September 15, 2005 -- The Constant Gardener: A movie gets it right about Africa and international conspiracies to hurt and kill the innocent. The screen adaptation of John Le Carre's thriller, The Constant Gardener, gets two thumbs up from this veteran of covering Africa's victimization by multinational corporations, weapons smugglers, and the "misery industry." The movie's main plot is a scheme by a consortium of international pharmaceutical companies to use AIDS and tuberculosis-infected Africans as human guinea pigs: plying them with untested drugs with fatal side effects. The conspiracy is sanctioned by the highest levels of the British government, professional "do-gooder" aid organizations, and corrupt African government officials in Kenya and Zimbabwe. There is even a reference to a Mossad agent who is apparently involved in the conspiracy with a Kenyan government minister. The Constant Gardener finally tells the true story of what is happening in Africa.
As Americans continue to bury their dead from what has been a series of government sanctioned errors of commission and omission with the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it cannot be overstated that similar wanton indifference to and involvement in Africa's suffering has been the unofficial policy of the United States and Britain for decades. Africa's Holocaust has propelled the names Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Niger, Somalia, Zaire/Congo, and Angola to front pages around the world. The Constant Gardener reminds us that these actual human catastrophes were not born in Africa but crafted and engineered from corporate board rooms, private millionaire clubs, and government executive offices from Washington, DC and New York to London and Houston. John LeCarre's writings are not mere speculation, they are based on years of dealing with the significant movers and shakers in the world's official and unofficial intelligence networks. In other words, he knows what he's writing about.
For the neo-cons, Republican and Democrat, and their exploitative business friends, the victims, whether in Africa or Louisiana, are always the same
The incessant role of some international aid agencies and religious organizations in Africa's woes is The Constant Gardener's greatest exposé. It is something this editor personally witnessed in Rwanda after that nation's U.S. and British-triggered presidential assassinations in 1994 by the U.S.-Anglo client, the Rwandan Patriotic Army, and the resulting (and expected) genocide. The Constant Gardener reminded me of what I saw in Rwanda and on which I reflected upon in my book, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999:
"Driving through downtown Kigali one is struck by the numerous aid agencies, all having their own compounds, local and expatriate staffs, and vehicle fleets."
"The 'assistance industry' is lucrative for some people. One expert, R. M. Connaughton, described the situation when new aid organizations arrived on the scene following the tragedy of 1994: 'To those agencies and NGOs that had been in Rwanda from the beginning of the troubles, the new Klondikers in the newly-arrived NGOs were true participants in the gold rush.' Connaughton quotes Geoff Loane, the deputy head of the Red Cross in Nairobi: 'It was convenient and rewarding for some people to be there . . . and they did not necessarily bring the best resources.' According to Connaughton, one Christian organization from Virginia sought to eradicate cholera through the laying on of hands. He also claimed the number of NGOs in Goma as numbering around one hundred. Connaughton adds: 'Significantly, the newly-arrived NGOs brought with them attitudes of the military . . . in the heat of the crisis.'"
"Rwanda is almost totally subservient to the indefinite provision of aid from the rest of the world as well as dictates from the Pentagon and Uganda's [President] Museveni. In the history of American assistance to developing nations, Rwanda is far from a success story. The U.S. military forces in Rwanda seem far more interested in providing training for the blood-stained RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] than in helping the unfortunate people of that nation." [Source: Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999, Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, Wales: Mellen Press, 1999].
Which brings me to the subject of the neo-cons who have also nested in the Democratic Party. Rwanda and the Washington- and London-supported covert operations that resulted in the deaths of perhaps as many as 5 million people in that country and neighboring Congo and Burundi occurred during Bill Clinton's presidency, although the initial plans began as early as 1989 under George H. W. Bush and his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. At the time of the Rwandan genocide, U.S. inaction was primarily due to then US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright and her assistant Jamie Rubin (married to CNN's Christiane Amanpour). The Albrights and Rubins of the Clinton administration would have everyone believe that the claptrap propaganda in Hotel Rwanda (the same hotel, Hotel des Mille Collines, where I stayed in Rwanda) is what actually happened in 1994 . . . that the genocide was merely triggered by the "crash" of a presidential aircraft carrying two African presidents and their staffs and not by a multiple SAM-16 missile attack on the plane by U.S.-trained Rwandan guerrillas using missiles supplied by the United States from captured weapons caches from Iraq following Desert Storm.
It is interesting to note that Jamie Rubin, who was a foreign policy adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign, has recently signed a deal with neo-con Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television to host an hour-long nightly show called "World News Tonight." Shortly after Peter Jennings' death, the neo-cons have expropriated his ABC News program's name to spew forth more propaganda aimed at confusing the masses. Jennings had it right about many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Africa. Rubin has it wrong, very wrong.
However, the motion picture industry, as we have seen with Fahrenheit 911 and other movies, continues to provide us with facts through cinematic presentations, bypassing the international news network barons who continue to shovel propaganda masquerading as news down our collective throats.
As Americans continue to bury their dead from what has been a series of government sanctioned errors of commission and omission with the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it cannot be overstated that similar wanton indifference to and involvement in Africa's suffering has been the unofficial policy of the United States and Britain for decades. Africa's Holocaust has propelled the names Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Niger, Somalia, Zaire/Congo, and Angola to front pages around the world. The Constant Gardener reminds us that these actual human catastrophes were not born in Africa but crafted and engineered from corporate board rooms, private millionaire clubs, and government executive offices from Washington, DC and New York to London and Houston. John LeCarre's writings are not mere speculation, they are based on years of dealing with the significant movers and shakers in the world's official and unofficial intelligence networks. In other words, he knows what he's writing about.
For the neo-cons, Republican and Democrat, and their exploitative business friends, the victims, whether in Africa or Louisiana, are always the same
The incessant role of some international aid agencies and religious organizations in Africa's woes is The Constant Gardener's greatest exposé. It is something this editor personally witnessed in Rwanda after that nation's U.S. and British-triggered presidential assassinations in 1994 by the U.S.-Anglo client, the Rwandan Patriotic Army, and the resulting (and expected) genocide. The Constant Gardener reminded me of what I saw in Rwanda and on which I reflected upon in my book, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999:
"Driving through downtown Kigali one is struck by the numerous aid agencies, all having their own compounds, local and expatriate staffs, and vehicle fleets."
"The 'assistance industry' is lucrative for some people. One expert, R. M. Connaughton, described the situation when new aid organizations arrived on the scene following the tragedy of 1994: 'To those agencies and NGOs that had been in Rwanda from the beginning of the troubles, the new Klondikers in the newly-arrived NGOs were true participants in the gold rush.' Connaughton quotes Geoff Loane, the deputy head of the Red Cross in Nairobi: 'It was convenient and rewarding for some people to be there . . . and they did not necessarily bring the best resources.' According to Connaughton, one Christian organization from Virginia sought to eradicate cholera through the laying on of hands. He also claimed the number of NGOs in Goma as numbering around one hundred. Connaughton adds: 'Significantly, the newly-arrived NGOs brought with them attitudes of the military . . . in the heat of the crisis.'"
"Rwanda is almost totally subservient to the indefinite provision of aid from the rest of the world as well as dictates from the Pentagon and Uganda's [President] Museveni. In the history of American assistance to developing nations, Rwanda is far from a success story. The U.S. military forces in Rwanda seem far more interested in providing training for the blood-stained RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] than in helping the unfortunate people of that nation." [Source: Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999, Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, Wales: Mellen Press, 1999].
Which brings me to the subject of the neo-cons who have also nested in the Democratic Party. Rwanda and the Washington- and London-supported covert operations that resulted in the deaths of perhaps as many as 5 million people in that country and neighboring Congo and Burundi occurred during Bill Clinton's presidency, although the initial plans began as early as 1989 under George H. W. Bush and his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. At the time of the Rwandan genocide, U.S. inaction was primarily due to then US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright and her assistant Jamie Rubin (married to CNN's Christiane Amanpour). The Albrights and Rubins of the Clinton administration would have everyone believe that the claptrap propaganda in Hotel Rwanda (the same hotel, Hotel des Mille Collines, where I stayed in Rwanda) is what actually happened in 1994 . . . that the genocide was merely triggered by the "crash" of a presidential aircraft carrying two African presidents and their staffs and not by a multiple SAM-16 missile attack on the plane by U.S.-trained Rwandan guerrillas using missiles supplied by the United States from captured weapons caches from Iraq following Desert Storm.
It is interesting to note that Jamie Rubin, who was a foreign policy adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign, has recently signed a deal with neo-con Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television to host an hour-long nightly show called "World News Tonight." Shortly after Peter Jennings' death, the neo-cons have expropriated his ABC News program's name to spew forth more propaganda aimed at confusing the masses. Jennings had it right about many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Africa. Rubin has it wrong, very wrong.
However, the motion picture industry, as we have seen with Fahrenheit 911 and other movies, continues to provide us with facts through cinematic presentations, bypassing the international news network barons who continue to shovel propaganda masquerading as news down our collective throats.