Making matters worse — U.S. in Africa

U.S.-occupied
Africa - Asia 

“Occupy” not-quite- “comfort women” end thought

Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Uganda

From The Independent (Uganda) interview with Columbia (U.S.) and Makerere (Uganda) universities professor of anthropology and international affairs Mahmood Mamdani

Uganda

Uganda in situ

“Even when [Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph] Kony has no more than a few hundred fighters around him, the LRA has become a justification [pretext] for the entry of U.S. forces into the region, leading to its militarization.

Somalia

 Somalia

IN THE CROSSFIRE
Somalia's Displaced

“Everybody knows the solution in Somalia is political not military. Even if there is a military victory in Somalia, it will not be sustainable without a political solution. Every attempted military solution in Somalia has made the problem worse because it has ignored the centrality of the political dimension.

We all know that the Union of Islamic Courts was beginning to turn around the situation in Somalia. It was creating law and order yet it was branded some kind of al Qaeda and demonized by the U.S. The military intervention instead created the political space for al Qaeda to come in. It pushed those in the Union of Islamic Courts unwilling to capitulate into a corner. As they became desperate for allies, al Shabaab was born; which is still more an umbrella of various groups than a single solid organization.”

Somalia in situ

Bid for the region

“… There is a competitive element in this regional bid for Somalia. There is a competitive element to militarization. 

“South Sudan has shown that there is a peace dividend and [a] commercial one after war.

“Ugandan officials have been asking what’s going on since Uganda supported the war but the oil refinery is going to Kenya. We seem to be in place in times of war but clueless when guns go silent.”

South Korean discounted
women casualties of
WW II
900th vigil for redress

End thought on "Occupy"

Mahmood Mamdani said in The Indepedent interview

“The …West is learning from the rest.

“The Occupy Movement was an effect of the Arab Spring in Egypt. They were inspired by Tahrir Square.

“The history of protest in the West as elsewhere is very long; protests were an event. People would come to a particular place, make or listen to speeches, sing and march, and then go home.

What is new in the “‘Occupy Movement’ is [to] go to a place and stay there: the idea … for a small dedicated group to maintain a constant presence like a magnet that could attract others as supporters.”

Not quite

South Korean women's
900th vigil for redress

900th protest vigil

In January 2012 in a protest vigil that began in 1992 (every Wednesday), a group of South Korean former World War II sex slaves and their supporters gathered for the 900th time outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, to demand compensation and an official apology from Japan. Up to the 1945 surrender, Japan had run a system of military brothels using these women, so-called “comfort women.” 

Sources and notes

“Somalia, Museveni, and militarizing the region” (interview, Andrew Mwenda and Mubatsi A. Habati), April 29, 2012, http://www.independent.co.ug/column/interview/5677-somalia-museveni-and-militarising-the-region

“Armed struggle: Mamdani tells politicians to learn from Luwero,” (interview, Andrew Mwenda and Mubatsi A. Habati),  April 21, 2012,  http://www.independent.co.ug/column/interview/5639-armed-struggle-mamdani-tells-politicians-to-learn-from-luwero

Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, Dr. Mahmood Mamdani teaches courses on major debates in the study of Africa; the modern state and the colonial subject; the Cold War and the Third World; the theory, history, and practice of human rights; and civil wars and the state in Africa. His most recent publications are: Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (2009); Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (2004); When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda (2001), http://www.columbia.edu/cu/anthropology/fac-bios/mamdani/faculty.html

Mahmood Mamdani is an academic specializing in the study of African and international politics, colonialism and post‐colonialism, and the politics of knowledge production; an author and political commentator who was born (1946) in Bombay, Maharashtra, India, and grew up in Uganda. In addition to his work at Columbia, he is Professor and Director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmood_Mamdani

See also

SOMALIA, MUSEVENI AND MILITARISING THE REGION

Interview by Andrew Mwenda and Mubatsi A. Habati with Mahmood Mamdani

“‘Everybody knows the solution in Somalia is political not military. Even if there is a military victory in Somalia, it will not be sustainable without a political solution,’” http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81818

Map images from World Atlas

Former comfort women protesting in Seoul , South Korea, beryl-pieces-asia.blogspot.com

Korea's "Comfort Women" Rally at 900th Protest - OhmyNews ...
Korea's "Comfort Women" Rally at 900th Protest: Survivors of Japanese Military ... from Amnesty International, the Korean Women's ... Who stole a 15-year-old girl's chastity?" ...
english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?...
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2010/01/south-koreas-comfort-women-stage-900th-weekly-protest/

http://www.usaraf.army.mil/NEWS/NEWS_100110_FORWARD_AFRICA.html
Questions Surround Third U.S. War Theater: AFRICOM
salem-news.com

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