theduran | In Part 2 we examine the geopolitical associations in Africa which
vary by nation, where major powers have a vested interest in a
particular resource causing that major power to assume an aggressive
posture to ‘protect’ its national interest by dominating or subverting
the African state, in possession of that resource.
Typically those resources include natural gas, oil, gold, diamonds,
silver, uranium, coal, rare earth elements and minerals, etc. Thus the
major powers have their ‘client states’ in pursuance of the extraction
of those resources, where that extraction may result in corruption,
confrontation, armed aggression, and even support for terrorist
organizations in those states.
In this post-Colonial era the extraction of resources by the major
powers in a region where the indigenous people are exhorted to have
their own right to self-determination is a significant challenge to
global corporations, and former colonial occupiers in Africa like
Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, etc.
When corporate interests either collide or collude with state
interests the local insurrection may be severe as mining giant Rio Tinto
discovered in Bougainville.
Other examples include coal and natural gas in Mozambique; uranium and
gold in Niger and Mali; oil in Sudan; diamonds in the Central African
Republic, and so on.
France in Africa
Perhaps the most notable component for NATO – specifically for France
– is the uranium needed to run its nuclear operations. Most of that
uranium originates in Africa even though France has reduced its capacity
for nuclear power. Even so, France still receives in excess of
two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear power via the former Areva Corporation, now called Framatome.
The uranium mined for Framatome’s nuclear reactors is commonly found in the Sahel region
of Africa where most of France’s uranium comes from, primarily northern
Niger and Mali. Chad** and Mauritania also possess enormous reserves of
the dangerous material. Mali is the fourth-largest supplier of gold
too, and with falling registered gold reserves
and the already accomplished confiscation of gold by the west from its
failed states Mali makes an especially attractive target… particularly
for the EU’s struggling banks.
After the indigenous people of the Sahel suffered serious illness
from the effect of uranium mining – where drinking water is frequently
contaminated – activist leader Almoustapha Alhacen and NGO Aghirin cooperated to oppose France’s corrupt mining giant Areva in Niger and Mali after 2001.
By 2006-2009 the protests and strikes in Agadez and Mali became
effective versus Areva. And by 2011 – surprisingly coincident with
Hillary Clinton’s “Arab Spring” – mysterious new terror cells appeared in the Sahel subsequent to the NATO destruction of Gaddafi’s government, including:
- Movement for Oneness Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) funded by France/Morocco Intel
- Ansar Dine funded by France/Morocco Intelligence Services
- Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) funded by the United States of America CIA
Prior to 2011, a Tuareg rebellion led by the Movement for the Liberation of Azawad
(MNLA) had some success versus the Malian government and versus Areva.
The MNLA is a legitimate secular rebel group and is not funded by any
western intelligence service. MNLA’s success eventually led to air and
ground assaults by France in Mali in Operation Serval (with bases in Bamako and N’Djamena) by 2014.
Under the guise of striking al Qaeda and ISIL in Africa – a continent
where those groups did not exist prior to 2010 – France invoked air
strikes and ground assaults versus the indigenous people who have been
most effective in their resistance to Areva.
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