of stability in Gabon gave way to deep, festering wounds of decades of state oppression: students, onshore oil workers, civil servants and the general public took to the streets in pro-democracy protests. It was the same story in Burma, South Korea, Indonesia and China, but only Tiananmen Square made the news: China is considered an 'enemy state' of Western predatory capitalism, while the others are client states.[35] It was the same story in Port Gentil and Libreville, Gabon as in Colonel Joseph Mobutu's Zaire, General Gnassingbe Eyadema's Togo, Paul Biya's Cameroon, and General Ibrahim Babangida's Nigeria: all Western client states which saw massive repression of civil society, with student massacres, 1989-1991. This state orchestrated terrorism occurred at Jos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and in Lubumbashi, Zaire (May 11-12, 1990), and massacres were covered up by the West and its propaganda system; subsequent student-government clashes in Zaire occurred in Kisangani, Mbuji-May, Bukavu, Kinshasa and Mbanza-Ngungu during the communications blackouts, and were never known to the world in any details.[36],[37] Meanwhile, Dennis Sassou-Nguesso and Omar Bongo collaborated with Mobutu to prevent all news of the Lubumbashi massacre from leaking out. And then, a few weeks later, Bongo had the same problem: corpses needing to be disappeared.
The violence in Gabon reached a local peak in March, April and May of 1990. Pressured to declare the 'end of one party rule,' Bongo and his one-party state set about to neutralize all significant opposition. The people protested fearlessly. The state terror apparatus clicked into action after foreign oil sector executives (e.g. Shell Gabon's director Andre-Dieudonne Barre) complained.[38]
On May 21, 1990, France sent in several hundred elite paratroopers. Dubbed 'Operation Requin' (Shark), the rapid intervention forces of the French Foreign Legion 2nd Paratroopers Regiment (REP: 2eme Regiment Etranger des Parachutistes)–the elite of the world's elite soldiers–were sent to support the French Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment (REI: 2eme Regiment Etrangere d'Infanterie) troops permanently based in Gabon. The REP was known to attach U.S. covert operatives on missions and is described as "some of the most skilled and dangerous soldiers on earth."[39]
From May 21-30 some 500 French troops were dispatched to the luxury oil city of Port Gentil. Bongo, furious, arrogant and absolute, declared a 'state of siege' throughout the coastal province of Ogooue-Maritime, the only significant population center in the country. Quite literally overnight, key opposition leaders were assassinated or disappeared. But the French troops collected all French nationals at the Elf Corporation compound in Port Gentil and together with the Presidential Guard they battled with 'rebel forces' [read: civilian protestors]. The Presidential Guard was 'credited' with the killing and not the French troops –it is always black Africans who are credited with massacres in partnership with foreign troops.[40]
While reporting that "several people had been shot in the unrest"–official reports today suggest only five dead[41]–international media also reported that the Presidential guard crushed civilian barricades "deploying tanks, automatic weapons and grenades" and, in the last days, finally "began to round up demonstrators" amidst "continued intermittent gunfire."[42] But people in Gabon report that at least 500 to 600 civilians (some say 2000), many of them students, were massacred on the streets of Port Gentil–from May 21 to May 31, 1990–by the orders of President Omar Bongo.[43]
The appearance of tolerance for any 'opposition' in the country was provided by a faux opposition connected to Bongo's and France's multinational corporate competition: any true opposition was bought off by Bongo and/or compromised by their participation in secret societies (like the Freemasons).[44] The intelligence networks and terror apparatus targeted anyone unable to be silenced by bribery or blackmail. The long arm of Omar Bongo's assassinations squads even reached outside Gabon: in 1996 one opponent of Bongo was assassinated in France on the orders of Libreville.[45]
All so-called 'elections' that have occurred in Gabon (Cameroon, Togo, Nigeria, post-1994 Rwanda, etc.) are demonstration elections meant to legitimize nasty dictatorships serving western capital.[46] Of course, President Omar Bongo Ondimba always won–in 1993, 1998 and, most recently, 2005–and Bongo's foreign patrons characteristically whitewashed elections violence.
Meanwhile, Bongo visited the White House, and its counterparts in France, England, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada, Germany, China and Saudi Arabia.
Military relations between the U.S., Canada, France, England and Israel on the one hand, and the dictators like Bongo on the other, continued throughout their decades long tenures, no matter their brutalities: under the Clinton Administration, for example, the Pentagon sent U.S. covert forces to train General Eyadema and Paul Biya's elite killers under a new program, the Africa Crises Response Force ('Force' was later changed to 'Initiative' to soften it, transforming ACRF to ACRI); troops also trained at the Pentagon's Special Operations School at Fort Hurlburt, Florida.[47]
Bongo meddled in weapons and money-laundering: one of Bongo's private arms dealers, Frenchman Rene Cardona, fell out with Bongo and was imprisoned in Gabon in 1996: a corruption investigation in France found that Cardona's son paid 300 million CFA francs into Bongo's personal account to buy his father's freedom.[48]
Gabon grew to become an unprecedented example of the success of the national security client state, where the offshore petroleum industry was designed to operate as an independent state, with its own private communications, transport, and supply chain infrastructure thus making offshore oil operations immune to onshore civil strikes or public protests. The oil operations grew to become islands of stability staffed by foreign expatriate labor and management, supplied by independent shipping and aviation, protected by elite networks of the foreign and domestic security apparatus.
For some forty-one years the Elf-ish Albert-Bernard Bongo ruled Gabon. Was Bongo the international humanitarian and peacemaker that the propaganda system has universally portrayed him as? Why do so many people know so little about the realities of life and death in Gabon?
In his widely lauded 2004 book, A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa, Howard W. French, the former New York Times bureau Chief for Africa from circa 1993-1998, had only this to say of Gabon: "It has long been said that even tinier, oil-rich Gabon next door [to Congo-Brazzaville] was the world's leader in per capita champagne consumption." [49]
However, back in 1995, Howard W. French reported that Bongo and friends patronized lavish prostitution scandals run by Europeans; one Italian fashion designer who ended up in a French court admitted to personally furnishing Bongo with French call-girls charging $15,000 a visit in exchange for $600,000 tailoring contracts.[50] French also reported: "the French engineered a partly successful boycott of an international investors conference in Gabon this year because it was organized by an ex-American Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman Cohen."
What the New York Times forgot to add was that Herman Cohen, who worked in the George H.W. Bush administration, was a lobbyist whose firm Cohen & Woods (C&W) was paid $300,000 to present Gabon as a "politically stable and economically successful country" and to "generate awareness of President Bongo and his national and international accomplishments," including the "very concrete process of democratization and democratic reforms." [51]
C&W also whitewashed the crimes of another blood-drenched client near Gabon, the government of Eduardo Dos Santos in diamond and oil-studded Angola. While C&W were peddling influence for Bongo and Dos Santos, the U.S. State Department was flagging human right in Gabon for extra-judicial killings, torture, corruption and election rigging; Angola was far more grim.[52] It was the tip of the iceberg on the brutal dictatorships and plunder of the oily Gulf of Guinea.
It was Herman Cohen and James Woods that convinced African countries to participate in the Pentagon's ACRF, the precursor to the current Africa Contingency Operations Training Program (ACOTA), two programs training killers under a 'peacekeeping' smokescreen: Gabon has participated in both. C&W were also pimping for Military Professional Resources Inc., the private military company out of Virginia; MPRI and LOGICON, another Pentagon contractor, advanced the ACRF/ACOTA cause, and benefited from it.[53] One of the primary architects of ACRF was Susan Rice, Barrack Obama's foreign policy adviser and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. since January 2009.[54]
Over the past two decades the Bongo regime has been publicly whitewashed by public relations agencies connected to power in Europe, Japan and to both political parities in the USA. These included Cohen & Woods, Cassidy Associates, Powell Tate, and Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand in the USA, and UK-based Shandwick Public Affairs.[55] PR firms also sanitized the French language markets with customized propaganda. Cassidy & Associates spent between $20-30 million lobbying Congress between 1998 and 2009. In 2000 and 2001, Gabon also hired the public relations firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips.
The son of Jacques Foccart's affiliate Mahmoud Bourgi, French lawyer Robert Bourgi is considered Foccart's francafrique successor. As an example of media censorship and postcolonial control, his brother Albert Bourgi is the editor of Jeune Afrique, Francophone Africa's popular news publication coming out of Paris since 1964, but a disinformation front billed as the 'number one Pan-African magazine'. Robert Bourgi was one of former President Joseph Mobutu's most intimate security advisers and an intimate adviser and lawyer to Omar Bongo.[56] On September 27, 2007 at the Palais de l'Elysee, French President Nicolas Sarkozy honored Robert Bourgi with the Medal of the Knight's Insignia in the National Order of the Legion of the French Republic; Bongo's daughter was also in attendance.[57] According to Robert Bourgi, Omar Bongo had President Sarkozy's overseas-aid minister Jean-Marie Bockel removed due to a 'bold' speech denouncing patronage and corruption.[58]
Gabon also maintained a three-year-old relationship with Jacqueline Wilson, the ex-spouse of senior U.S. diplomat and Gabon Ambassador Joe Wilson, who received tens of thousands of dollars for special projects and reports to President Omar Bongo's daughter, Pascaline Mferri Bongo.
In another well-publicized case, lobbyist Jack Abramoff was the supposed mover-and-shaker behind the 2003 meeting between Bongo and George W. Bush–a meeting where President Bongo pledged support for the Pentagon's "war on terror" and signed an "open skies agreement" between the two countries. Abramoff, who was also a Washington lobbyist for President Joseph Mobutu in Zaire (DRC), sought $9 million for his services for the Maryland public relations firm GrassRoots Interactive. [59] Abramoff also reportedly worked with Bongo through David Safavian, a former business partner, former White House budget official and a registered agent in Washington for President Bongo, and also through another of Bongo's paid influence peddlers in Washington named Joe Slavik, a mysterious insider who is apparently also very close to Bongo's eldest daughter, Pascaline Bongo who also served as her father's principal secretary, and is reportedly a director for several large French firms operating in Gabon, including Total Gabon.[60] President Omar Bongo left the White House and later attended a lavish dinner organized by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), the public relations wing of the world's most negligent and destructive corporations in Africa, as everywhere; later still he showed up in Houston as a guest at the Baker Institute. The CCA chairman at the time was diamond magnate and Democratic Party financier Maurice Tempelsman, the United States' equivalent of France's 'dirty tricks' operative Jacques Foccart.
Tempelsman's role in interventions in Africa and his networks of organized crime involved in diamonds and cobalt are legendary, but wholly hidden by the bling bling of the propaganda system. One of Tempelsman's stellar roles was serving as a broker for the Oppenheimer and De Beers diamond cartel–another friend of the Bongo regime. Given the blood diamond wealth in the nearby countries–Angola, Namibia, the two Congos–there is no chance De Beers would overlook Gabon.
Years of prospecting in Gabon by the De Beers cartel led to the development of a cartographic minerals database based on 13,513 sq. kms of terrestrial surveys and 36,580 km of airborne magnetic surveys. One company affiliated with De Beers in Gabon is the Canada-based SearchGold Corporation, which is licensed to exploit 7,865 sq. kms of concession in partnership with the U.K. company Zambezi Gold and its Luxembourg subsidiary Arc Mining and Investment. [61] Also mining Gabon is Cluff Mining, a shareholder in Banro Mining Corporation–the Canadian powerhouse that is plundering and depopulating eastern Congo; Anglo-American Corp., the Oppenheimer/DeBeers conglomerate, is a majority shareholder in Cluff.
"Gabon was the only one of France's former African colonies to vote to become a French department, or administrative district, on the eve of independence in 1960, a request that President Charles de Gaulle turned down," Howard W. French wrote. "Since independence, however, as the extent of the Gabon's oil, forest and mineral wealth has become known, France has fought ferociously to keep the influence of other Western powers in the country to a minimum." [62]
Seven French soldiers died recently when a French army AS 532 Cougar helicopter crashed into the sea off Gabon during joint military exercises.[63] While the propaganda system is always advertising withdrawals of French troops from bases in Africa, the French contingents in Gabon will certainly remain.[64]
While France was consolidating its control over Gabon it was also arming neighboring regimes: Omar Bongo was their African kingpin.
Under the cover of 'humanitarian' flights, the Bongo government shipped weapons from Libreville to the Biafran war in Nigeria 1967-1970, and Bongo imported Biafran rebels connected to secessionist leader Emeka Ojukwu to luxurious lives in Gabon. France also supported the Biafra struggle, where a U.S./NATO/U.S.S.R. blockade led to some 500,000 to 2,000,000 deaths from starvation, disease and war. Shell-British Petroleum and the French state company Societe Anonyme Francaise des Recherches et d'Exploitation de Petrole (SAFRAP; now Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd.), were centrally involved in the bloodshed and exploitation.[65]
From 1970-1975 France provided over 300 Panhard armored cars to Mobutu in Zaire: this is a footnote in the long history of French arms transfers to dictatorships that served their interests in Africa.[66] President Richard M. Nixon met with Bongo on August 2, 1973. At the time, the SDECE (Service de Documentation Exterieure et Contre-Espionage) and CIA were collaborating against the MPLA (Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola) government in Angola by training and arming UNITA and FNLA guerrillas.[67] Elf Acquitaine backed both the MPLA government and UNITA rebels: Bongo was certainly involved in French interventions.[68] In 1975, the SDECE hired the infamous Congo mercenary Bob Denard and twenty French mercenaries, all paid by the CIA station out of Zaire –Maurice Tempelsman's gang Lawrence Devlin, Mark Garsin and others–for covert operations in Angola; the SDECE and CIA also worked with Bureau of State Security (BOSS) agents out of South Africa at the height of the Apartheid struggle.[69] Omar Bongo was clearly aware of Washington's covert terrorist operations in support of UNITA from the 1970's to 1990's. Bongo's government allowed individuals in Gabon to back UNITA rebels in the brutal civil war in Angola, and in 1990's Gabon was caught red-handed violating United Nations sanctions against UNITA.[70]
When Ian Smith's white supremacist government needed support against the imperialist forces seeking to put a black face on power in Rhodesia, it was Omar Bongo who helped Smith bust the international sanctions by routing through Libreville aircraft ferrying contraband to and from Rhodesia and Europe; networks of organized crime worked through Switzerland and Lichtenstein, and Bongo's officials in Gabon issued false certificates of origin and other fabricated documentation, while also taking their cut in profits.[71]
Bongo also maintained relations with Harvard University's Liberian warlord Charles Taylor; Bongo was known to receive Taylor at his presidential mansion and certainly benefited from the blood diamond cartels Taylor was involved with.[72],[73]
The Bongo government was complicit with the successive Nguema dictatorships (1968-1979, 1979-present) and their campaigns of terror and depopulation in Equatorial Guinea (E.G.). Under Bongo's rule, Gabon violated the territorial sovereignty of E.G. through military occupation of southern E.G. islands and military incursions in the southwest near Rio Muni, all in search of oil and profits.[74]
Before his ascendancy to President by coup d'etat in 1979, Teodoro Obiang Nguema personally ran the notorious Black Beach prison in E.G.: his regime is today considered one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic states in the world. U.S. corporate backing of the Obiang regime involved corruption and profiteering that was exposed in the U.S. Rigg's bank investigations in 2004. U.S. companies–Exxon-Mobil, Amerada Hess, Chevron-Texaco, Marathon Oil and others–paid for scholarships for children of the country's leaders to attend elite schools like Pepperdine University (CA), formed business ventures with government officials, hired companies linked to Obiang and rented property from government officials and their relatives.[75] Petroleum-connected U.S. officials like Condoleeza Rice have called Obiang a 'good friend' of the U.S., while Obiang has for years paid Cassidy & Associates some $120,000 a month to whitewash the regime. While the arrogance of oil wealth caused a small rift between the two dictators, Bongo's importance to E.G. can be measured by Nguema's decree of three days of national mourning after Bongo's death.
Albert-Bernard Bongo is the son-in-law of Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, another dictator who has reigned for two decades, with a gap from1992-1997, sustained with millions of Elf petrol dollars: Sassou-Nguesso's elite Cobra militia were also trained by French advisers and, like Mobutu, Sassou-Nguesso relied on Israeli security and intelligence for protection. Omar Bongo backed bloodshed in the recent Congo-Brazzaville war (1997-2000) by offloading planeloads of weapons and shipping them across the border to Sassou Nguesso's home village of Oyo.[76] Bongo's government was also accused of airlifting Rwandan and Moroccan mercenaries into Congo-Brazzaville, even as Bongo was preparing to lead negotiations between Sassou-Nguesso and Congo-Brazzaville's more openly U.S.-backed President Pascal Lissouba, and after a ceasefire had been declared in July 1997.[77] All sides were involved in ethnic cleansing. The French military, the Elysee Palace and Elf Aquitaine all actively supported Sassou-Nguesso, who fought his way back to power on October 25, 1997 with the assistance of Chadian troops backed by French logistical support.[78]
After France, Bongo maintained his closest alliance with Joseph Mobutu's CIA client state in Zaire.
On the morning of March 3, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter had a conversation with French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Later in the afternoon President Carter met with Omar Bongo; also in attendance were Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Robert Bongo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Gabonese Republic and nephew of President Bongo.[79] Less than 10 days after Bongo met with Carter the U.S. and Belgium shipped weapons to Shaba (Katanga), Zaire, and on March 16 Secretary of State Vance appeared before the U.S. Congress to justify the intervention as critical to protect the flow of Shaba's copper from Zaire, but it was the cobalt of the copperbelt veins, stockpiled by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency and essential to the western permanent warfare enterprise, that the national security apparatus was concerned about.[80],[81],[82] Bongo met with Carter again on October 17, 1977, and he thus played a definitive role in backing the western terror apparatus in Zaire, in sharp contradistinction to the propaganda system's salutations as 'peacemaker' on the continent.
In June 2002, Robert Bongo was appointed as a United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General in the DRC.[83] Brzezinski is a high level adviser to the International Crises Group, a flak organization promoting peace through war in Sudan, Uganda and Congo, and was advising Barack Obama in 2008. As National Security Advisor under Carter, Brzezinski reportedly commissioned the March 17, 1978 document Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC 46; entitled Black Africa and the U.S. Black Movement, the classified 'Secret' document advocated for clandestine U.S. support to (Apartheid) South Africa and called for a special covert U.S. program to "perpetuate divisions in the black movement; to neutralize the most active groups of leftist radical orientation and diminish their influence among blacks; and to stimulate dissension and hostility between organizations representing different social strata of the community…" [84],[85]
"For 20 years President Bongo has led his country in an era of stability and progress," said President Ronald Reagan during an October 2, 1987 meeting with Bongo in Washington. "Under his leadership, Gabon has consistently encouraged the peaceful settlement of regional disputes, siding with reason, dialogue, and moderation over bloodshed, war, and terror."
Reagan pledged to increase U.S. investment in Gabon–and it happened–and Gabon's financial programs were subsequently restructured in keeping with western 'shock doctrine' economics of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) arranged with and for Bongo's elite clique. The U.S. media called the deal 'U.S. Aid to Gabon.' Meanwhile, SAPs shattered the social fabric and further ruined hundreds of millions of ordinary people's lives from Gabon to Bolivia to South Korea.[86]
The strategic and corporate alliance with Bongo thrived under every U.S. president who sat during Bongo's reign–Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush–and the imperial relations and structural violence were perpetually whitewashed by the western propaganda system.
Gabon provided military logistical support to the Laurent Kabila government during the second phase of war in DRC (1998), but later and/or simultaneously Bongo backed Jean-Pierre Bemba and his Movement for the Liberation of Congo. Bemba was another Mobutist warlord who was close to Congo-Brazzaville's Dennis Sassou-Nguesso. Until his death, Bongo was sending $US 20,000 a month to Bemba's legal fund, along with Sassou-Nguesso, Moamar Gadhafi and a fourth (unidentified) African President (for a total of $US 80,000 a month)."[87]
"Bongo even financed small politicians with no hope," says one Congolese businessman, "he gave money to everyone, that's how he maintained access. In DRC, for example, he even gave money to Alou Bonioma Kalokola–a lawyer who has lived his entire life as a hustler. Bonioma was married to [Dennis] Sassou-Nguesso's step-daughter, and Sassou-Nguesso's wife is from DRC. Alou knew he would get money from Bongo so he ran for president [in the 2006 elections]."[88]
Bongo was connected to the Corsican mafia through the French ministers and shady businessmen, including Michel Tomi and son Jean-Baptiste, and Robert Feliciaggi (assassinated in a professional hit in Corsica, March 10, 2006), his son Jean-Jerome and brother Charles. Alleged to run French money-laundering schemes through casinos, lotteries and betting shops in Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon, Jean-Jerome is close to Sassou-Nguesso, and Charles' business supplies the Presidential Guard of diamond and petroleum magnate Jose Eduardo Dos Santos in Angola; the brothers held the second biggest bank accounts –after Elf-Aquitaine–at France's now defunct FIBA bank, the conduit for Gabon and Angola's plundered oil wealth.[89]
Gabon's wealth was also siphoned off through the BGFI Bank, Gabon's biggest investment bank. Created in Libreville in April 1971, the Bank was born out of a partnership between private Gabonese investors and the Banque de Paris, under the name "Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas Gabon." In view of the majority share of capital held by private Gabonese, the Bank took the name of Banque Gabonaise et Francaise Internationale (BGFI) in April 1996. To reap the plunder of nearby dictatorships, BGFI opened major branches in Equatorial Guinea (2001) and Congo-Brazzaville (2004). BGFI directors include Jean Ping (once married to Bongo's daughter) and Christian Bongo; director Yves Abouab is also an executive with the Banque Belgolaise in Paris. Christian Bongo is also a director of the Banque Gabonaise de Development.
Jean Ping is one of the most powerful members of Bongo's clan des Gabonaise, and an unapologetic agent for western capitalism's enterprise of plunder and depopulation in Africa. Ping has played a pivotal role, for example, in furthering the 'new humanitarian' [read: same old imperialist] policy doctrine of the 'Responsibility to Protect'.
Corsican Michel Tomi operates through Groupe Kabi in Gabon, involved in private airlines, communications and gaming, and winning lucrative construction contracts from the Bongo government.[90] An adviser to Omar Bongo in the 1990's, Corsican Andre Tarallo was boss of Elf-Corsica from 1987-1988, and he funded the anti-Marxist guerrilla movement FLEC in neighboring Angola in the 1980's.[91] Tarallo managed Elf's Africa interests for more than 30 years, and he ended up in a French jail (2004) over the Elf petroleum bribery scandals, where he testified about payoffs to Bongo, Sassou-Nguesso and Teodoro Obiang Nguema.[92],[93] Another member of the 'Clan Corsican' at Bongo's disposal was former French Minister Charles Pasqua, one of Jacques Chirac's former aides, described as a mafia godfather.[94]
Omar Bongo, Charles Pasqua, Jean-Christophe Mitterand and other officials were involved in Angolagate, the French arms-for-oil scandal involving shady arms merchants, oil executives, intelligence operatives and others in France and Africa. In 1999, the U.S Congress flagged Bongo's huge accounts at Citibank in a money-laundering probe.[95] Omar Bongo and friends have also bankrolled French politicians: Former French president Valerie Giscard d'Estaing accused former President Chirac of receiving party financing from Omar Bongo in a 1981 campaign.[96]
Gabon received $850,000 dollars in foreign military financing from the Pentagon from 2005 to 2008, with $1,597,000 in International Military Education & Training funds from 2001-2007, and with 192 Gabonese military trained in the US IMET program from 1950-2007; ninety of these Gabonese soldiers were trained in the U.S. between 2000 and 2007.[97],[98]
Through the Pentagon's Gulf of Guinea Initiative, Gabon is involved with the US Navy's Maritime Partnership Program and the Africa Partnership Station, programs that militarize the Gulf of Guinea to assure and secure U.S. control of oil infrastructure, shipping lanes, offshore sea-bed mining, illegal fishing, toxic dumping and other corporate piracy. Gabon also provides the Pentagon with air naval base access for Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs) and Forward Operating Locations (FOLs). All of these programs are conduits for U.S. covert operations and facilitate the involvement of private military companies and transnational corporations in resource plunder and depopulation.[99]
Gamba town is the urban centre of the wild Gamba Protected Area Complex, an enclave of white, gated western privilege surrounded by dense forests, impenetrable swamps and deep estuaries where you might see an elephant swimming across open water or ambling across a grassy field. This is Shell country in Gabon, and the only way in is on an expensive Air Gabon flight.
"If I have to describe Gamba to someone," confided one French expatriate in "Shell's Best Kept Secret," a blurb in a Royal/Dutch Shell public relations brochure, "I always say it is a Club-Med in the middle of the jungle. You have the freedom and opportunity to do things you thought you'd only ever dream of and all with an amazing backdrop of jungle and unspoilt beaches and lots of wildlife right on your doorstep! … We are quite a sporty bunch in Gamba. We have our own 18 hole golf course, there is the Yenzi Boat club a sailing club, tennis, football, tae-kwon-do, yoga, fitness, swimming, aerobics & step classes, volleyball, badminton, squash, hockey, rugby and much, much more…not to mention that every so often you can take part in our triathlon!" [100]
In October 2004, paramilitary police in Gamba killed two locals who protested against Shell's injustices. A survey of local attitudes revealed a climate of fear seething beneath the surface. Locals reported routine oil spills where Shell and contractors Halliburton and Schlumberger have for years and years burned off oil spills as a form of remediation.[101]
With a certain arrogance that comes with white society beliefs about entitlement, French expatriates have considered Gabon their private property since the colonial era, and Gamba is one of their hideaway playgrounds.[102] One French expatriate in Gamba, Louis Rigon, runs a high-end sport fishing and 'ecotourism' business, with private luxury camps and powerboats in the bush.[103] He also provides a logistic base for oil exploration when companies like Transworld Exploration Gabon–a Houston Texas oil company–arrive in Gamba (2006) for seismic testing in Loango National Park. It is families with names like Louis Rigon and Pierre Goods–a Transworld director based in Port-Nice, Gabon–who float their 4-WD safari land rovers from Sette Cama, across the estuary on a barge, off-load in Loango National Park, and casually joy-ride some 50 kilometers down the pristine beach–as they did when I was there. This is their version of 'ecotourism'–another buzzword and the cutting edge of the white, western, corporate invasion of wilderness.
Oil exploration in the Loango wilderness was not the only reality I found incongruent with the slick propaganda about "Saving Africa's Eden." The western diamond firm Southern Era was prospecting in the newly designated Lope Reserve–J. Michael Fay's newly 'discovered' Eden in northeastern Gabon–and all the BINGO conservation groups involved in the Congo Basin Forest Partnership knew this. None had said a word.
Southern Era began prospecting in Gabon in 1999 and when the CBFP came along–and Bongo created the new parks–they were issued permits for the Lope region from the Bongo regime. Southern Era is a fully owned subsidiary of Mwana Africa–another secretive mining company involved in the blood-drenched mining operations in eastern Congo (also Angola and Botswana's blood diamond areas)–connected to the U.S., U.K. and South Africa.[104]
Tracking elephants in the Loango reserve turned up the remains of a research camp in the savannah. My local guide and WWF-paid ranger Robert (not his real name) took me to the place where the Smithsonian Institute set up a massive animal and plant collection operation; teams of researchers descended on the Loango wilderness and began catching, counting, cataloging, categorizing, and collecting species and genetic material. Claiming a universal benefit to all humanity–and to the people of Gabon, of course–the Smithsonian's Gabon Biodiversity Monitoring and Research Program involves U.S. universities and scores of western researchers and tens of millions of dollars in funds; it is also backed by Shell Oil Corporation.[105] These funds cycle to and from western economies bringing little benefit to Gabonese people like Robert, and nothing of benefit to the average Gabonese citizen. Smithsonian scientists reported that they have 'recorded' over 2019 species of trees and thousands of species of birds, reptiles, snakes and amphibians, but they didn't merely 'record' these species, they collected them.[106] "Voucher specimens were injected with formaline (5%), then preserved in 70% ethanol, and will be housed in several scientific institutions."[107]
"They paid us 6000 CFA (US $12) per day to collect birds, snakes, lizards," says Robert, "They killed them and packed them up in jars and boxes. We worked hard, setting traps and checking nets, all day and night sometimes. It wasn't much money."
Robert was hired because he knew how to catch birds, where to hang nets, where bat species might be found, the habitat of rare snakes–you know, simple stuff, like where a rodent will hide–but based on years of painstaking study and intimate knowledge of the local environment for which Robert has dedicated his heart and soul all his life. Robert didn't know anything about genetic engineering, cloning, or intellectual property rights, and that's why it was easy for the Smithsonian to come in to Gabon and steal Robert's intellectual property and pay him approximately one dollar and fifteen cents (sic) an hour.
Robert was hired as a grunt for an exclusive western program that offers the perfect example how white supremacy operates in Africa: lucrative contracts, travel perks, capital equipment budgets, romantic interludes in paradise for whites; hard labor, theft of expertise, downward mobility, obtuse explanations for blacks. It's all about access. People like Robert will always be collecting dead birds, while someone else will be flying in and out of Gabon, presenting papers at conferences, getting PhDs, ostensibly saving the earth, murdering wilderness as fast as they are murdering the truth.
"Under Bongo life is hard," Robert told me. "Many people are malnourished, many people are poor. There is no work. It's terrible."
The Smithsonian proceeded with the support of President Omar Bongo, the Pentagon, U.S. State Department, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA and other predatory agencies. Massive physical, economic and intellectual (property) thefts are underway, and it occurs on the backs of eager, willing, hopeful, yet unfreedomed Africans.[108]
The markets in Gamba are muddy, dirty, run-down sites of suffering where a scattering of local people peddle bush-meat, manioc, cassava, little packets of salt and sugar, some traditional foods and forest products, bananas and mangos, and whatever manufactured commodities they can get their hands on and resell at a small profit. In the enclave of Sette Cama, a few miles across the estuary and down the beach, the people live by small-scale fishing and farming cassava. But for a few crumbs splashed their way–where the (mostly white) benefactors reconcile their entitlement and privilege behind assumptions that their pitiful charity is further evidence of their goodness and morality–the local people do not benefit from the itineraries and budgets of foreign eco-tourists. .Misery is endemic
Gabon has been a major oil producer since 1962. Historically, oil revenues accounted for approximately 60% of the government's budget, more than 40% of GDP, and 75% of export earnings. Despite half a century of production from Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil reserves, the majority of Gabon's citizen's exist in a Hobbesian nightmare where life is nasty, brutish and short.
In a country of approximately 1 million people, only about eight percent (80,000) have access to any kind of running water or electricity. Adding insult to injury, in 1992, the French corporation Lyonnaise des Eaux took control of the state-owned Societe d'Electricte et d'Eaux du Gabon (SEEG): Bongo signed on with the U.S. International Finance Corporation and IFC/Japan to privatize Gabon's water and electricity sectors, leading "one of the first privatizations of electricity and water services in sub-Saharan Africa," over a decade ago.[109]
In 2003, another beltway Maryland (U.S.A) company–Decision Analysis Partners (DAP)–won a lucrative contract ostensibly to map out the eco-tourism infrastructure for five of Bongo's newly gazetted Gabon parks. But DAP's deep ties to the Pentagon and intelligence networks suggest that there is, as usual, some hidden military agenda.[110]
There are no accurate census figures for Gabon because the Bongo government benefited by inflating population statistics to maximize the regime's profits skimming off the so-called 'development aid' business sector. Infant mortality is very high in Gabon due to malaria, malnourishment, diarrhea and starvation. Malaria, the principal cause of hospitalization, is of epidemic proportions: 40 per cent of children aged 0 to 5 years and 71 per cent of all pregnant women suffer from the disease. Some 64 percent of all households are in communities where waste is disposed of untreated.[111]
There are separate schools in Gamba for white expatriate children, and for black African children: Shell and Elf back the expatriate schools.[112] The housing and levels of health and community development are also unequal. Whites hire blacks as maids, nanny's and housekeepers, and blacks are used for the most grueling and dangerous physical labor. The educational books that are produced in France and sent to Gabon are different for African children than the books for French children of the same ages and developmental levels. "Less content, less substance," said one French woman. "It is the calculated imposition of ignorance and it's happening throughout French speaking Africa."[113]
Companies like Shell, Elf and Total are deeply tied into dictating public policy through their control of advertising, schools, arts venues, TV news and wildlife programming–both in Gabon and the USA, Europe and Japan–and funding for all of these: their corporate logos are branded everywhere.
Education is also privatized: Shell is partnered with WWF and the Ministry of Education through the Shell program "L'Ecole Que J'Aime" ["The School I Like"]. Further, the basic commodities (and luxury goods) available to expatriates connected to the oil industry are denied to poor Gabonese, and the black slave sector couldn't afford them if they were, and there are stores (pools, clubs, etc.) where most blacks are not allowed.
This is Apartheid. It is also environmental racism.
"It's family living in an African Paradise," wrote expatriate Louise Tasker in a Royal/Dutch Shell magazine for expatriates, "Apart from wildlife and beaches, Gamba offers children a chance to really enjoy childhood rather than grow up too fast… Flights in Gabon are very expensive, so you may not have as many visitors as you'd like."[114]
Just as there is Apartheid on the ground, you won't see the average Gabonese flying on Air Gabon: it is an airline for people of the privileged classes–and the black people allowed to join the club.
All air travel in Gabon was for more than 45 years controlled by the so-called "government-owned" national airline whose financial interests were also held by Air France,[115] and whose directors included Omar Bongo's relative Robert Bongo. Journalists in Gabon were jailed and whole publication runs confiscated in March 1997 after they reported that Air Gabon was involved in ivory smuggling.[116] In another international scandal, Air Gabon–the airline of the elite in Gabon, tied to petroleum companies and run by the most powerful people in Gabon and France–went belly up in 2005.
Amongst the greatest causes of sickness in Gabon and its neighboring countries are unregulated corporate mining and pollution from extractive industries: gas flaring, uranium and manganese mining, all contribute to toxic environments. Gas-flaring by Royal/Dutch Shell, alone, in Africa, alone, is a leading cause of global warming.[117] Yet, looking at the fancy public relations of the Shell Oil Foundation, we find that the corporate perpetrators of violence and destruction are blaming the victims for their own suffering. "More than half the world's population uses open fires or traditional biomass-burning stoves to cook in their homes," reads the disingenuous propaganda, where Shell wields a World Health Organization statistic. "There is also growing evidence that this pollution contributes to global warming."[118]
Does the World Health Organization challenge Shell, Elf, Total or Mobil for the massive and devastating carbon footprint of gas flaring? No. Of course, next to Shell's support for dictatorships where petroleum flows are insured through rape, torture, and murder–the case of the Niger River Delta offering the most thoroughly documented example–Shell's gas-flaring is perhaps one of the less troublesome aspects of petroleum operations in Africa.[119] Meanwhile. In 1999, Shell flared some 25.6 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, in the Gamba complex Rabi concession alone–and this in a year where Shell–as supposed evidence of their benevolence–reported 'reductions' in their flaring footprint from 30 mmscf/d in 1998.[120] On this basis, and given the past six decades of their operations, Shell's contribution to global climate mayhem is unimaginable.
The evidence that multinational corporations and their government, academic, scientific and 'philanthropic' partners are decimating cultures and landscapes is overwhelming.[121] What is underwhelming is the extent to which the general public–U.S., Canadian, European, Australian and Japanese citizens, ostensibly concerned about human rights and the environment, for example–are unable to recognize and name these rich-man poor-man relationships for what they are: genocide.[122] An agent of predatory western capitalism, Omar Bongo played a major role in that, too. Gabon offers a perfect example of how the propaganda system covers for the western terrorist apparatus, always maximizing profits for the white-based economies of permanent warfare, depopulation and elite control.
On the cutting edge of this massive project of conquest over people and places of color are white people like J. Michael Fay, with their mega-transects and mega-flyovers,[123] and their Pentagon connections, and the agendas they serve, even as they deny that they are in any ways involved, while peddling the new, old white power projects of conservation and humanitarian intervention in Africa. Meanwhile, the Hollywood dimension of modern day genocide involves such reality TV productions as Survivor Gabon–Earth's Last Eden.[124]
"I'd be more than happy to meet a couple of cute girls on the island," says Survivor's arrogant tarzan-stud Marcus Lehman, who thinks the 'remote Gabon coast' is an island. "It is Earth's last Eden, so I'll be Adam, she can be Eve, and see what goes on." [125]
Such is the nature of white supremacy, with all its attendant obliviousness, and assumptions of innocence, and power relations, and subliminal sexuality, and this is the true face of the globalization of terror.[126] The history of Gabon is the history of slavery, alive and well in Africa's gardens of Eden.
[1] See: David Quammen, "Saving Africa's Eden," National Geographic, September 2003; J. Michael Fay, "Gabon's Loango National Park: In the Land of the Surfing Hippos," National Geographic, August 2004; Quammen, "Views of the Continent," National Geographic, September 2005; and J. Michael Fay, "Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma," National Geographic, March 2007.
[2] E.g., Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, Reading National Ge
Written by: keith harmon snow
Photography Credits: keith harmon snow
Categories: Equatorial Guinea, Gabon


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Free Three Day Metro Card in LA
Posted at: 2/22/2011 08:43:00 PM .
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"Evil Governor Gredora" is the 9th episode of Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Z and the 355th episode of the Cardfight!! Vanguard Anime.
Arata Nishizawa and Makoto Asada have reunited with Noa Hoshizaki, who was released from Chaos Breaker. However, the trio is ambushed by Gredora and Darkface, who were chasing Chaos Breaker.


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Vijay Antony Film Production is produced by Vijith Antony and directed by Krishika Udhayanidhi in 'Kali' directed by Anjali, Anjali and Sunaina. The press release of the film on May 18 was held in Chennai. The film's 20-minute footage was screened exclusively for journalists at this meeting. The film crew has been sharing interesting information about the film.
I have worked with 4 films with Vijay Antony. He is a very popular man. He is the one who believes in what he took, and I learned from him. The great Stalin team is the big plus in this film, said the art director of power Venkatraj.
This Kali is the best film in the film industry, which is being produced by women in cinematography. Richard M. Nathan said,
My first film in Tamil is the first stage. When Krithika Udayanidhi invited me, I thought he was a senior, experienced director. But a beautiful, young director. Heroine Shilpa Manjunath said that the film has done well.
I am a distributor and producer. Until recently I saw Dharmadurai's film and Vijay Anthony's beggar movie with the overflow in the movie. Thanks a lot for forgetting to thank God for a while His biggest strength is Fatima Vijay Antony and Sandra Johnson. Krishna looked at them in awe. Kritika took only what the story was about. In the film, he chose to act as well as acting. Kali is the title of the most Powerful title, said RK Suresh.
Shilpa and Amrita felt that they felt lazy. I've lost my journalist's press conference. It's fine when compared to that. Even though I have acted in 19 films, I still feel frustrated. The core of this film is love. It is proud to work in a special film like this. Vijay Antony has seen them as a musician 10 years ago and now is the best actor and producer, says heroine Sunaina.
On the day of women, women are sitting on stage. But today is the reason for this platform Vijay Antony. I asked him time to tell him the story. But he came to my house and asked the story. Chemistry was good for me and producer Fatima. Art Director is the biggest strength of the film. Stunted master of the stunts, working hard, and working hard. Arguably Suresh agreed to act as a villain. Sunina is an actress who does not notice much in Tamil cinema. I wanted to act in this film and I wanted him to act. 4 heroines acted well. When I wrote the script, I wrote what it says. It does not write anything to highlight women or males. There are lots of talented women. Director Krutika Udayanidhi said that women will come out with a great fight.
My Junior at Krutica College is still very simple. The first story he told me was the best story. But I did not make it because of my definition. Some other actors can act in that story. Cinematographer Richard is my junior. He did all the work on his shoulder. The art director is the power and stunt master power is just one of my family. I'm not a superhero. More than half of the fighting has been a fight for me. I am very grateful to him. Arun Bharti has filled the place after my very favorite poet Annamalai. I am acting in the movie Murderkaran after the film 'Thimir Pichchavan'. That will definitely be the same, "said Vijay Antony.
Nairi Amrita, Stunt Master Power Saravanan, Editor Lawrence Kishore, songwriters Arun Bharathi and Tamilnadu participated in the meeting.


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Caterpillar, Inc. (NYSE: CAT) and Deere & Company (NYSE: DE) compete in the Farm and Construction Industry. At the start of this season I have had the pleasure to observe both products in action.
A test drive event for a new CAT C18 articulated truck would be a more exciting ride than a Tesla Model 3. None of that popular branding action occurs for this space, but like Elon Musk, they do partner with NASA.
With the doom and gloom market, CAT had received many cautious ratings. Hindsight being 20/20, the big dip in January around mid $50s PPS would have been a great entry point.
The dividend yield for Caterpillar, Inc. is an attractive 4.24%. Yet it trades at a higher valuation of 34.67 P/E than Deere & Company at 14.78 P/E. Deere's dividend yield is nearly 3% and they recently maintained their distribution of $0.60 per share. For more on CAT's dividend and valuation read the recent article by Dividend Drive.
Research and Development
CAT produces new inventions and maintains an elite group of engineers. They have over 16,000 active patents and Research and Development (R&D) centers around the globe. CAT fosters student competitions, conducts talent searches amongst graduating engineers and has an eye for Roboteers.
At the end of 2013 CAT launched its versatile C-Series, 725C and 730C articulated trucks. On April 11, 2016 Caterpillar, Inc. issued several R&D updates:
"Three new pavers, AP300F, AP355F and AP555F, are built with intuitive, accessible technology and a quick-heating screed system that increases productivity and reduces idle time." - CAT Press Release
The forward looking project of construction in Cuba's harbor is a catalyst to likely use R&D spending.
Return on Research Capital
The Return on Research Capital (RORC) metric looks at the R&D spending for a company and makes a correlation with the gross revenue for the following year. The following chart shows the RORC for Caterpillar, Inc. and Deere & Company over a range for three years.
For every dollar of R&D spent by Caterpillar, Inc. in 2014 they made $22.02 in gross revenue for 2015. Deere & Company showed a RORC of $19.58. Both companies showed a decline in their RORC from 2014 and Deere proved to have a three year downward trend.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.StockTwits


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I-80 Traffic Routed Through Casper
The Wyoming Department of Transportation is making drastic route changes to move traffic that cannot use I-80 due to today's crash.
Here is the official release from Jeff Goetz of WYDOT...
Traffic caught in the closure from the I-80 crash is being routed up to WYO 220 and through Casper. That likely means an impact on CY, Wyoming Boulevard and all highways leading to Interstate 25.
I have no idea how many vehicles we're talking about.
I-80 is CLOSED from Rawlins to Cheyenne. Traffic is detoured through Casper:
I-80 Eastbound Detour Directions:
I-80 exit 215 to Cedar Street
Turn right onto US 287 North for 42 miles to junction with WY 220
Continue on WY 220 for approximately 71 miles to Casper
Take I-25 South for approximately 180 miles to Cheyenne. 20-APR 13:40


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With Kyrie Irving leading the way, the Cleveland Cavaliers have continued their recent mastery of Western Conference teams while putting aside last month's road woes.
After playing two of the West's lowlier clubs, the Cavaliers will step up in competition Sunday against the Los Angeles Clippers, one of the league's most successful teams against the East.
Irving has totaled 56 points in the first two of four games out West and had 26 in a 120-108 victory against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday. The point guard is also averaging 25.8 points and shooting 53.5 percent in his past four contests.
"I feel like this is a perfect time to find my rhythm, especially on this road trip," he said. "Over the last few games, I have tried to be aggressive and live off the confidence my teammates have in me."
The Cavaliers (46-18) are 10-1 in their last 11 against the West, a stretch that began with a 115-102 win over the Clippers on Jan. 21 and followed a 132-98 drubbing by Golden State on Jan. 18 that heavily contributed to coach David Blatt's firing. They have also won in eight of their last nine visits to those teams.
Cleveland is also 5-1 since losing three of four to close February, and could get Kevin Love back after a one-game absence due to knee issues.
Channing Frye had a season-high 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting in his place Thursday.
"Hopefully, Kevin comes back but I'm going to go out and be ready regardless," Frye said.
The Cavaliers will try to add a fourth consecutive win over the Clippers (42-22). They went 13 of 28 from 3-point range and shot 50.6 percent overall in the victory in January.
That loss was one of just four in Los Angeles' last 21 games against East opponents, and the Clippers are 20-7 in interconference play.
"(Cleveland is) tough. They're playing good basketball. They have so many players who can make players. That makes them so dangerous," coach Doc Rivers said. "It's going to be a tough matchup for us."
The Clippers topped New York 101-94 on Friday after blowing a 15-point lead, their third win in four home contests.
"I think I have said this for 10 years, but people do not respect how hard it is to win a game in this league," Rivers said. "Just because a team has a bad record - and you have everything to play for - they didn't just wake up this morning and say: 'Let's lose.'"
Chris Paul had 24 points and has 31 assists his last two games after dishing out 15 on Friday. J.J. Redick reached the 20-point mark in his third straight.
Paul, averaging 23.4 points on 51.7 percent shooting in his last seven games, had 30 points on 11-of-19 shooting in the loss in Cleveland.
Irving scored 37 in the Cavaliers' most recent road game against the Clippers, a 126-121 victory Jan. 16, 2015. LeBron James provided 32 points and has scored 30 or more in each of his last three visits.
Cleveland has won in six of its past eight road games against the Clippers.


text: Last flights were rough. A lot of rain and storms out there. Saw a beautiful sunset and a thunderstorm all in the same flight. When we landed back home it was a mess. Horrible storms which delayed us being able to get to our gate so we had to wait about 25 minutes on the tarmac. AND THEN, we got to the baggage claim and an alarm was going off. Emergency that ended up being nothing but lasted another 25 minutes. THEN, we waited another 20 minutes until our luggage came out on the carousel. Crazy ending but overall great trip. Did quite a bit and rested too 🙂


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Paul Sagan told CNET that he's resigning to spend more time with his family and to watch his children grow up.
Sagan, who joined Time Warner in 1991 to launch its cable news channel New York 1 News, later was named senior vice president of Time's new media division in 1995. In January, he was promoted to president and editor of New Media, which includes online, cable, and electronic publishing, with sites like Pathfinder and Netly News.
Sources familiar with Sagan's work questioned the reasons for his departure. "When Paul took the top slot, a lot of people were concerned he didn't have management ability," one source said. "He botched the Pathfinder redesign, and about 12 editors have left so far this year."
Another person familiar with Sagan's work said that only 50 percent of New Media's advertising projections are being met and that the gap between revenues and profits is widening.
Sources also said that Sagan was heard to say in various meetings that he had no interest or background in new media and didn't understand how to pull profits out of cyberspace. Sources speculated that Sagan had accepted the job as a stepping stone toward becoming president of CNN.
But Sagan contends that this was not the case. "I wouldn't have done this for the last several years if it wasn't the most exciting thing in media," he said. "I'll probably come back to something like this in the future."
He added he also had no interest in the top slot at CNN, and as far as the financial health of New Media was concerned, "we will meet all our revenue projections, including advertising." He noted that no revisions have been made to those estimates in the last few months.
Google Play: We've cracked down on bad apps: Google says it rejected at least 55 percent more app submissions in 2018.
The best meal kit delivery services: Are you an enthusiastic cook with not enough time? These services can help.


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Guidelines for Improving Visits to Your Website.
The internet has transformed the globe and generally the commercial business. Many businesses are now using the online channel to advertise in addition to sell their products. Businesses that were formed on the online platform do not face much invoices unlike the physical kind of company. But getting the attention of buyers in the internet isn't that simple and that is why you need to take into account some important elements which will assist you in attract prospective buyers and also drive traffic to your website.
The search engine optimization is one of the essential elements that you need to consider when creating your site. It's a way of amplifying your website in order to be noticed by the online users. There are two categories of this search engine optimization; the onsite SEO in addition to the offsite SEO. They perform the exact same task of optimizing but also the off-site comprises participating with prospective buyers through other platforms like the social websites. The SEO works efficiently by using the proper key words, name as well as a captivating content with relevant phrases that will drive users to your site seeking the goods or the services that you are providing. The ideal way is using key words which are trending and exceptionally typed by many consumers. Aside from that, the usage of backlinks is actually vital for your own offsite SEO, it may lead online users right to your article from the website they had been.
Well, the other very important tool is the Ad PPC, or the pay per click advertising strategy. It is not exactly the exact same manner as the SEO because you're required to cover the site visits unlike the prior. Nonetheless, it still helps in putting your site on the radar and capturing the interest of the internet users. All you need is the guidance from a PPC management expert who will guide you through this mode of campaign. You want to make sure that this form is effective by increasing visitors to your site and receiving an increase in earnings in the long run. Bear in mind that the best method to effectively gain in your internet company and being ahead of your opponents is by using all effective approaches.
In conclusion, you need to take into account that the planet is slowly changing and people are shifting from use of the conventional desktops or the notebooks for accessing the internet. Recently, the smartphones along with the tablets have come to be the typical gadgets that are used for internet services. Well, this may be attributed to their size and reliability as well as affordability to a lot of men and women. As an online entrepreneur, it's important to take note of these gadgets and make your website easily accessible through them. Remember that your audience influences the direction your company will take and therefore they come first.


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Customer Service Qualifications
Customer Service Apprenticeship Framework
Customer Service Apprenticeships are available at either Level 2 or Level 3. The customer service apprenticeships are designed to provide work-based training, development and new learning opportunities, to develop your knowledge and skills within the work place.
Customer Service Apprenticeships can be used in all sectors there are therefore many job roles that an Apprentice may be carrying out. Many industries and organisations are now recruiting bespoke 'customer service' staff and by achieving these apprenticeships, you will have a qualification that can be used across sector boundaries giving more opportunities for full employment in a dedicated customer service role. Apprenticeships are open to all age groups.
Who Should Attend?
The Level 2 and 3 Apprenticeships in Customer Service are designed for those who wish to pursue a career in customer service/care, as well as develop their skills and knowledge in this area. The aim of the qualification is to help individuals gain and develop the skills necessary to provide and deliver a high value of performance, which will ultimately aid career progression.
A level 2 apprenticeship is suitable for candidates who have a particular customer service/administrative job roles and are working in a customer service environment.
A level 3 advanced apprenticeship is aimed at candidates who are delivering and managing service and are accountable in the area of practice. Therefore they can influence what happens at work, use the organisation's rules and systems flexibly to deliver good service, question the way things are done and suggest improvements and are aware of the commercial pressures facing the organisation.
Course Content
Level 2 Customer Service Apprenticeship Content
The Level 2 Apprenticeship Pathway consists of the following key elements:
Level 3 Customer Service Apprenticeship Content
The Level 3 Apprenticeship Pathway consists of the following key elements:
Apprenticeships are nationally recognized as having many benefits to both the employer and the employe. For an employer they ensure that your workforce has the practical skills and qualifications your organisation needs now and in the future. The mixture of on the job and classroom based learning ensures they learn the skills that work best for your business, giving you increased productivity, improved competitiveness and a committed and competent workforce.
As an employee an apprenticeship programme provide a structured national training route within the workplace, which is supported with on-going professional development. You will have the opportunity to undertake a 'portfolio' of skills and qualifications that will allow you to progress within your work environment and or progress to both further and higher education.
£2,700 including all registration and certification, training delivery, course materials for all elements of the apprenticeship framework. You may be eligible for funding to support and cover the costs of your apprenticeship, please contact us for more information and we can discuss potential funding support with you.
Click here for an email enquiry about this course.


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Press Kit
Recognised As One Of The Best NGOs To Work For
Quest Alliance has been recognised as one of the best NGOs to work for in India, 2017 by the Great Place To Work Institute, in recognition of creating a positive experience for employees with great workplace culture.
Twenty six NGOs undertook the Great Place To Work survey this year and were evaluated on the organization's people management practice and a comprehensive employee survey. Quest Alliance has ranked amongst the top 10. A strong work culture, characterized by a collective atmosphere of learning and togetherness has enabled Quest Alliance to achieve this recognition. Quest Alliance HR policies are employee friendly, people are valued, performance is nurtured, creativity and innovation are encouraged, leadership and team work are rewarded.
Aakash SethiExecutive Director
"We are honoured to receive this recognition, we take great pride in fostering a work environment that encourages different backgrounds, talents and perspectives to thrive as we solve important problems in the education and skilling sector."


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LA Green Movers Palmdale, CA 93599.
Moing Company Palmdale, CA 93599.
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Take advantage of our moving and relocation guides. We have tons of moving tips on every type of relocation service you can imagine. Take a look at the information we've compiled anytime-either before or after you submit your information to get free quotes from moving companies in Palmdale. Fill out the form below and we'll supply you with a variety of moving quotes.
Let the experts search for the right Palmdale moving company for you. We'll work with your budget and timeframe as we match you with several Palmdale, 93599 movers. If you're making an apartment-size move for one person or have a large family to move in Palmdale, we can send you several moving quotes that will be right for you. Enjoy the power of choice as we lay all of your options out before you. Start today by filling out the form below and we'll send you an Palmdale moving estimate to help you on your way.
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The State of Things
Knitting has been a bit on the slow side here at Chez Ripalot. As I so briefly mentioned in my last post, I've been doing battle with some seed stitch. Lucky you, now you get to hear the Whole Gory Story.
burning the candle at four ends.
So. Little Green Sweater. About the time I get to the underarms, I decide that I want to make the sweater a bit larger. No problem, right? The neck is now too small for what I've got planned but I just have to rip back the inch of seed stitch that is the collar and a few of the raglan increases, and then reknit the collar back on. So I went on my merry way. I finished up a ball of yarn on the body and, thinking this was a good time to do that quick little ripping job, picked out the cast on row.
Now some of you probably already know this but I feel it is my duty as a (now older and wiser) knitter to tell you:
The only time you can pick out your cast on row and just rip away is when you're working in straight stockinette (maybe there are exceptions to this? Anybody know of any?). With seed stitch…well, it's a royal pain. Every little stitch loops around other stitches twice making it nearly impossible to rip out. It's like a bad dream.
To make things even more pain-in-the-toochus-y, I decided that I didn't want to just snip off the collar and call it good. I made the oh-so-brilliant decision that, to avoid the minor pain of weaving in a couple of ends, I would save the yarn as I ripped it out. And pull the whole length of saved yarn through every. little. stinking. stitch. as it was ripped out. Yes, I know that this is insane. I knew it was before and now that I'm typing this out I'm beginning to wonder if I'm certifiably loony. Because really people…it took me a few evenings to do this (not whole evenings, thank goodness, but probably a total of 4-5 hours spread out over a few nights). Do I really hate weaving in two extra ends that much? Seems so.
Ok. Change of subject!
I also knitted and ripped out the toe of a sock.
So there you have it. I have achieved negative knitting this week.


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SRINAGAR: For the first time, Lashkar-e-Toyiba (LeT) on Monday announced that it will come up with an online magazine 'Wyeth: The Resistance in Flow'.
Lashkar spokesperson Dr Abdullah Ghaznavi in a statement issued to a news agency GNS said the magazine will "put forth the truth and counter the propaganda of enemies".
"It will cover all the aspects of struggle, be it armed, ideological, political, psychological and technological," the statement said.
The outfit also remarked that the magazine will not give space to "Indian media falsehood to lure Kashmiris with their venomous agenda to pollute the minds of people already bearing the aggression and oppression by Indian occupational forces".
"In the present era, when warfare is reshaping itself, the legitimate struggle for the freedom of Kashmir is touching new heights," the spokesperson said.


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It's time to kick back and relax during an all-inclusive holiday to Cape Verde. Soak up the hot African sunshine by the pool or on the beach, or perhaps you'd prefer to head off for an afternoon excursion? One of the benefits of all-inclusive holidays is that you can be safe in the knowledge that the next cold drink at your hotel is already paid for.
Other, pre-bookable dining options are available too, offering you the flexibility to plan your perfect Cape Verde holiday...
Set along the sands of Praia de Chaves on Boa Vista island, you can indulge in both peace and quiet or plenty of activities at this popular and memorable resort.
We're delighted to welcome this resort back into our collection. Right on Santa Maria Beach on Sal island, you're just a short stroll from the main town.
Another resort boasting a superb, elevated position over Praia de Chaves on Boa Vista, this colourful, modern hotel has a fantastic variety of facilities for all the family.
Not only do all-inclusive holidays give you the chance to try something different; often without having to travel too far from your room or sunlounger, but they also mean that you don't have to spend every day in your resort - taking an afternoon out to explore Cape Verdean life is a rewarding experience, and when you get back, dinner is ready and waiting for you.
Perhaps you're looking for a little more flexibility? Explore our other dining options below...
For those keen to do more exploring, our full-board dining options may be more suited to you, but of course, there's nothing more relaxing than spending a day by the pool, enjoying the perks that come with all-inclusive Cape Verde holidays...
Check out our collection of hotels below, offering a variety of dining choices that you can book and pay for before you go. We've also listed some of our recommended properties at the bottom of the page.
Iberostar Club Boa Vista
Price from / Per Person
Oasis Salinas Sea
Hotel Morabeza
Royal Horizons Boa Vista
Foya Branca Hotel
Odjo d'Agua Hotel
Super holiday, great location, fabulous weather and a good choice of excursions to see and learn something of the culture of the island. Absolute bliss!
Mrs Roberts – Guest - Iberostar Club Boa Vista Hotel
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Someone light a match
Thursday April 27, 2006 | by Hugh Griffith | 0 comments
Jackson has recently earned the distinction of having expelled the worst gas I have ever smelled. (Previously, this record belonged to my best friend Marv for the coma inducing gas cloud he let go in Tower Records in Seattle in 1989.) What cracks me up about this is the kid only drinks formula! What do they put in this stuff that would result in such stank?
They tell me solid foods are even worse. I'm ordering the hazmat suits now.