How the Berlin Conference Clung on Africa: What Africa Must Do
Saturday 30 June 2018
Hujafa hujaumbika-Asante rais Magufuli
Kwa wanaojua tapeli James Rugemalira alivyojilisha pepo chini ya tawala fisadi za Benjamin Mkapa na Jakaya Kikwete, hakuna aliyedhani angelipia hadi kuonyesha kuishia pakanga. Ukiangalia picha zake zama za enzi zake na wateule waovu, huwezi kuamini kuwa unamuangalia kiumbe yule yule kwenye picha zake baada ya utawala wa awamu ya tano kumtolea uvivu. Ama kweli, hujafa hujaumbika. Je akina Chenge, Kisena, Lugumi na Rostam watafuata lini? Kazi kwa rais Magufuli.
Kukosekana makala za the Guardian, Nipashe na Tanzania Daima tokana na dhuluma ya Mbowe na Mengi
Kama ambayo mmeona siku za karibuni, makala zilizokuwa zikitoka kila wiki kwenye Gazeti la Tanzania Daima na kijliwe na nyingine kwenye magazeti ya Nipashe na the Guardian hazionekani kwenye uga huu kwa muda sasa. Hit ni kutokana na kuacha kuandikia magazeti husika baada ya wenye magazeti haya kunidhulumu pesa nyingi ambazo ni malimbikizo ya kazi za takriban miaka mitatu. Hivyo, utawala wa blog hii unajisikia vibaya kufikia hatua hii ambayo, hata hivyo, haiepukiki. Kila nilipokuwa nikidai pesa zangu, wahariri wa magazeti husika walizoea kuniambia kuwa rais John Magufuli amehujumu biashara zao jambo ambalo naona ni dhuluma longolongo na ubabaishaji hasa nikaingalia haddi za wahusika.
Badala ya kuongelea namna ya kunilipa, ulijengeka uadui wa ajabu. Mfano, wahariri wa Gazeti la Nipashe Gaudencia Mngumi na Edmund Msangi waliongoza katika uhasama huu usiokuwa na sababu yoyote bali dhuluma na kujikomba kwa mabwana zao. Sikutegemea watu ambao wamekuwa wakijionyesha kama matajiri na watetezi wa haki za watanzania kama Freeman Mbowe na Reginald Mengi wangekuwa dhulumati wa kawaida wanaojionyesha kama watu wema wakati si chochote si lolote.
Wednesday 27 June 2018
Handshakes, trash-talking, sexual scandals and ‘denuclearisation’
It started in Kenya with the two nemeses, Raila Odinga’s and Uhuru Kenyatta’s handshake. Thereafter, there followed the same between Kim Jong Un, DPRK president and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in that led to Kim’s and his American counterpart, Donald Trump’s meeting and handshake.
Currently, the world is abuzz with the breakthrough as far as peace in the Korea Peninsula is concerned. However, there are those who doubt the so-called deal making between the US and the DPRK. What the world must expect is the matter of time to tell.
Before this steppingstone, or rather a milestone, there were backstabbing, grandstanding, horse-trading revolving around trade tiff not to forget trash-talking between Trump, on the one hand, and Canada and the G 7 that recently congregated in the city of Quebec Canada, on the other hand. Before the last handshake, it started with the big guys and ladies if not plaster saints during the Quebec summit. It was during this very summit that ended becoming G 6+1 namely the rest of the industrialised countries against the US. The driving force was the reciprocal tariffs imposition on each other. The rain started to beat the G-7 when Trump–under his ‘America First’ mantra–decided to impose 25% of tariffs on aluminum and steel which would badly affect Canada and the EU. Such a move tingled Canada so as to openly engage in trading barbs with its southern neighbour and biggest trade partner. Things went out of control after Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said that Canada backstabbed Trump and the Canadian premier Justin Trudeau has a special place in hell (Daily Post, June 10, 2018).
So, when the richest leaders of the world congregated in Canada, many thought they would iron out their differences in order to avoid setting a bad precedent of how disorganised and selfish they might be. Instead avoiding to put their dirty linens on the agora, the biggies of the world exacerbated the problem so as to evidence a cutthroat competition of the titans. Due to their failure to iron out their difference, Trump went ahead by even recanting to be part of the communique the Quebec summit issued. So, too, Trump left his colleagues and world baffled. For, he was the last to arrive and the first to depart heading for Singapore where he met with Kim at the island resort Capella promising the world to make a deal that ended up becoming vague and more of a Photoshop.
Along with the Quebec summit, there was an antithetical summit in Qingdao, China under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that brought together ten mainly Asian countries plus Russia. In attendance were the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan, the members and the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan that attended as observers.
Apart from summits and handshakes, there was another ugly face of the high and the mighty mainly the sacred cows who faced a shame of it all. This is after the South Carolina-based members of a Baptist church in Red Bank in Lexington decided to move the statue of Jesus simply because it was too catholic (Christian Post, May 30, 2018). Good for the statue, it later got accommodation at one church just 32 kilometres west of Columbia. In the same breath, the Catholic Church had to bite the bullet by coming clean about sexual scandals it has recently faced globally. It came to light that some Catholic clergy violated their flocks for many years in different parts of the world; and their bosses turned a blind eye or participated in the commission of the crime. For example, in Chile, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, all bishops offered to resign after they were water-tightly implicated in the cover-up of sexual scandals that, for many years, dogged their parishes. In a collective admission, they said “we want to ask forgiveness for the pain we caused victims, the Pope, the people of God and our country for the grave errors and omissions that we committed” (CBC, May 18, 2018). How many are still out there globally? Time will tell.
To mollify the situation, the Pope had to ask for forgiveness on their behalf and the church. The Washington Post (January 16, 2018) quoted the holy father as saying “here I feel bound to express my pain and shame at the irreparable damage caused to children by some ministers of the church.”
Now that the dust has settled, what should the world expect from the above happenings? Will Trump give in and remove the tariffs he imposed on others or stay put? Will the SCO dethrone the shambolic G-7? Will the implicated bishops get their comeuppance or get away with murder? Will Korea peninsula be denuclearised? What does Africa learn from all the above world episodes? Indeed, time will time.
Source: Citizen, June 27, 2018.
Friday 22 June 2018
Picha ya wiki
Za zile wakiwa huru, watuhumiwa hawa wa ufisadi wa IPTL, Habinder Singh na James Rugemalira walikuwa watu wa kutisha na kuogopewa ukiacha mbali kupendwa kwa mishiko yao ya wiz. Walinawiri kweli kweli wakivaa mavazi nadhifu na kuficha uzee wao. Tangu utawala wa awamu ya tano uwatolee uvivu, unaweza ukaona kuwa mshahara wa ufisadi ni nini. Waliokuwa wakionekana kama miamba isiyoguswa na tawala zote zilizopita ukiondoa ule wa mwalimu Nyerere sasa ni mbendembende. Ama kweli duniani hujafa hujaumbika!
Wednesday 20 June 2018
Is Mengi Truly whom He Wants Tanzania to Know or his antithesis?
Reginald Mengi will soon launch his biography. I congratulate him on this. However, I must admit. I have not read the said biography. I therefore don't know if Mengi authored it or somebody did it on his behalf. Interestingly, looking at the title of the biography, it is encouraging. However, considering Mengi's businesses and the way some of us were conned by this man either directly or vicariously, one doesn't get it. I have decided to agitate for my money that Mengi's IPP swindled me after contributing to Mengi's two Newspapers namely Nipashe Jumamosi and the Guardian. For, three years, Mengi didn't pay me sighting that Dr. John Magufuli has negatively impacted his businesses.
His editors Edmund Msangi and Gaudencia Mngumi spearheaded the campaigns of swindling my money. I communicated with the department of accounts but it didn't reply. This told me that the scheme was bigger than I thought.
To cut a long story short, I pose a simple question. Is truly Mengi what and whom he wants Tanzanians to know as he presents himself or an antithetical ogre behind this smiling face?
Cameroon and self-inflicted wounds of colonial dregs
Cameroon used to be one of the most peaceful countries in Africa. Apart from being one of economic powerhouses in Africa thanks to its oil, fertile soil and peaceability, Cameroon seemed to, externally, be an idyllic example of the reunification of Africa. This is because of the union of francophone Cameroon and Anglophone South Western and North Western Provinces that formed the Republic of Cameroon, Shrimp Republic or Republique des Crevettes or Camarões as Portuguese referred it; thus the name. Apart from Cameroon, it is only Tanzania whose union, despite, sometimes, facing some brouhahas and bugaboos, has been going from strength to strength after many failed drastically. Nonetheless, this accolade is long gone thanks to the melting point the country is in after starting a self-destructive war. The country is currently bleeding to death as it faces very divisive and violent politics revolving around colonial dregs that, too, revolves around linguistic, regional and toxic nationalism as they were chaperoned by former colonial monsters, the British and French. According to the crisis.org, on 1 October 2017, tens of thousands of people began a peaceful march (holding a plant symbolising peace and chanting “no violence”) to proclaim the independence of Ambazonia (the name given by secessionists to their hypothetical state). Since then, the peaceful Cameroon the world knew cascaded to brutality and violence from both sides.
Ontologically, since gaining its independence, the Francophone, the majority, has treated Anglophones as second-class citizens in their country through imposing French on them while stifling English. The Deutche Welle (March 22, 2017) quotes Ben Shepherd of the London-based think-tank Chatham House, who has been to the region as saying that Anglophone Cameroonians have been marginalised so as to lack development aid and support to the degree that they feel they should have. Shepherd says that he knows a lot of English-speaking Cameroonian civil society and political organizations that have been systematically bilked out and marginalised from the business of running the state affairs for a long time.
Since this conflict started, hundreds of people have been killed while thousands displaced. Up until now, Nigeria hosts over 20,000 refugees from Cameroon (USNEWS, June 1, 2018) that used to be a refuge for refugees from neighbouring countries and others such as Chad, the DRC, the CAR, Sudan and Nigeria itself.
Thanks to the systemic gullibility, naivety, uppity and failure to underscore the importance and meaning of their independence and national building, Cameroonians are now at the Carrefour butchering each other pointlessly. The Anglophone and the francophone are at war threatening the unity of the country after the latter subjected the former to what I can call dialectal apartheid as weaponised by the sick and tired regime that’s ruled Cameroon since independence. One would wrongly think that Cameroonians would get it. They still expect the West to help them after the AU has terribly failed. Again, the same plaster saints they go to seeking them to reconcile them are the same that enacted the linguistic acrimony and dichotomy they are in. It is sad. Cameroonians know when they became Anglophone and francophone but not when they became Cameroonians. That is to say, Cameroonians themselves are doing dirty laundry for their former colonial monsters that, in one way or the other, cannot help them in anything but selling them weapons so that they can finish each other.
Thanks to colonial toxicity, Anglophone and francophone Cameroonians see each other as enemies while the actual enemy is a corrupt and recycled regime that ruled this country since independence; which is the enemy Cameroonians they need to fight. Since Cameroon acquired its independence over five decades ago, has been ruled by two presidents among who is the ailing incumbent, Paul Biya, who, like any dictator, has turned Cameroon into his private estate; he can misuse and squander as he deems fit. His regime is made of bankrupt, old and recycled person who has nothing to offer to the country except to milk it. What can an 85-year-old hetman do to the country after being power for over three decades and a half? For such an old guard, whatever undesirable happens to the country is okay given that he’s nothing to lose at this eleventh hour.
In sum, colonial acrimony-cum-division does not only exist in Cameroon but also in the African Union (AU) that is supposed to intervene. The AU, since its inception, has been embroiled in linguistic division, especially when it comes to voting. This is may speak to why since this mise-en-scene unfolded, the AU seems to, still, be in a slumber if behaving like a sitting duck. Nobody expects the AU to do a lot about this conflict given that itself has maintained and perpetrated the division of Africa that is adversative to its name. Like any divided entity, Cameroon faces linguistic division spiraling along the Anglophone and francophone axis. I think this is why the AU has failed to quickly and chip in to intercede and see to it that the two warring parties are reconciled.
Source: Citizen, June 20, 2018.
Saturday 16 June 2018
Kukosekana makala za the Guardian, Nipashe na Tanzania Daima tokana na dhuluma ya Mbowe na Mengi
Kama ambayo mmeona siku za karibuni, makala zilizokuwa zikitoka kila wiki kwenye Gazeti la Tanzania Daima na kijliwe na nyingine kwenye magazeti ya Nipashe na the Guardian hazionekani kwenye uga huu kwa muda sasa. Hit ni kutokana na kuacha kuandikia magazeti husika baada ya wenye magazeti haya kunidhulumu pesa nyingi ambazo ni malimbikizo ya kazi za takriban miaka mitatu. Hivyo, utawala wa blog hii unajisikia vibaya kufikia hatua hii ambayo, hata hivyo, haiepukiki. Kila nilipokuwa nikidai pesa zangu, wahariri wa magazeti husika walizoea kuniambia kuwa rais John Magufuli amehujumu biashara zao jambo ambalo naona ni dhuluma longolongo na ubabaishaji hasa nikaingalia haddi za wahusika.
Badala ya kuongelea namna ya kunilipa, ulijengeka uadui wa ajabu. Mfano, wahariri wa Gazeti la Nipashe Gaudencia Mngumi na Edmund Msangi waliongoza katika uhasama huu usiokuwa na sababu yoyote bali dhuluma na kujikomba kwa mabwana zao. Sikutegemea watu ambao wamekuwa wakijionyesha kama matajiri na watetezi wa haki za watanzania kama Freeman Mbowe na Reginald Mengi wangekuwa dhulumati wa kawaida wanaojionyesha kama watu wema wakati si chochote si lolote.
Wednesday 13 June 2018
Tampering with constitutions: how African countries became cesspools
When US President Donald John Trump referred to African countries as cesspools, many attacked him and accused him of racism and superiority complex which is true. Ironically, when some African rulers turn their countries into cesspools by tampering with the constitutions of their countries to overstay in power, nobody takes on them. What do you call the act of tampering with and trampling on the constitution with the aim of cling to power? When it comes to tampering with the constitutions, the East African Community (EAC) scores high. Recently, constitutions in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda were tampered with to allow the incumbents rulers to cling to power undemocratically.
Ironically, when a constitution is defecated on, those supposed to condemn such an act are nowhere to be heard. For example, when Trump referred to African countries as cesspits, the African Union heavily weighed in. The Washington Post (January 12, 2018) then quoted Ebba Kolondo, African Union’s spokesperson, as saying that the African Union Commission was frankly alarmed at statements by the president of the United States when referring to migrants of African countries and others in such contemptuous term. The counterattacks did not end up with the AU. The United Nations Human Rights spokesperson, Rupert Colville, bluntly termed Trump’s utterance as racist.
Although Trump opened Pandora’s Box, we need to ask ourselves; why he did that. What are lessons we got from Trump’s bigotry; if we take them as an opportunity to show how things are not as calm as we might wrongly think? To hit right on the money, I must confess: Trump must not only condemned but also praised for exposing the hypocrisy the international community has always applied in dealing with Africa. Arguably, what Trump said is exactly the same with what Israel is now doing vis-Ã -vis black immigrants. Think about this statement. The Minister of Culture and Sports, Miri Regev, said in 2012 that “Sudanese are a cancer in our body” (East African, Dec., 10, 2017) which also quoted former interior minister Eli Yishai, who vowed to make African migrants’ lives “miserable until they leave.” Essentially, this is purely racism. Even what is currently going on in the EU where African immigrants are rounded up in Libya and sent home is just the same. As if this wasn’t enough, Egyptian official called fellow African delegates at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi “dogs and slaves” (WashingtonPost, May 31, 2016).
Despite being abhorrent and ridiculously offensive, Trump’s assertion has some kernels of truth. Why did he refer to African countries and Haiti as cesspit countries in the first place? Apart from racism, Trump has the point that Africa needs to reinvent itself so that its image can improve. Again, why has Africa been treated with contempt since its creation? Apart from western colonialism, the internal colonisation carried out by black colonisers has a lot to do with it. Refer to how African countries inherited colonial institutions and systems that enabled black colonisers to keep on lording it over their citizens. Don’t we have African rulers who treat their citizens like cesspools? Is there any difference from those who rig elections and illegally get to power from Trump as far as cesspools are concerned?
Aren’t those tinkering with constitutions to cling to power treating their citizens and countries not to mention their constitutions as cesspools? Is there any dross like trampling on the sacred document of the country? Let’s face it. Aren’t corrupt African rulers treating their citizens and countries like cesspools? Aren’t begging rulers making their countries be regarded as cesspools, especially if we consider the fact that such beggars are ruling countries endowed with immense source of precious resources? Aren’t all countries that depend on handouts from the west cesspits?
To avert being referred to as gutters, stop begging and start planning for your development; stop selling each other to your former colonial powers; and stop internal colonisation. Invest in your people instead of depending on begging and borrowing. Start working on the growth of your economies by adding value to primary goods Africa has been exported since the first contact; you will turn tables against those abusing and insulting you. It is so simple and clear. Take, for example, currently, it is easy to crisscross Europe but impossible for an African to do so in Africa. Whom are you punishing? It is easier for an African country to do business with China, Europe and India than doing the same with its neighbouring country. Whom are you punishing if not shooting yourselves in the foot? Aren’t countries doing so cesspits?
To avert being referred to as gutters, stop begging and start planning for your development; stop selling each other to your former colonial powers; and stop internal colonisation. Invest in your people instead of depending on begging and borrowing. Start working on the growth of your economies by adding value to primary goods Africa has been exported since the first contact; you will turn tables against those abusing and insulting you. It is so simple and clear. Take, for example, currently, it is easy to crisscross Europe but impossible for an African to do so in Africa. Whom are you punishing? It is easier for an African country to do business with China, Europe and India than doing the same with its neighbouring country. Whom are you punishing if not shooting yourselves in the foot? Aren’t countries doing so cesspits?
In sum, though, I don’t endorse Trump sentiments, there are some nuggets for Africa to change and do things rightly. If African rulers stop vending themselves and their people to the so-called donors, nobody will disparage them as Trump did. Former Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara once stopped begging and borrowing. For, four years he was in power, he led his country without necessarily self-dressing down begging. If African rulers decided to be accountable, reasonable and responsible, nobody will call the African countries cesspools.
Source: Citizen, June 13, 2018.
Tuesday 12 June 2018
Tangazo kwa wasomaji wangu kuhusu makala na kijiwe
Kama ambayo mmeona siku za karibuni, makala zilizokuwa zikitoka kila wiki kwenye Gazeti la Tanzania Daima na kijliwe na nyingine kwenye magazeti ya Nipashe na the Guardian hazionekani kwenye uga huu kwa muda sasa. Hit ni kutokana na kuacha kuandikia magazeti husika baada ya wenye magazeti haya kunidhulumu pesa nyingi ambazo ni malimbikizo ya kazi za takriban miaka mitatu. Hivyo, utawala wa blog hii unajisikia vibaya kufikia hatua hii ambayo, hata hivyo, haiepukiki. Kila nilipokuwa nikidai pesa zangu, wahariri wa magazeti husika walizoea kuniambia kuwa rais John Magufuli amehujumu biashara zao jambo ambalo naona ni dhuluma longolongo na ubabaishaji hasa nikaingalia haddi za wahusika. Badala ya kuongelea namna ya kunilipa, ulijengeka uadui wa ajabu. Mfano, wahariri wa Gazeti la Nipashe Gaudencia Mngumi na Edmund Msangi waliongoza katika uhasama huu usiokuwa na sababu yoyote bali dhuluma na kujikomba kwa mabwana zao. Sikutegemea watu ambao wamekuwa wakijionyesha kama matajiri na watetezi wa haki za watanzania kama Freeman Mbowe na Reginald Mengi wangekuwa dhulumati wa kawaida wanaojionyesha kama watu wema wakati si chochote si lolote.
Monday 11 June 2018
Mengi tajiri kweli au mbangaizaji wa kwaida?
Reginald Abraham Mengi, wa mizania ya kitanzania na kiafrika, ni tajiri. Hata hivyo, utajiri wake unaweza kutia shaka. Je inakuwaje tajiri kama Mengi anayeonekana akisaidia wengine kuruhusu dhuluma iendelee kwenye makampuni yake? Hii inajenga hisia kama kweli utajiri wa Mengi siyo kama ule wa tapeli Abbas Gulamali aliyesifika kwa kutoa misaada na kudhamini vilabu vya mpira wakati wafanyakazi wake walikuwa wakifanya kazi bila kulipwa kwa muda mrefu.
Baada ya kujaribu kuwasiliana na Mengi bila mafanikio, nimeamua kuwa naweka madai yangu dhidi ya magazeti ya Nipashe na the Guardian ambayo yamenidhulumu zaidi ya shilingi 8,000,000 bila kuhusisha interests kama nitaamua kushitaki. Bado sijaamini kama kweli Mengi, kama kweli ni tajiri, kama anavyojionyesha, anaweza kushindwa kulipa fedha kidogo kama hiyo. Dhuluma yangu imewezeshwa na wahariri wangu Edmund Msangi na Gaudensia Mngumi ambao wameamua kujenga chuki ili kupata namna ya kunidhulumu. Naamini kupitia wavuti huu ipo siku Mengi atapata taarifa za dhuluma hii ambayo si ya kwanza wala ya mwisho tokana na kupata taarifa toka kwa wahanga wengine ambao hawana namna ya kukabiliana nayo. Mie nitatumia wavuti wangu kupambana na dhuluma na ufisadi huu tena vinavyofanywa na watu wanaojidai ni matajiri.
Thursday 7 June 2018
New book is in the shelves
ISBN | 9789956550364 |
Pages | 232 |
Dimensions | 229 x 152mm |
Published | 2018 |
Publisher | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon |
Format | Paperback |
JOKEY HORSE-JOCKEY NORTH-SOUTH RAPPORT
Diagnostic-cum-Prognostic-Academic Perspectives on Who Truly Depends on Whom
by Nkwazi Nkuzi Mhango
No doubt. North-South relationship involving poor and rich countries is very convoluted; based and built on exploitative, unequal and unfair equilibria. It is purely jockey-horse-like connubium that serves one party as it disserves the other. This is why deconstructing and detoxifying this relationship is sine qua non. The author argues that the parties in this relationship must revisit it to make sure it equally benefits both for the benefit of the whole world. Importantly, the major question posed is: Why did the two global halves maintain and tolerate such toxic rapport while knowingly it is but colonial and unjust? The question is answered in this academic treatise which asks the parties to hark back; and thereby do justice to each other by viewing themselves as humans with shared needs and future whose lesson from the past may buttress them to be major thespians in realising world peace. This is because their parasitic relationship has fueled many conflicts revolving around the struggle for controlling resources in the South in order to sell to the North.
BOOK PREVIEW
Mwenzio anapata ajali wewe unajiselfie kana kwamba huwezi kufa!
Nchini Italia mama mmoja aligongwa na treni. Mtu mmoja anayeonekana kwenye picha, badala ya kuhangaika na uokozi, alihangaika na kujiselfie. Inasikitisha. Sijui hapa mjanja kati ya simu na huyu mtu ni nani. Our phones and other gadgets have become smarter than we are. Instead of using them, they are now using us. Instead of making us safe, we are vulnerable. Instead of making us happy, they have made us sad and sadists who are looking for cheap fame by all means. Too bad. So sad.
Wednesday 6 June 2018
Korea’s solution lies in its reunification
The Korean peninsula has been in the news recently after North Korea or the Democratic Republic of People of Korea decided to embark on peacebuilding and peacemaking efforts. To show the world how it means serious business, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), it decided to dismantle its nuclear programs. However, despite so doing, the US betrayed the DPRK after its unpredictable president Donald Trump initially promised to meet with his DPRK counterpart, Kim Jong-Un to end up pulling out of the dialogue.
This forced the South Korea to go solo to see to it that the two Korea are going on with the efforts to actualise and realise peace in their peninsula. Again, is the Korean Peninsula solution the dismantling of nuclear program or reunification? Why DPRK’s nuclear programs are a big deal; but not other unstable countries with nuclear such as Israel or Pakistan?
Those in the know knew what would happen after Trump appointing warmongers such as John Bolton to be his security advisor who recently let the cat out of the bag by proposing that Libya model in which Libyan former strongman Muamar Gadaffi whom the West coxed to dismantle his nuclear programs to end up being toppled and summarily killed. Apart from portraying the US as an unscrupulous peace broker, the betrayal of Gadaffi and now Iran alarmed the DPRK and acted as a wakeup call. This is why the CNN (May 26, 2018) quoted South Korean President Jae in as saying, “Our journey to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a permanent peace agreement cannot be stopped, and we have decided to cooperate closely.” They know how unstable and unreliable Trump is. He can just pull a trigger anytime shall the DPRK let him get away with murder.
Is it reasonable to trust an oddball such as Trump who has no inkling in international affairs not to mentiongeopolitik? Refer to how Trump promised to meet with Kim out of bigheadedness but not seriousness and understanding of the policy of his country. Go figure! When Trump offered to meet with Kim, even his advisors and ministers were shocked because such a move didn’t result from informed decision. By proposing to meet with Kim, Trump was trying a hand on something he didn’t know well apart from being against US policy. Thanks to his ignorance in international affairs and his vengeance against whatever his predecessor Barack Obama built, Trump has proved to be the president who does things to suit his political agenda but not US policy.
Although the two Koreas still pin their hope on the US, they seem to have suspected US’s double standard and failure. For, according to the Wall Street Journal (May 26, 2018), the presidents of the DPRK and South Korea, Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-In respectively, met out of the blue in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) to push for the peace talks in the Korean Peninsula.
The two Koreas must take a leaf from Germany, the biggest economy of Europe now that once suffered from division. After finding that division weakened the two Germanies, they decided to reunite in order to regain their clout regionally and internationally. This is because the reunification of Germany helped the two Germanies to stop wasting a lot of money and resources to military wanton expenditures due to the fake acrimony and fear emanating from their division. Maybe, they two Germanies learned from Africa Germany participated in dividing and partitioning so as to become a weak continent despite sitting on immense resources of value. This is now clear under what the two leaders of the two Koreas called “new era of reconciliation and unity.” Shall they unite; the united Korea will use its existing economic unevenness the same way Germany did to become Europe’s powerhouse. So, too, the reunification of Korea will avert the DPRK with what happened to Gadaffi.
Another example can be drawn from Spain where Catalonia wants to secede and the EU doesn’t support its move. This shows West’s double standard. Had Catalonia been a non-European country, the EU would not see any danger of seceding.
In sum, does the US really want an everlasting solution in the Korean Peninsula or just to get away with the murder and enshrine its leverage regionally and globally? Will the US entertain the ideas of the reunification that will deny it the right of keeping its military bases in South Korea even Japan? Will the two Koreas keep on feeding a monster after making them look like bugaboos to each other? Are the two Koreas ready to decolonise themselves by doing things by themselves without necessarily depending on the imperial US? Does Trump know that the two Korean leaders have come to the realisation that the US is trying to use them, not for their interests, but for its interests? Is it feasible and logical to try the US that’s become a total failure in the Middle East where it openly shows its bias not to mention the betrayal of Iran? Will Trump lick his vomitus; and go to meet Kim or recoil and allow the two Koreas to sort out their colonially superimposed differences? Will the two Koreans betray each other for their peril or stand together and emancipate themselves? It is not easy to tell right now. However, under Trump, many countries the US used to hoodwink can use him to liberate themselves even if he calls them shitholes or any sort of names of which he is proud.
Source: Citizen, June 6, 2018.
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