The Coup in Cote d'Ivoire … As peace loving and progressive forces in the West and in the US in particular deliriously celebrated the awakening of pro-democratic movements in white dominated Islamic countries that routinely and officially kick blacks to the curb, growing evidence suggests the West, led by France, engineered a political and military coup in the Cote d'Ivoire, that some say is designed to re-colonize that country. Set beside widespread beliefs the West i.e., Europe and the US, is doing much the same in Libya, the Cote d'Ivoire situation needs to be looked at anew, especially in light of late reports indicate fighting has broken out among the very forces of Alissane Ouattara that overthrew and arrested the constitutionally certified president, Laurent Gbagbo. – Berkeley Daily Planet
Dominant Social Theme: Laurent Gbagbo, a strongman and a thug, deserved to be thrown out of office and Nicolas Sarkozy (left) deserves the credit for doing so.
Free-Market Analysis: We try to identify turning points in the effectiveness of power elite dominant social themes if we can. In the 20th century there were few of these because the Anglo-American control of the media was overwhelming. But in the 21st century, thanks to the Internet almost every major fear-based promotion of the elite has blow up, some of them repeatedly. Enter the Ivory Coast.
When we start coverage of an elite sub dominant social theme, we never know where it will take us. But the Ivory Coast promotion by the mainstream Western media – that justice and democracy has finally come to the King of Cocoa producers is increasingly risible. The foundering of this meme, which is part of a larger theme having to do with the soft power of modern neo-colonialism is also in our view a very big story. We've been on it and have penned several articles during the past month on this issue.
We keep coming back to this story because it has "legs." We are, in fact, starting to believe that the French coup in the Ivory Coast is backfiring so badly that it may finally generate an end to the genocidal contempt with which the Anglo-American elite has long viewed Africa. The fallout from the Ivory Coast coup – which is just beginning – may in fact spell the end of the Anglosphere elite's ability to maneuver at will in Africa. Recent news, carried in the article above, that new president and French lackey Alissane Ouattara actually SWORE HIMSELF IN, should put paid to the notion that what happened in the Ivory Coast as in any sense constitutional or even representative of civil society.
There have been other turning points we've identified in the fear-based memes that the elites promote to frighten the Western middle classes into turning over power and wealth to international institutions – to further facilitate the favorite theme of evermore centralized global government. The Internet leaking of emails that definitively showed that global warming was a deliberate hoax ended up collapsing the Chicago Climate Exchange and this fear-based promotion has never recovered. That was a turning point.
The war in Afghanistan – which is a war of pure conquest that has little or nothing to do, fundamentally with oil or resources – may end up being a turning point in the ability of the West to impose its will on the world regardless of military power. Just yesterday nine NATO soldiers were blown up at Kabul Airport and this follows on the heels of numerous other casualty reports in recent months. We very much regret the loss of life, as all should, but more force, more soldiers, more weaponry is surely not the answer after a decade of bloody, irresolute warfare.
The casualties in Afghanistan have gone way up in the past few months as NATO, ironically, proclaims increasing victory over the Pashtun-Taliban. Part of this victory (sarcasm alert!) has been to so alienate the people of Pakistan that even the supine military authorities and intelligence agencies of Pakistan have virtually announced that they will cease to cooperate with the US regarding drone attacks, etc.
Central banking itself – the cornerstone of elite dominant social themes – is in trouble all over the world and especially in America where Chairman Ben Bernanke has taken to holding press conferences in a desperate attempt to stave off a virtual implosion of Fed credibility in the face of public disdain and anger. It is not feasible to "fix" the price of money as the Fed does anymore than it is possible to fix the price of anything else. Price fixing never works and always results in disaster. Thanks to the Internet, people, especially in the West, increasingly understand this now.
The EU continues to teeter and again yesterday came word that the real financial losses in Greece – and its generally unstable situation – were yet again worse than had been revealed. Sooner or later in our view this news will apply to Spain as well which somehow has been able to "hide" the true extent of bank insolvency but which will not be able to do so forever. We think the Greek insolvency, which as the first of the PIGS insolvencies was an EU tipping point. This most evil and authoritarian of nascent empires may truly be in the throes of toppling.
And then there is the Ivory Coast. This was supposed to be a kind of "cakewalk" for the peripatetic, vertically-challenged President of France. Faced with plunging popularity numbers, he came up with several "big ideas." One was to start a war of regime change in Libya (how's that going for you, Mr. Sarkozy?) and the other was to overthrow the duly elected government of the Ivory Coast.
This article in the Berkeley Daily Planet carries some truly remarkable details. As we've reported previously, both Gambia and Ghana, two neighbors of the Ivory Coast, have already rejected Ouattara's presidency, claiming he came to power via fraud. South Africa is on the way to doing the same thing. Gambia's leadership released a scathing letter regarding the Gbagbo coup.
Its president Yahya Jammeh made public "a vigorous anti-colonial, anti-imperialist call in defense of the deposed Gbagbo." It's been getting more and more attention. The Berkeley article provides some text excerpts including the following:
The events in Ivory Coast have vindicated us on our earlier assertion that Western neo-colonialist sponsored agents in Africa that owe allegiance only to themselves and their Western masters are ready to walk on thousands of dead bodies to the Presidency. That is what is happening in Ivory Coast. Africans should not only wake up, but stand up to the new attempts to re-colonize Africa through so called elections that are organized just to fool the people, since the true verdict of the people would not be respected if it does not go in favor of the Western backed candidates, as has happened in Cote D'Ivoire and elsewhere in Africa…. "
Our position is very clear. The case of Laurent Gbagbo is a replica of the case of Patrice Lumumba who, as a freedom fighter for the dignity and independence of not only Congolese people but the entire black race, was overthrown by Western powers including the UN, and handed over to his enemies to be murdered. History is repeating itself as the same neocolonial forces that overthrew Patrice Lumumba, captured him and handed him over to his enemies almost fifty years ago, are the same forces involved in the Ivory Coast with the only difference being that it is now a different former colonial power.
There are so many aspects to the story. Perhaps the biggest one, though, is the theme we've been tracking for several weeks now that "President" Ouattara is on the verge of uniting all Ivorians under his leadership. In fact, Ouattara has a decade-plus history with the man he just violently threw out of office – Gbagbo. Ouattara, probably at the urging of his UN and French handlers recently announced a Truth and Reconciliation program designed to woo the millions of Gbagbo Christian supporters who feel, not surprisingly, disenfranchised by the Muslim Ouattara's ascendency.
Unfortunately the first two major announcements from the government have to do with purging 150 Gbagbo supporters from seats of power and opening a criminal investigation of Gbagbo himself – who is under arrest somewhere in the North of the Ivory Coast, though exactly where nobody seems to know. The UN apparently believes he is safe and unharmed.
The issue then is this: Does anybody really believe that Ouattara is going to be able to "pacify" the Ivory Coast when 50 percent of its population – Christians – increasingly believe that a coup has taken place. Neighbors Ghana and Gambia have leadership that has forcefully spoken out against what has occurred in the Ivory Coast. Does anybody really believe that armed young men have not already slipped across borders to seek shelter in these countries preparing to wage guerrilla warfare? Sarkozy bombed the presidential palace and forced Gbagbo out. Are the French now ready to resume colonial control of Ghana and Gambia as well (and it won't stop there) in order to quell a wider insurrection?
Here are the really telling paragraphs from the Berkeley article:
The current crisis in the Cote d'Ivoire (if it can still be defined a crisis) witnessed the takeover of the capital Abidjan by northern rebels led by Allasane Ouattara, the arrest of president Laurent Gbagbo and his family and finally Ouattara being sworn in as president. The crisis stems from Gbagbo's refusal to accept results from what he considered the highly fraudulent presidential elections of November 28, 2010.
Gbagbo and his supporters say that in the November elections, elections that compare to US primaries, Gbagbo received tens of thousands of votes in the 4 northern regions-but in the runoff election he was credited with not one single vote. "This is a statistical impossibility!" wailed US Senator James Inhofe (D-OK) to his senatorial colleagues. Inhofe, an evangelical Christian and key spokesman for the creationist movement in congress, went on to point out to his fellow senators that in one northern region,
"We have the precinct tallies of one region alone where Ouattara received 94,873 votes and Gbagbo received none…if you multiply that times four you have the margin that Gbagbo allegedly lost the election by." Despite Inhofe's shaky logic (you would need to examine all 4 regional vote totals to reach his conclusion) it doesn't seem possible that any responsible political body would certify an election in which one of just two candidates received no votes in 500 polling stations. But that's just what the Electoral Commission did, they certified the election claiming Ouattara received 54.1% of the vote while Gbagbo received just 45.9%.
In an anti-climax, however, Constitutional Council president Paul Yao N'dre appeared on state television and declared the election results "invalid." The Constitutional Council is the legal body charged with upholding the Cote d'Ivoire constitution. It is they who swear the president into office. "CEI (Independent Electoral Commission) was supposed to declare the results by latest on Wednesday (Dec. 1) midnight, but due to disagreements (among themselves ed.) over results from some regions (four northern regions controlled by Ouagttara where Gbagbo received no votes, ed.), it was not able to do so and therefore the Constitutional Council will take up the issue and make a ruling." Their ruling: Laurent Gbagbo was the winner.
In an interview CBN international affairs correspondent Gary Lane asked evangelical tycoon Pat Robertson an interesting question, "Who swore Ouattara in as president? The UN? France? I spoke to all seven members of the Constitutional Council and to a man they laid out all the evidence of why they declared Gbagbo the president and why they think the election was fraudulent. So who swore Ouattara in?" The answer: Ouattara swore himself in! He did it by sending an email to the Constitutional Council declaring himself president. He did this immediately after the Council had sworn in Gbagbo. Lane went on to say that he considered "a soft coup d'etat" had taken place in Cote d'Ivoire in an obvious attempt by France at re-colonization.
The mainstream media brought the Ivory Coast story to a successful finish after the "strong man" Gbagbo was "dragged" out of his "bunker" (basement) by French troops who handed him over to Ouattara 's forces and then pretended they had nothing to do with his capture. Indeed, Gbagbo, who is called "the baker" for his ability to roll his adversaries in flour and then pop them in the oven where the heat is gradually turned up, has left the scene but his influence lingers. The Ivory Coast mess has already turned into a regional one, and soon it will likely involve all Africa. That is what happens in the Age of the Internet. Drop a stone. Ripples spread.
