 EDITORIAL |
Charles Taylor now; Who is next?
by WILBERT A. TATUM
Publisher Emeritus & Chairman of the Board
Originally posted 8/14/2003
For whatever it’s worth, former president Charles Taylor
has been forced out of power in Liberia and into exile. He stayed in
power for six years in Liberia after having led a war against
entrenched foreign interests in Liberia for eight years. The West,
meaning the United States primarily, never gave Taylor enough aid or
other forms of assistance to make Liberia work. Although, if any
African country could be called a natural for having the potential to
work for its people, it should have been Liberia.
When
the facts are in about what happened to Liberia, we will know that the
United States of America had much to do with its failure and almost
everything to do with the deposing of Charles Taylor. In many ways it
could be suggested that Charles Taylor was a prophet and a kind of
leader that Africa has got to have if it is going to survive in this
world of nations that wish to totally plunder the riches of the African
continent by sheer exploitation and genocide, whichever is most
opportune and easiest to sell to those nations in the world who are not
a part of the exploiting legions of Africa.
More painful than
anything else was to see representatives of other struggling African
nations line up and insist that Charles Taylor be removed, while
sitting in rooms built for kings and knowing very well that they could
be next on the hit list of total exploitation and/or genocide. It was a
pitiful sight to see.
Nigeria, a country that has something to lose,
at least offered Taylor some comfort: a place of exile for himself and
his family. A question that must be asked here is, Will Liberia be
forced by the United Nations, upon the insistence by the United States,
to turn Liberia’s former president over to the tribunal? Or, will
Liberia do it voluntarily for the 5-cent increase in the cost of the
exported price of a barrel of oil.
Charles Taylor was specific. He
told all the African nations that it was likely that they would be
next. That is true of course, but there is a caveat: They will be next
if they seek to be independent in the same way that countries of Europe
are independent. Otherwise the African countries will remain puppets,
accepting 3 cents on the dollar or less for their raw materials and
less than that for their labor, which is used to pillage the diamond,
gold, silver and uranium mines and to provide a place of fun for
Europeans seeking recreation through exploitation.
One has to accept
the premise that genocide is the bottom line for Africa. It has been
all too obvious for years now. The attempt to eliminate the Black
African population through disease is working. Smallpox took its toll.
AIDS took its toll. Hunger and other forms of disease have taken away
more human resources from Africa than they would have if Africa got no
help at all from the donor nations.
People of Africa have to decide
to reject those who come with a Bible in one hand and 5 cents worth of
aid in the other. The people of Africa must decide to do whatever must
be done themselves, taking the losses as they come while they develop
their own science, technology and business foundation, which would
enable Africa to compete with other nations internationally. This must
be done before Africa is robbed of all of its raw materials.
Let
this political demise of Charles Taylor be a lesson to all other
Africans and heads of African states: You can no longer accept this
kind of treatment by America or the other nations of the world. No
matter what it takes or how long it takes, you must become
self-sufficient. There are no partners for you in the world. You cannot
depend upon other Black, brown, or yellow nations to support you, and
certainly not the white nations that have been the problem for so many
generations passed.
Charles Taylor must be the last one allowed to
go this way; otherwise, those of us who are Black and live on the face
of the earth have aided and abetted a genocide that will soon be at our
front doors, provided we still have houses in the weeks and months to
come.
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