France admits air raids on Darfur neighbours

[I think not]

France yesterday defended recent fighter jet raids on towns bordering Sudan's Darfur region by claiming the aggressive action was aimed at preventing regional chaos.

In the past two weeks, with minimal publicity, Mirage F1 jets have attacked and scattered a rebellion in north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR). But reports from the ground say the operation has had a devastating impact on civilians.

A French Defence Ministry spokesman said the action - which included regular Mirage sorties in neighbouring Chad where tens of thousands of refugees from Darfur are living - was in line with international calls to stabilise the region.

He claimed that without action there was a danger of a "Somalisation" of the region."We want to ensure that the Darfur crisis does not take on a further dimension. The region is crucial if we want to put a peace force in Darfur," he said.

After opposition from the Sudanese President Omar El Beshir, plans to send 20,000 United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur have been axed. Mr Beshir will only accept a beefed-up African Union force with UN logistical support.

The French operations in CAR have been centred on repelling rebels which the government claims are - like the Darfur militias - backed by the Sudanese regime. Others say the rebels of the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement (UFDR) are disgruntled allies of CAR President François Bozizé who helped him come to power in a 2003 coup and are dissatisfied with his ruling of the country along ethnic lines. Both the rebels and Sudan deny they have any links.


In early November, the UFDR took the north-eastern town of Birao, which has a population of 30,000 people, as well as Ouadda-Djalle and Sam Ouandja.

President Bozizé asked for French help and Paris added 100 troops to the 200 already stationed in the country. These, including paratroopers, are on the ground with the CAR army and with Fomuc - soldiers brought in from regional allies Chad and Gabon.

According to the UFDR, the raids over several days at the start of December included an attack on Birao with six Mirage F1 fighters and four helicopter gunships. It claims the attack forced thousands of civilians to flee towards Darfur and southern Chad.

A French armed forces spokesman yesterday refused to give details of whether bombs, missiles or machinegun-fire had been used by the jets.

Humanitarian groups have not yet succeeded in reaching Birao but in phone calls to residents they have heard reports of executions and rapes by the CAR army.

The rebellion, according to the CAR army, was finally crushed on Monday with the capture of Ouadda-Djalle. However, there are fears that the rebels, who have scattered, will relaunch their offensive.
Nganatouwa Goungaye Wanfiyo, president of the Central African Human Rights League, said France's intervention on the side of the CAR army had been out of all proportion and may have increased the risk of a Darfur-style ethnic conflict. "They have just delayed the problem and worsened it. The opposition wants dialogue with Bozizé, that's all."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2076138.ece

 

[Blackleaf]

France is still desperate to have its Empire in Africa. Unlike the British, they still haven't got over the loss of Empire.

 

[Sassylassie]

So what is France's angle? China is after oil, what are the French after, if the US went into a third world country and started bombing it the world would be screaming in outrage. So where's the outrage from the PC crowd, I can't hear you. The people of Darfur are being slaughtered by Arabs from the Sudan, they are being bombed by the French and the world remains silent. Shameful, shameful. Here's further info on the what is going on in Somalia.

By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Tue Dec 12, 4:00 AM ET


ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA - A new front in the global struggle for Islamist rule is emerging in Africa. And there are worrisome signs that battles between Somalia's rising Union of Islamic Courts (IUC) and the country's foundering Western-backed government might soon engulf the entire Horn of Africa in a regional war.
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Last week, the UN Security Council voted to send peacekeeping forces to Somalia, a move the Islamists say would be met with holy war. But neighboring Ethiopia isn't waiting for the UN. As the Islamists continue to take town after town away from Somalia's transitional government, and to march closer to its border, Ethiopia is gearing up for all-out war. Meanwhile, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan are eyeing the conflict and taking sides.
"The fact that the UN resolution was backed by the US suggests that it puts Somalia into the global war on terror, and that has the potential to mobilize a lot of countries and groups that have been divorced from Somalia thus far," says Matt Bryden a consultant with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
Ethiopia has been sending troops across the border for months and its parliament last week approved a resolution of self-defense against Somalia in the event of war.
"We have said, OK, the Islamic Courts are a fact in Somalia, so let's sit down and negotiate," says a senior Ethiopian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But the UIC is not interested in solving this matter peacefully. Whenever we negotiate with them, before the ink is dry, they are taking more territory."
"We are not in a hurry to engage in fighting in Somalia, but if we are forced, we will defend ourselves," he says.
This weekend, Somalia saw the fiercest fighting yet between forces of the UIC and the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government.
A senior military official of the transitional government confirmed the fighting, without giving numbers for casualties, but UIC vice chairman Sheikh Sharif immediately claimed that his nation was under attack by foreign forces, and reaffirmed the UIC's call for a jihad, or religious struggle, to remove them. "We have inflicted harm on Ethiopian troops. Let us fight against the Ethiopians."
proxy wars</B>
As a country with no central government for more than 15 years, Somalia has become a dangerous playground for other people's wars. Neighboring countries, such as Eritrea and Ethiopia, use Somalia as a proxy war to fight each other, placing their own troops in Somalia supporting opposing sides of the internal civil war. Ethiopian separatist groups such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front use Somalia as a base to fight for independence from Ethiopia. Most worrisome to the Western world, however, is that the lack of central control has allowed extremist groups to bring their pro-Al Qaeda agenda into Africa.
But the increasingly open movements of Ethiopian troops in Somalia are fast becoming an emotional unifying force for the Islamists, who are calling on Somalis to defend their national sovereignty.
Debate over sending peacekeepers
"I think in its present form, a foreign peacekeeping mission is more likely to exacerbate the problem," says Mr. Bryden. Small groups of foreign forces will have difficulty holding their own against Somali fighters, who specialize in hit-and-run attacks with their truck-mounted machine guns, he says.
But more troublesome is that foreign troops will play into the hands of the Islamists.
In any case, many Ethiopian officials and experts say that they have no choice but to fight. The looming war in Somalia is part of the unfinished business of Ethiopia's two-year border war with Eritrea, which ended in exhaustion rather than a negotiated peace treaty. Ethiopian officials allege that the rise of Somalia's Islamists was made possible by Eritrean logistical support, and a UN Monitoring Group report has charged that Eritrea, Egypt, Djibouti, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan have all contributed funds, arms, and technical support to help Somalia's Islamists take control.
Medhane Tadesse, an Ethiopian historian, says that Ethiopia has been forced into a corner by its neighbors, and will have to come out fighting.
"The idea of Eritrea is to get back at Ethiopia. The Arab bloc are doing this as part of a global Islamic issue," says Mr. Tadesse, director of the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue in Addis Ababa.
Tadesse says Ethiopia must fight, and the sooner the better. "The Islamists consider themselves revolutionaries, and somebody should stop them. Unless you do that, the Islamists may go short of targets before they go short of bullets," he says.
Abdikarim Farah, ambassador of the Somali transitional government, welcomed last week's UN resolution to arm his government and provide peacekeepers. "Whether this is a proxy war or not, it will happen, and if the Islamists succeed, it is going to be a regional conflict," he says.

But in a country that was once predominantly Christian, but is now 50 percent Muslim, all eyes are turning toward what Ethiopian Muslims would do if war was declared on another Muslim country.
Sheikh Sayeed Hassan, an ethnic Somali who runs a khat beit, where men come to chew khat, a leaf chewed for its stimulating effects, says that Ethiopia's Muslim community is hoping that war can be averted.
"People inside Somalia, they are saying that we have been fighting among ourselves for 60 years, but now, when the Islamic Courts are uniting the country, why do the foreign governments want to intervene?" says Sheikh Sayeed. "I think if foreign troops come, the Somali people will react." He sighs. "Every day we expect war, but so far, there is no serious fighting. So we hope the government [of Ethiopia] will change its mind."

 

[Logic 7]

France yesterday defended recent fighter jet raids on towns bordering Sudan's Darfur region by claiming the aggressive action was aimed at preventing regional chaos.

In the past two weeks, with minimal publicity, Mirage F1 jets have attacked and scattered a rebellion in north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR). But reports from the ground say the operation has had a devastating impact on civilians.

A French Defence Ministry spokesman said the action - which included regular Mirage sorties in neighbouring Chad where tens of thousands of refugees from Darfur are living - was in line with international calls to stabilise the region.

He claimed that without action there was a danger of a "Somalisation" of the region."We want to ensure that the Darfur crisis does not take on a further dimension. The region is crucial if we want to put a peace force in Darfur," he said.

After opposition from the Sudanese President Omar El Beshir, plans to send 20,000 United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur have been axed. Mr Beshir will only accept a beefed-up African Union force with UN logistical support.

The French operations in CAR have been centred on repelling rebels which the government claims are - like the Darfur militias - backed by the Sudanese regime. Others say the rebels of the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement (UFDR) are disgruntled allies of CAR President François Bozizé who helped him come to power in a 2003 coup and are dissatisfied with his ruling of the country along ethnic lines. Both the rebels and Sudan deny they have any links.


In early November, the UFDR took the north-eastern town of Birao, which has a population of 30,000 people, as well as Ouadda-Djalle and Sam Ouandja.

President Bozizé asked for French help and Paris added 100 troops to the 200 already stationed in the country. These, including paratroopers, are on the ground with the CAR army and with Fomuc - soldiers brought in from regional allies Chad and Gabon.

According to the UFDR, the raids over several days at the start of December included an attack on Birao with six Mirage F1 fighters and four helicopter gunships. It claims the attack forced thousands of civilians to flee towards Darfur and southern Chad.

A French armed forces spokesman yesterday refused to give details of whether bombs, missiles or machinegun-fire had been used by the jets.

Humanitarian groups have not yet succeeded in reaching Birao but in phone calls to residents they have heard reports of executions and rapes by the CAR army.

The rebellion, according to the CAR army, was finally crushed on Monday with the capture of Ouadda-Djalle. However, there are fears that the rebels, who have scattered, will relaunch their offensive.
Nganatouwa Goungaye Wanfiyo, president of the Central African Human Rights League, said France's intervention on the side of the CAR army had been out of all proportion and may have increased the risk of a Darfur-style ethnic conflict. "They have just delayed the problem and worsened it. The opposition wants dialogue with Bozizé, that's all."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2076138.ece

Shame on france!!, too bad you don't have the same objectivity on your own country foreign policy, it is bad when france do it, which i agree, it is another story when it is your own country, you are showing to every members in here, that you are pathetic at the highest leve.

 

[Logic 7]

France is still desperate to have its Empire in Africa. Unlike the British, they still haven't got over the loss of Empire.

You know france might have their guilts in most of what they did, still the brits, and whole "coalition of the coward" which you are proudly part of, are at lightning years away ahead of france, regarding stupidity they did to the world

 

[CDNBear]

You know france might have their guilts in most of what they did, still the brits, and whole "coalition of the coward" which you are proudly part of, are at lightning years away ahead of france, regarding stupidity they did to the world

Ya sure...

France accused on Rwanda killings

Some 800,000 people were killed in 100 days

A former senior Rwandan diplomat has told a tribunal that France played an active role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Former Rwandan ambassador to Paris Jacques Bihozagara said French involvement stemmed from concerns about its diminishing influence in Africa.
France has denied playing any role in the 100-day frenzy of killing in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.
After the hearings, the Rwandan panel will rule on whether to file a suit at the International Court of Justice.
The panel is headed by former Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo and its proceedings, which began in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Tuesday, are being broadcast live on local radio.
It is hearing from 25 survivors of the genocide, who claim to have witnessed French involvement.
"This is an important inquiry that should be witnessed by everyone interested in this important episode of our history," Mr Mucyo was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
'No regret'
"France has not expressed regret," AFP quotes Mr Bihozagara as saying during his three-hour testimony.
He added that even after the genocide the French government had not apprehended genocide suspects living in France.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says that it is also alleged that French soldiers provided escape routes to militia escaping to the Democratic Republic of Congo after the massacres.
French soldiers were deployed in parts of Rwanda in the final weeks of the genocide under a United Nations mandate known as Operation Turquoise to set up a protected zone.
But Rwanda says the soldiers allowed Hutu extremists to enter Tutsi camps.
"Operation Turquoise was aimed only at protecting genocide perpetrators, because the genocide continued even within the Turquoise zone," Mr Bihozagara said.
The panel's findings are expected within six months.
A French military court is conducting a separate investigation into claims that French soldiers played a part in the genocide. Separately, some of Rwanda's most high-profile genocide cases have already been tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. Twenty-five ringleaders have been convicted since 1997, but the Rwandan government has expressed frustration at the slow legal process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6079428.stm

 

[Zzarchov]

Genocides frances directly abetted and has show no remorse for:

Holocaust:

Rwanada:

Darfur:

Anyone name any others?

 

[Blackleaf]

are at lightning years away ahead of france

We sure are. The French haven't left the 20th Century yet.

 

[Blackleaf]

French foreign policy
The glory days are passing

Dec 13th 2006 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition
France debates the need to move beyond its traditional spheres of influence

France has been so preoccupied by a desire for glory and grandeur that it has failed to notice the huge gap between regions where its future interests will lie (Russia, China, India, Brazil and Mexico), and those where its diplomatic and military efforts are concentrated (Africa and the Arab world).

For once, it isn't a plain white flag.



BARELY two weeks after she was chosen as the Socialist candidate in France's 2007 presidential election, Ségolène Royal flew off on a four-day tour of the Middle East. Even as she shuttled from Lebanon to Israel, via Jordan and Gaza, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, was in Africa, taking in Chad and South Africa. In the past ten days President Jacques Chirac has entertained the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni; Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak; and Morocco's prime minister, Driss Jettou. Ms Livni also dropped in on Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and leading centre-right presidential hopeful.

In short, France's politicians are busy as usual toiling away in their country's traditional spheres of influence: Africa and the Middle East. Yet four months before the election, some hard questions are being asked about the nature and value of these old links, mainly to French-speaking ex-colonies, and in particular about the scale of France's military commitment there.

The chief preoccupation is the French contingent of 1,700 troops in Lebanon, part of a 10,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force that until February has a French commander, Alain Pellegrini. For reasons of international credibility, as well as history and friendship, France had little choice but to contribute to the UN force in a country that it once ran.

Yet the mission makes the French edgy. In 1983 suicide bombings in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, killed 58 French and 242 American soldiers. Given Lebanon's fragility and repeated interference by Iran and Syria, the French fear a repeat.

The Lebanon engagement has also led to strained exchanges with Israel, already wary after decades of French pro-Arabism. In late October French soldiers narrowly avoided what the defence minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, called a “catastrophe”: they almost shot at Israeli fighters that had flown into Lebanese airspace in an “attacking posture”, provoking outrage in Paris.

Lebanon may be France's most visible military commitment, but it is far from being its biggest. All told the country has about 18,000 soldiers abroad, some 13,000 of them involved in operations (the rest are stationed there). Decades after decolonisation, these troops are still heavily concentrated in Francophone Africa.

The biggest French contingent, of nearly 3,500 soldiers—more than twice the size of the Lebanon force—is stuck in Côte d'Ivoire, with which relations have been tense ever since nine French soldiers were killed in an attack on their base two years ago. Another 1,000 soldiers are part of the European Union peacekeeping force in Congo. A further 1,200 in Chad risk having to face down a rebel uprising there, as well as the prospect of hostilities from militias based in the Central African Republic and Sudan. Besides these, nearly 5,000 soldiers are spread between permanent bases in Djibouti, Senegal and Gabon.

France has not limited its troops to ex-colonies. It is the third-biggest financial contributor to NATO. It still has 1,800 troops in Kosovo, and another 1,100 in Afghanistan, where it commands the NATO operation in the central region and also contributes to a special-forces counter-terrorism venture. But French military engagements are still skewed towards battered bits of Africa. In the 21st century is this the most efficient way to deploy France's military might to project its voice and to defend its interests?

Where the Chinese unabashedly pursue commercial interests in Africa, and the Americans focus on business and counter-terrorism, France is often left to play the role of regional gendarme. At times its performance has been questioned. Rwanda last month broke off diplomatic relations with France, after a French judge issued arrest warrants for nine close associates of the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame. He responded by once again accusing the French of arming the regime that carried out the 1994 genocide.

Today, as belatedly in Rwanda, the proximity of French troops makes them easy candidates for any African peacekeeping emergency.

Business in Francophone Africa, meanwhile, is waning. Even Total, the French oil giant, now has most of its African production in non-French-speaking Nigeria and Angola. “The French posture in Africa is reaching breaking-point,” argues François Heisbourg, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research. “We're taking all the knocks, but none of the returns.”

Diplomatic traditionalists reply that France is bound by its history and moral responsibility to stick it out in Africa. And language is still a powerful bond: la Francophonie gives France much of its global standing. The launch last week of France 24, a non-stop television news channel designed to report the news “through French eyes”, was but the latest attempt to make France's voice heard.

Even this argument is being challenged. In a controversial article in October's French edition of Foreign Policy, François Roche, its editor, argues that France has been so preoccupied by a desire for glory and grandeur that it has failed to notice the huge gap between regions where its future interests will lie (Russia, China, India, Brazil and Mexico), and those where its diplomatic and military efforts are concentrated (Africa and the Arab world).

Could all this change under a new president? Whoever is elected may well order a full defence review, which would have to look long and hard at Africa. For his part, Mr Sarkozy, with his tough immigration policy, has a hard-nosed approach. In a bold speech in Benin earlier this year he declared that it was time to stop looking at the foreign presence in Africa as a zero-sum game of influence. France, he said, needed a more transparent, less paternalistic relationship with Africa. “Relations between modern states must not depend only on the quality of personal links between heads of state,” he added, in a thinly disguised jibe at Mr Chirac and the phenomenon known as Francafrique, “but on a frank and objective dialogue.”

As for the Middle East, both Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal want to warm up relations with Israel, suggesting that under either France may temper its Arabist instincts. Israel knows this. Two days before meeting Mr Sarkozy in Paris, Ms Livni dined with Ms Royal in Jerusalem. To Israel's delight, Ms Royal has stuck by her unorthodox line that Iran should be stopped from enriching uranium even for civilian use. France has usually argued that its influence in the region depends on its credibility with Arab friends. The next president may put that doctrine to the test.

economist.com

 

[Said1]

The civilians! What about the civilians! Do they want to be bombed and stuff and junk?

 

[Sassylassie]

No said1 the civilians are the innocents in the Horn of Africa, the Sudan wants to enslave the people of Somalia. It's military is killing all African Muslims males, raping and inpregnating the females even raping little girls when villages are raided the adult males and male children are the first to die.(over two hundred thousand women and children in Darfur's refugee camp and growing daily) The Arabs want to eradicate the Africans so that their version of Extreme Islam can take over, and the world sits and watches as genocide takes place. In France's case it's helping a propped up government that hasn't been in control since day one while the Militant Extremist cut a swarth of slaughter village to village. Somalians are a gentle moderate muslims a peaceful people, they are caught in the middle because they don't want the Arab Muslims controlling their country but they lack the power to stop the slaughter. Of course China is financing the Sudan Government, for OIL.

 

[Said1]

No said1 the civilians are the innocents in the Horn of Africa, the Sudan wants to enslave the people of Somalia. It's military is killing all African Muslims males, raping and inpregnating the females even raping little girls when villages are raided the adult males and male children are the first to die.(over two hundred thousand women and children in Darfur's refugee camp and growing daily) The Arabs want to eradicate the Africans so that their version of Extreme Islam can take over, and the world sits and watches as genocide takes place. In France's case it's helping a propped up government that hasn't been in control since day one while the Militant Extremist cut a swarth of slaughter village to village. Somalians are a gentle moderate muslims a peaceful people, they are caught in the middle because they don't want the Arab Muslims controlling their country but they lack the power to stop the slaughter. Of course China is financing the Sudan Government, for OIL.

I guess you missed the sarcasm.

 

[I think not]

Shame on france!!, too bad you don't have the same objectivity on your own country foreign policy, it is bad when france do it, which i agree, it is another story when it is your own country, you are showing to every members in here, that you are pathetic at the highest leve.

I'm pathetic by posting a news article?

 

[Toro]

I'm pathetic by posting a news article?

I'd take that as a compliment ITN!

 

[Curiosity]

Logic7

You aren't foolin us with that great name you've chosen......your messages give you away....

 

[Logic 7]

Ya sure...

France accused on Rwanda killings

Some 800,000 people were killed in 100 days

A former senior Rwandan diplomat has told a tribunal that France played an active role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Former Rwandan ambassador to Paris Jacques Bihozagara said French involvement stemmed from concerns about its diminishing influence in Africa.
France has denied playing any role in the 100-day frenzy of killing in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.
After the hearings, the Rwandan panel will rule on whether to file a suit at the International Court of Justice.
The panel is headed by former Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo and its proceedings, which began in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Tuesday, are being broadcast live on local radio.
It is hearing from 25 survivors of the genocide, who claim to have witnessed French involvement.
"This is an important inquiry that should be witnessed by everyone interested in this important episode of our history," Mr Mucyo was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
'No regret'
"France has not expressed regret," AFP quotes Mr Bihozagara as saying during his three-hour testimony.
He added that even after the genocide the French government had not apprehended genocide suspects living in France.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says that it is also alleged that French soldiers provided escape routes to militia escaping to the Democratic Republic of Congo after the massacres.
French soldiers were deployed in parts of Rwanda in the final weeks of the genocide under a United Nations mandate known as Operation Turquoise to set up a protected zone.
But Rwanda says the soldiers allowed Hutu extremists to enter Tutsi camps.
"Operation Turquoise was aimed only at protecting genocide perpetrators, because the genocide continued even within the Turquoise zone," Mr Bihozagara said.
The panel's findings are expected within six months.
A French military court is conducting a separate investigation into claims that French soldiers played a part in the genocide. Separately, some of Rwanda's most high-profile genocide cases have already been tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. Twenty-five ringleaders have been convicted since 1997, but the Rwandan government has expressed frustration at the slow legal process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6079428.stm

Well if it turned out to be true, and since france recognize the international court of justice then it is up to them to decide if france is guilty. and is this surprising?? Not at all, france is a country of white human rights, the rights of others, is just a suggestion.

 

[Logic 7]

I'm pathetic by posting a news article?

No, but by being critically objective with the rest of the world, and especially france, but not towards your own nation, this is what i meant by pathetic.

 

[Sassylassie]

Logic wrote (or someone on his team of you know what wrote)No, but by being critically objective with the rest of the world, and especially france, but not towards your own nation, this is what i meant by pathetic.Today 08:24 PM

Do not speak Sassy, stay mute Sassy. Deep breathe Sassy.