Selective indignation
(Reprinted with kind acknowledgments
to Bill Baillie's - Nation Revisted)
China and Myanmar have both
been devastated by terrible natural disasters that have temporarily
spared them from criticism. All over the
world people live in fear of oppressive regimes. But the West
castigates only a selected few. The media are concerned about Myanmar
and Sudan but ignore Palestine that is illegally occupied by Ehud
Olmert’s forces and Somalia where the American-backed regime of
Abdullah Yusuf is engaged in mass murder.
The military ruler of
Myanmar General Than Shwe reacted to the 1990 election victory of Aung
San Suu Kyi by placing her under house arrest. She won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1991 but an international campaign has failed to influence the
junta. The United States and France have both called for Suu Kyi’s
release but their respective oil giants Chevron and Total are partners
in the lucrative Yadana gas project. Both companies insist that they
are only staying in Myanmar to help steer the country towards democracy.
Myanmar is close to China
and therefore dependent on Chinese trade with the United States.
Demonstrations around the world have protested at China’s brutal
occupation of Tibet and Xinjiang but Western governments have no
interest in carving up the Chinese empire. The Bank of China is a major
holder of US Treasury Bonds and Chinese companies make “American”
computers, printers, phones and toys that are exported to the world.
The Chinese are active in
Zimabwe where Robert Mugabe presides over the world’s lowest
expectation of life and highest inflation rate. They are also involved
in oil-rich Sudan where government troops are fighting rebel forces for
control of Darfur province. Condoleeza
Rice has instigated sanctions against Khartoum but the Chinese continue
to buy 80% of Sudan’s oil production with dollars earned by trading
with America.
Africa has enough
disadvantages without being subjected to Chinese and American
exploitation. The new imperialists do not ride about on horseback
wearing cocked hats and ceremonial swords but they are just as firmly
in control. To escape poverty Africans
have been encouraged to migrate to Europe where greedy employers are
waiting to hire them. But as the recession crosses the Atlantic this
option may soon be closed; Europeans facing unemployment will force
their governments to take action.
The well-meaning stars of
Hollywood protest at the slaughter in Sudan but if the major powers
really wanted to free the peoples of Africa and Asia from war and
tyranny they could do so. The Chinese are not really communists and the
Americans are not libertarians. They are both capitalists who believe
in making money. Their selective indignation is meaningless. They would
trade with the Devil if he offered extended credit.
Madman Mugabe - allowed by the New World Order to get away with anything
