Revealed by Authoritative British Newspaper
By Franklin Sone Bayen
Now it's not the trouble-making son of international nuissance, Muamar Kaddaffi who's bad-mouthing the UK for hypocritically releasing a convicted bomber purportedly on "compassionate grounds" because he is "terminal ill with prostate cancer". An authoritative British newspaper has found that the "Lockerbie Bomber's" release was nothing but a deal to secure lucrative UK oil and gas exploitation interests with Lybia. Jack Straw, the man who OKed the deal has been explaining, not refuting the deal took place, the Sunday Times (London) has reported.
The paper quoted leaked letters by UK Justice Secretary (senior minister) Jack Straw to the Scottish Justice minister, revealing that Straw consented to the release of the "Lockerbie Bomber", Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for reasons contained in this extensive quote from The Sunday Times website (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6814939.ece):
"Two letters dated five months apart show that Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country.
In a letter dated July 26, 2007, Straw said he favoured an option to leave out Megrahi by stipulating that any prisoners convicted before a specified date would not be considered for transfer.
Downing Street had also said Megrahi would not be included under the agreement.
Straw then switched his position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included.
The exploration deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, was announced in May 2007. Six months later the agreement was still waiting to be ratified.
On December 19, 2007, Straw wrote to [Kenny] MacAskill [Justice Minister of Scotland] announcing that the UK government was abandoning its attempt to exclude Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement, citing the national interest.
In a letter leaked by a Whitehall [UK government] source, [Straw] wrote: “I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement. I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.
“The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”
Within six weeks of the government climbdown, Libya had ratified the BP deal. The prisoner transfer agreement was finalised in May this year, leading to Libya formally applying for Megrahi to be transferred to its custody."
Under the United Kingdom governing system, Scotland, which is part of the UK, enjoys autonomy over most aspects of justice, yet the release of such a high profile prisoner, involving UK sovereignty and security interests, required London's okay, which Straw tactfully granted.
Jack Straw, previously UK Foreign Secretary, was pivotal in making a case for war against Iraq in 2003. Like Colllin Powell, then US Secretary of State, Straw held brief for the UK in making outrageous claims before the UN Security Council to convince the world that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Powell has since expressed remorse for the shameful deed.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Obama’s Kennedy Passes On
(Or Edward Kennedy's Nunc Dimittis)
By Franklin Sone Bayen
Edward Kennedy passed on today. For many, his eulogies would be well-rehearsed sing-songs: “the last surviving brother of the late President John Kennedy”, “the last survivor of the Kennedy political dynasty”, “the only Kennedy of his generation to pass on without tragedy”, etc. But for us Africans, Edward Kennedy will remain long in our hearts for giving his all, even defying his failing health to hand to Africa, America’s stool of power and honor.
Don’t get me wrong. It took Obama’s political savvy, a highly motivated and focused team and several other factors, but chief among those other factors was Kennedy’s endorsement and open campaigning for Obama at a critical time in the Democratic Party primaries in 2008. An American political prince and a high profile, mainstream politician who to his death had served 47 years in America’s legislative upper house, this brother of a beloved and martyred former president threw his weight behind Obama in a way that shocked Hillary Clinton. The bitter reaction of the Clinton’s after the Kennedy move spoke of its significance. It opened the way for - first cautious, later a floodgate of - endorsements by the high and mighty of the American political class.
In American politics, being likened to John Kennedy is a big blanket endorsement. Bill Clinton enjoyed that in his 1992 run for “looking like the Kennedys” and for appearing in a picture as a schoolboy putting a question to the late president. Likewise another Democrat, John Kerry, from Massachusetts like the Kennedys, for having same initials (JFK – John Forbes Kerry, like John Fitzgerald Kennedy) and even for having dated the sister of the late president's wife.
Edward Kennedy gave a bit (perhaps a lot) of that to Obama when he likened that son of a Kenyan to his beloved brother, the late president. Many recalled that another Kennedy, Robert, had predicted or prophesied in 1968 (when he ran for president but fell to an assassin's bullet), that within 40 years, it would be possible for an African American to be president of the United States, far-fetched in the 1960s because of still lingering racial segregation. 2008 marked 40 years on the calendar and Edward Kennedy (the surviving Kennedy prophet) saw that coming to pass before his own eyes. He grabbed the moment and went campaigning vigorously for Obama though ailing with a diagnosed malignant brain cancer. He managed to appear at the Democratic Party Convention to finish the fight for Obama.
Like the biblical Prophet Simeon, Edward Kennedy attended Obama’s inaugural, though it took “crawling all the way” on a wheelchair, to see with his own eyes. When Kennedy was rushed away that day, in crisis, from the inaugural venue, I said to myself that history (legend, rather) was going to repeat itself. I thought the old man (aged 77) would pass on that day, satisfied that he had seen it. I felt he had said his Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine, like Simeon in Luke chapter 2:
“Now thou dost dismiss thy servant in peace,
O Lord, according to thy word.
Because mine eyes have seen my salvation,
Which thou hast prepared in the face of all peoples,
A Light to the revelation of the
Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel."
Kennedy held on seven good months after, perhaps waiting to help Obama push through one of his loudest campaign promises – healthcare reform, also Kennedy's pet subject. Now in a cross-party deadlock, every Senate vote would count. Knowing that, but apparently sensing his time to go was nigh, Kennedy wrote to his Massachusetts State authorities, proposing changes to the Senate succession procedure that would enable immediate succession for him once he was unavailable, so that Obama’s reform is not blocked for lack of even one vote (his, Massachusetts’). He might have run out of patience, waiting too long since his Nunc Dimittis to see the health reform. Dying less than a week after that move shows even more that Kennedy gave all for Obama, even his life. He was Obama’s man. He was Africa’s man, our own Prophet Simeon in a foreign land.
In a tribute, Obama describes Kennedy as his mentor. A statement from Nelson Mandela's office salutes Kennedy for his involvement in the struggle against Apartheid "at a time when the freedom struggle was not widely supported in the West." Kennedy was also key in negotiating with Republicans in 2006 to champion the cause for comprehensive immigration reform that would in the long-run grant US citizenship to illegal immigrants including Africans, although, for same reason, Latinos (the biggest immigrant population) would also claim Kennedy as theirs.
And so do the curtains drop over the long and beautiful, though tragic, political story of the Kennedys who gave so much to the Black race, including President Kennedy’s Peace Corps initiative and his initiation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed segregation against Blacks. An act finally signed only by Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
So, yet another title for this write up could have been "Africa Loses It's Last Kennedy".
By Franklin Sone Bayen
Edward Kennedy passed on today. For many, his eulogies would be well-rehearsed sing-songs: “the last surviving brother of the late President John Kennedy”, “the last survivor of the Kennedy political dynasty”, “the only Kennedy of his generation to pass on without tragedy”, etc. But for us Africans, Edward Kennedy will remain long in our hearts for giving his all, even defying his failing health to hand to Africa, America’s stool of power and honor.
Don’t get me wrong. It took Obama’s political savvy, a highly motivated and focused team and several other factors, but chief among those other factors was Kennedy’s endorsement and open campaigning for Obama at a critical time in the Democratic Party primaries in 2008. An American political prince and a high profile, mainstream politician who to his death had served 47 years in America’s legislative upper house, this brother of a beloved and martyred former president threw his weight behind Obama in a way that shocked Hillary Clinton. The bitter reaction of the Clinton’s after the Kennedy move spoke of its significance. It opened the way for - first cautious, later a floodgate of - endorsements by the high and mighty of the American political class.
In American politics, being likened to John Kennedy is a big blanket endorsement. Bill Clinton enjoyed that in his 1992 run for “looking like the Kennedys” and for appearing in a picture as a schoolboy putting a question to the late president. Likewise another Democrat, John Kerry, from Massachusetts like the Kennedys, for having same initials (JFK – John Forbes Kerry, like John Fitzgerald Kennedy) and even for having dated the sister of the late president's wife.
Edward Kennedy gave a bit (perhaps a lot) of that to Obama when he likened that son of a Kenyan to his beloved brother, the late president. Many recalled that another Kennedy, Robert, had predicted or prophesied in 1968 (when he ran for president but fell to an assassin's bullet), that within 40 years, it would be possible for an African American to be president of the United States, far-fetched in the 1960s because of still lingering racial segregation. 2008 marked 40 years on the calendar and Edward Kennedy (the surviving Kennedy prophet) saw that coming to pass before his own eyes. He grabbed the moment and went campaigning vigorously for Obama though ailing with a diagnosed malignant brain cancer. He managed to appear at the Democratic Party Convention to finish the fight for Obama.
Like the biblical Prophet Simeon, Edward Kennedy attended Obama’s inaugural, though it took “crawling all the way” on a wheelchair, to see with his own eyes. When Kennedy was rushed away that day, in crisis, from the inaugural venue, I said to myself that history (legend, rather) was going to repeat itself. I thought the old man (aged 77) would pass on that day, satisfied that he had seen it. I felt he had said his Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine, like Simeon in Luke chapter 2:
“Now thou dost dismiss thy servant in peace,
O Lord, according to thy word.
Because mine eyes have seen my salvation,
Which thou hast prepared in the face of all peoples,
A Light to the revelation of the
Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel."
Kennedy held on seven good months after, perhaps waiting to help Obama push through one of his loudest campaign promises – healthcare reform, also Kennedy's pet subject. Now in a cross-party deadlock, every Senate vote would count. Knowing that, but apparently sensing his time to go was nigh, Kennedy wrote to his Massachusetts State authorities, proposing changes to the Senate succession procedure that would enable immediate succession for him once he was unavailable, so that Obama’s reform is not blocked for lack of even one vote (his, Massachusetts’). He might have run out of patience, waiting too long since his Nunc Dimittis to see the health reform. Dying less than a week after that move shows even more that Kennedy gave all for Obama, even his life. He was Obama’s man. He was Africa’s man, our own Prophet Simeon in a foreign land.
In a tribute, Obama describes Kennedy as his mentor. A statement from Nelson Mandela's office salutes Kennedy for his involvement in the struggle against Apartheid "at a time when the freedom struggle was not widely supported in the West." Kennedy was also key in negotiating with Republicans in 2006 to champion the cause for comprehensive immigration reform that would in the long-run grant US citizenship to illegal immigrants including Africans, although, for same reason, Latinos (the biggest immigrant population) would also claim Kennedy as theirs.
And so do the curtains drop over the long and beautiful, though tragic, political story of the Kennedys who gave so much to the Black race, including President Kennedy’s Peace Corps initiative and his initiation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed segregation against Blacks. An act finally signed only by Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
So, yet another title for this write up could have been "Africa Loses It's Last Kennedy".
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Tripoli, Jo’burg : Tale of two home-comings
By Franklin Sone Bayen
This past week, two outcasts (well, an “outlaw” and an “outcast”) in the eyes of the dominant West and a world organization, were given vexing heroic home-coming receptions. As news reports carried the anger of the US and the UK over the popular reception given the “Lockerbie Bomber” Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in his home country, another African, Caster Semenya of South Africa was receiving the trauma of her life prior to and after she had a clean win of the female 800m race in the World Athletics Championship in Berlin. She has today been given a heroine’s welcome (mind the precision – a heroine’s welcome, not a hero’s welcome – she’s a woman) in Johanesburg, South Africa. Like the “bomber”, the runner was also received by the head of state.
What they fail to remember is that a people's revival may begin somewhere, just somewhere, yet is it the revival of a people and who knows how far it would go? Here it's been sport. But they seem to have forgotten how Obama happened in a whirlwind that they couldn't hold back, tried how they did.
I’m going to seem supportive or condoning of two practices horrible to me: terrorism and homosexuality. (The place of the latter in this write up is not obvious this far.) If Abdelbaset dies three months from now of prostate cancer as his doctor predicts, he may not have the chance to go to a court of appeal to disprove his earlier conviction as the man who orchestrated the mid-air explosion of the US Pan-Am plane over Lockerbie in Scotland, UK in 1988 leaving 270 dead, most of them Americans. So he would die a convicted bomber.
And if he really is a terrorist, I have no business with him. I hate terrorists. They often kill with “spray bullets” harming even the innocent. I won’t want to be blown up in plane because a terrorist is targeting Yankees or Brits or Jews on board, most often their only crime being their origin. If they die and I die, we all died. My family mourns as theirs do. That’s not the only reason I hate terrorists. But that’s not the issue here.
The point here is the disclosure (revelation?) by the son of Kaddaffi (who should know), that trade interests were at the root of the “bomber’s” release on purported “compassionate grounds”. If nothing else, that disclosure comes to reinforce our increasing understanding that the dominant powers preach values but practise interests. Were it the case, why shouldn’t Libyans celebrate their government’s use of their own power – the power of their natural endowment – to counterbalance western arrogance? In their eyes, Abdelbaset was worth making Scotland (UK) defy “instructions” from the US. And that came within days of Switzerland’s apology to Libya (for similar reasons) for their “abusive” arrest, weeks ago, of Kaddaffi’s son.
And what if Libyans, rightly or wrongly, consider Abdelbaset an innocent victim of western victimization, convinced that following Abdelbaset’s appealing of his conviction, he remains innocent, shouldn't that be reason enough for their airport hurrays at the “bomber’s” arrival?
Caster Semenya
When controversy broke that the girl is a boy, voices rose from TV screens, radio sets and living rooms blasting racism. I felt so too, yet I was more bemused than angry. I found occasion to learn something new. I was wondering why all the fuss about an athlete’s gender when all they needed do was look at her genitals (sought of “forget the genes – pull down the jeans!” as Alice Dreger of the New York Times puts it). Now I’ve come to learn that it goes beyond all that. Now I know that certain human chromosomes and hormones can make even a woman with physical (visible) female organs a man biologically. That’s what takes weeks for scientists to prove and that’s proof that could be brought against Caster Semenya in the coming weeks.
Yet the argument remains, that even that scientific proof won’t seal a case against the South African girl. If hormone composition - not physical proof - should be considered an undue advantage, some have argued, why are girls, unnaturally as tall as boys or even taller, not disqualified from competing with fellow girls. And I’d add, that one advantage only brings another disadvantage. Semenya is clearly disadvantaged when it comes to feminine looks. When Miss Semenya’s age-mates are whistled and courted by naughty boys on street corners, the same boys surely mock at her for her mannish looks, more so perhaps, after the Berlin disgrace. So why shouldn’t she enjoy her muscles advantage in sport?
(And in some society, faced with now stigmatizing questions over her womanness, Miss Semenya could in a short while become Mr Semenya. She could be tempted to use her Berlin-earned dollars to undergo surgery that could add value to her handsome muscular body that even turns on some women, and thus become one of the world's famous homosexuals or transsexuals.)
A report on skynews.com said some placards by South African fans at Jo’burg airport this Tuesday read: "Casterology science of running", "Caster first lady of sport" and "100% female woman". Sarcastic words to shame detractors.
No less sarcastic than the listener who wrote to BBC Focus on Africa after Jamaican Ussain Bolt, another black sensation at the Athletics Championship, won his third gold in the 4X100 relay. The listener said he could carry out a test to prove Ussain was a horse, not a human being. And how Jamaicans, our African folks also had their share of Caucasian scorning for their astonishing showing at the Championship, beating the US at its traditional sprint events and only five medals short of the US catch! There were claims Jamaicans might have been bolstered by drugs. OK, marijuana is consumed openly in Jamaica, but there are routine tests to do. Check them or stay quiet. Don't be sore losers, OK? The Jamaican prime minister also announced plans for their heroic welcome.
So, it turns out, this is a tale of three home-comings.
This past week, two outcasts (well, an “outlaw” and an “outcast”) in the eyes of the dominant West and a world organization, were given vexing heroic home-coming receptions. As news reports carried the anger of the US and the UK over the popular reception given the “Lockerbie Bomber” Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in his home country, another African, Caster Semenya of South Africa was receiving the trauma of her life prior to and after she had a clean win of the female 800m race in the World Athletics Championship in Berlin. She has today been given a heroine’s welcome (mind the precision – a heroine’s welcome, not a hero’s welcome – she’s a woman) in Johanesburg, South Africa. Like the “bomber”, the runner was also received by the head of state.
What they fail to remember is that a people's revival may begin somewhere, just somewhere, yet is it the revival of a people and who knows how far it would go? Here it's been sport. But they seem to have forgotten how Obama happened in a whirlwind that they couldn't hold back, tried how they did.
I’m going to seem supportive or condoning of two practices horrible to me: terrorism and homosexuality. (The place of the latter in this write up is not obvious this far.) If Abdelbaset dies three months from now of prostate cancer as his doctor predicts, he may not have the chance to go to a court of appeal to disprove his earlier conviction as the man who orchestrated the mid-air explosion of the US Pan-Am plane over Lockerbie in Scotland, UK in 1988 leaving 270 dead, most of them Americans. So he would die a convicted bomber.
And if he really is a terrorist, I have no business with him. I hate terrorists. They often kill with “spray bullets” harming even the innocent. I won’t want to be blown up in plane because a terrorist is targeting Yankees or Brits or Jews on board, most often their only crime being their origin. If they die and I die, we all died. My family mourns as theirs do. That’s not the only reason I hate terrorists. But that’s not the issue here.
The point here is the disclosure (revelation?) by the son of Kaddaffi (who should know), that trade interests were at the root of the “bomber’s” release on purported “compassionate grounds”. If nothing else, that disclosure comes to reinforce our increasing understanding that the dominant powers preach values but practise interests. Were it the case, why shouldn’t Libyans celebrate their government’s use of their own power – the power of their natural endowment – to counterbalance western arrogance? In their eyes, Abdelbaset was worth making Scotland (UK) defy “instructions” from the US. And that came within days of Switzerland’s apology to Libya (for similar reasons) for their “abusive” arrest, weeks ago, of Kaddaffi’s son.
And what if Libyans, rightly or wrongly, consider Abdelbaset an innocent victim of western victimization, convinced that following Abdelbaset’s appealing of his conviction, he remains innocent, shouldn't that be reason enough for their airport hurrays at the “bomber’s” arrival?
Caster Semenya
When controversy broke that the girl is a boy, voices rose from TV screens, radio sets and living rooms blasting racism. I felt so too, yet I was more bemused than angry. I found occasion to learn something new. I was wondering why all the fuss about an athlete’s gender when all they needed do was look at her genitals (sought of “forget the genes – pull down the jeans!” as Alice Dreger of the New York Times puts it). Now I’ve come to learn that it goes beyond all that. Now I know that certain human chromosomes and hormones can make even a woman with physical (visible) female organs a man biologically. That’s what takes weeks for scientists to prove and that’s proof that could be brought against Caster Semenya in the coming weeks.
Yet the argument remains, that even that scientific proof won’t seal a case against the South African girl. If hormone composition - not physical proof - should be considered an undue advantage, some have argued, why are girls, unnaturally as tall as boys or even taller, not disqualified from competing with fellow girls. And I’d add, that one advantage only brings another disadvantage. Semenya is clearly disadvantaged when it comes to feminine looks. When Miss Semenya’s age-mates are whistled and courted by naughty boys on street corners, the same boys surely mock at her for her mannish looks, more so perhaps, after the Berlin disgrace. So why shouldn’t she enjoy her muscles advantage in sport?
(And in some society, faced with now stigmatizing questions over her womanness, Miss Semenya could in a short while become Mr Semenya. She could be tempted to use her Berlin-earned dollars to undergo surgery that could add value to her handsome muscular body that even turns on some women, and thus become one of the world's famous homosexuals or transsexuals.)
A report on skynews.com said some placards by South African fans at Jo’burg airport this Tuesday read: "Casterology science of running", "Caster first lady of sport" and "100% female woman". Sarcastic words to shame detractors.
No less sarcastic than the listener who wrote to BBC Focus on Africa after Jamaican Ussain Bolt, another black sensation at the Athletics Championship, won his third gold in the 4X100 relay. The listener said he could carry out a test to prove Ussain was a horse, not a human being. And how Jamaicans, our African folks also had their share of Caucasian scorning for their astonishing showing at the Championship, beating the US at its traditional sprint events and only five medals short of the US catch! There were claims Jamaicans might have been bolstered by drugs. OK, marijuana is consumed openly in Jamaica, but there are routine tests to do. Check them or stay quiet. Don't be sore losers, OK? The Jamaican prime minister also announced plans for their heroic welcome.
So, it turns out, this is a tale of three home-comings.
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