continuation training exercise called Revelation II, held at the Touws
River Training Area in February 2010.")
***
For the life of me, I never understood the rationale French so-called
"normal" President François Hollande had, in response to frantic calls
for help from beleaguered Central African Republic (CAR) President
François Bozizé, in blurting out to French journos on December 26,
2012:
"If we are present [in CAR], it's not for protecting a regime, it's
for protecting our citizens and our interests and under no
circumstances for intervening in the internal affairs of a country,
namely Central Africa."
"That time [of France meddling into African affairs]," insisted
Hollande, "has ended!"
Who the hell is this French fairy?
As well-armed, better clad, and mostly Muslim Sudan-backet rebels were
advancing on Bangui to the distress of hundreds of thousands of
civilians, the reckless statement by Hollande sounded like a clarion
call to all the murderous, pillaging, and raping bands in the region
to gang together and destroy lives and civil society in the region.
To be sure, the Lord's Resistance Army, already pushed to exhaustion
but still active in CAR, no doubt might have interpreted Hollande's
call as much needed breathing room.
The advancing hordes of rebels, potential brethren in arms of the LRA,
through the enduring chaos they'd have triggered in the CAR, would
have allowed Kony's mass murderers to once more loose themselves upon
northern DRC and beyond.
And a brutal regime change in the CAR would have justified outfits of
the likes of M23 to continue wreaking havoc upon the entire subregion.
Hollande's explanation for the presence of the 250-strong French force
(since reinforced) in Bangui smacked of paternalism and arbitrariness
of Empire whose perception the French president was attempting to
allay.
What are those "interests" that France is protecting, ex nihilo as it
were, on sovereign foreign land? Were those troops stationed there
without the express authority of the CAR government? Or is it simply
that Hollande, desperate for the bleak growth of France in the
foreseeable future, resents that Bozizé has given the Chinese free
rein on the prospection and future exploitation of CAR sizeable oil
potentials?
Yeah! There I said it! I think Hollande's undiplomatic outburst has
everything to do with the untapped oil reserves of CAR. And uranium.
And diamonds! For I don't see France deploying troops in any other
banana republic where 1,200 French citizens happen to be residing.
Hollande might therefore be arguably in cahoots with those armed bandits!...
But beyond the insult to Bozizé and the lack of concern for Central
African residents whose lives are disrupted by these armed plunderous
hordes, Hollande's callous statement evinced a total contempt for
Africa and Africans.
Fortunately for CAR citizens and Africans at large, enter South Africa
and Jacob Zuma, whose intervention will be hailed in the years to come
as the watershed in new African responsibility and leadership.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has entered the fray
in CAR and Zuma wants them to stay there till 2018!
France could still attempt to hang around, but the wrath expressed by
Central Africans these past weeks against it has clearly shown it that
it is no longer welcome in that neighborhood.
South Africa and Zuma are now leading the way and showing the world
that Africa could protect its own interests and its citizens without
begging the likes of France and Hollande!
***
PHOTO CREDITS: 25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_makwcxTCW91qdzr9to1_1280.jpg
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