#french intervention

[lethe-the-shoggoth]

Charge of the Mexican Cavalry at the Battle of Puebla, Francisco P. Miranda

[mapsontheweb]

The War of the French Intervention 1862-1867.

[newsdock]

Masons in Timbuktu on Friday began rebuilding precious mausoleums that were destroyed by Islamist guerillas when they controlled the Malian city before a French intervention, the UN cultural body said. Al-Qaeda-linked militants destroyed 15 of the northern city's mausoleums, important buildings that date back to the golden age of Timbuktu as an economic, intellectual and spiritual centre in the 15th and 16th centuries, UNESCO reported in June last year. "The rehabilitation of the cultural heritage of Timbuktu is crucial for the people of Mali, for the city's residents and for the world," said UNESCO head Irina Bokova. Source: AFP

[newstfionline]

France tries to rewrite its role in Africa

By Elaine Ganley, AP, Dec 8, 2013

PARIS (AP)--France is coming to the rescue again, deploying soldiers in a former African colony to help stave off catastrophe--dirty work that Paris says it doesn’t really want. France has its eyes on a dynamic new Africa that is creating jobs, not conflicts.

But the image of France as the gendarme of Africa is hard to erase.

French troops deployed to deal with the deadly chaos in Central African Republic just as some 40 leaders from Africa, including the Central African Republic’s transitional prime minister, met in Paris on Friday and Saturday.

The summit made progress toward creating a French-trained African rapid reaction force to enable the continent to meet its own security needs--while allowing France to maintain ties to the region that may pay off economically in the longer term.

France’s idea of itself as a one-time colonial master cannot be easily shaken off, in Paris or among former colonies. The French empire unraveled in the 1960s, but a half-century later, African leaders routinely call for help, and the calls don’t often go ignored.

Since 2011, under two presidents from opposing political camps, France has intervened in four African countries: in Ivory Coast, on a joint mission in Libya, in Mali and now Central African Republic.

In January, France sent in 5,000 troops to Mali to quash al-Qaida and other radicals in the north seen as a terrorist threat to countries around the region. That dwarfs the mission in Central African Republic, where President Francois Hollande says 1,600 French troops will help some 6,000 African troops secure the nearly lawless country, where sectarian strife has grown after Muslim rebels ousted the president in March.

In both Mali and Central African Republic, Paris obtained African and international backing via the U.N. Security Council. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Saturday he’s “grateful to all the countries contributing with soldiers ... and in particular to France for boosting its military support.”

Yet Hollande doesn’t want France to be the first, and sometimes only, responder to emergencies in Africa. France tried over several months to not intervene in Central African Republic.

Hollande is not the first president to try to disassemble a heavy heritage, or profit from a continent whose image is changing from one of endless conflict to a burgeoning hub for investment.

Even the symbols of war are getting softer. The French move into Central African Republic is dubbed Operation Sangaris, after a local butterfly. The 1979 intervention to depose Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Central African Republic dictator and self-proclaimed emperor accused of cannibalism, was called Operation Barracuda.

Extricating France from its colonial past, without abandoning traditional partners in time of need, can be complex. The paternalistic partnerships Paris cultivated for decades with former colonies lined pockets of dictators and dealers, and encouraged dependency. Today, the unwritten policy known as Franceafrique is officially disdained.

But Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita says that both sides remain bound to each other.

“France, alas, has a historic duty” to its ex-colonies, Keita said in an interview with the daily Le Monde. “When you have traveled the road together, as painful as it sometimes may have been, something remains .... We are condemned to walk together.”

Aline Leboeuf, a security and development specialist at the French Institute for International Relations, said that a decade from now France won’t be able to intervene as it is today. For one thing, budget squeezes won’t allow it to replace aging equipment.

“France doesn’t own enough planes to transport its own people,” she said, noting that France had to rely on some transport aircraft furnished by partners to get in place in Mali.

“So there are many small gaps in terms of capacity,” she said. And, she added, “There’s a big gap between the vision France has of itself as a global power and as a power that can intervene.”

The real question, she said, is: “Can you intervene in the right way and when do you leave?”

[alxndrasplace]

(The Real News)  French Intervention in Mali Violates UN Resolution; Root of Crisis Marginalization of the North

Emira Woods (co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. Ms. Woods is chair of the Board of Africa Action and serves on the Board of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. She is also a member of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative Africa Council):  The French have violated the UN resolution as they defend their resource interests; Africans want a comprehensive aid and political package for Northern Mali.

[vaseljenska]

Hollande's Mali Campaign Seen as Pretext to Snatch Resources

New Post has been published on http://video.vaseljenska.com/hollandes-mali-campaign-seen-as-pretext-to-snatch-resources/

Hollande's Mali Campaign Seen as Pretext to Snatch Resources

The hostage crisis in Algeria has ended – with 23 captives and 32 militants confirmed dead following a four-day military operation. A total of 685 people, including 107 foreigners were freed from a gas plant in the Sahara desert.

The Libyan militant group behind the initial attack claimed they’re avenging French intervention in neighboring Mali. Many see Hollande’s military campaign in West Africa as a hunt for natural resources.

[pritheworld]

So, what exactly is going on in Mali?

  It's a confusing situation in landlocked Mali for anyone who doesn't know the West African country. It’s even confusing for those who do know Mali. That's because, despite some turbulence in Mali's post-colonial history, the country's multiple ethnicities have lived peacefully and with a proud sense of Malian identity since independence in 1960.

But for the past year, that unity has slowly evaporated. It started in 2011 with the revival of an ethnic Touareg rebellion for autonomy in Mali's north. Then, after the Arab Spring, extremists and lots of guns began flowing into northern Mali from Libya. To muddy things further now, some of those Islamists also happen to be Touareg. But their grievances are not the same as those of the Malian Touareg rebels.

In March 2012, soldiers in Mali's capital Bamako overthrew the elected president because they felt he wasn't doing enough to stem the Touareg rebellion. While the eyes of coup leaders were on the that rebellion, well-armed Islamist players easily conquered the northern cities of Timbuktu and Gao, imposing sharia law there and across the north. They destroyed a precious ancient library in Timbuktu and began chopping off the hands of criminals. And they continued their advance south of the Niger River.

On January 11, 2013, France intervened to stop the Islamists from advancing and to assist Malian troops in their ground offensive. The great fear in Mali is the fall of Bamako. It would be like a repeat of the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan in 1996; if the extremists take the capital, it's game over. The immediate goal of the intervention is to stop the Islamists from taking Bamako and ultimately to take away their safe haven in northern Mali. Algeria is also in the news today because they allowed France to use its airspace for the operation. The militants staged an assault on a BP-run natural gas plant in Algeria and took hostages. They say it's a reprisal for the French mission.

That's the background. We want to know your questions about this rapidly unfolding and complex drama. Tweet to us @pritheworld or reblog with your comments and questions.

-Marco Werman