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UN Guidelines Use Corporations in African “Land Grab”
Whoever controls the land controls the nation.
Corporations and foreign governments have been “ land-grabbing” from third world nations to control agriculture.
“What is missing the most in terms of land grabbing is a clear condemnation of this practice. That was one of the baseline demands of civil society,” Stephane Parmentier from aid agency Oxfam. “It was impossible to include it, because it was too sensitive and too controversial for quite a lot of member states.”
Nations like Ethiopia, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, in Africa have “voluntarily” signed agreements with multi-national corporations and foreign investors, allowing them to control agricultural land. The nation’s leaders believe that giving access to their resources will benefit their people; however this is just another manipulative ploy to coercively acquire control over land, food production and securitization.
The world’s governments have agreed to follow UN dictated guidelines over land, and who controls the fate of land.
The United Nations (UN) has enacted global guidelines on purchasing agricultural land from developing nations like Africa and Asia.
The UN claims that to secure equality for the poor and disadvantaged, this international body must control their lands through the allowance of mutli-national corporations and governments who will develop the land for agriculture and securitize the crop yields; thereby giving the UN control over the global food supply.
The document entitled “ The UN Global Compact and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” outlines through “voluntary” means, the UN will implement their international guidelines with respect to corporate conduct, standards and abilities.
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Analysis: Land grab or development opportunity?
With land central to the livelihoods of millions of people in Africa, Lorenzo Cotula of the International Institute for Environment and Development examines the impact of large-scale land acquisitions on the continent’s farmers.
“Land grabs” are now one of the biggest issues in Africa.
Over the past few years, companies and foreign governments have been leasing large areas of land in some of Africa’s poorest countries.
Many commentators have raised concerns that poor villagers will be forced off their land and agribusiness will marginalise family farming.
Others say that foreign investment can help African countries create jobs, increase export earnings and use more advanced technologies.
Three years since media reports started raising public awareness on this issue, evidence has been growing on the scale, geography, players, features and impacts of the land rush. The emerging picture provides ground for concern.
Last year the World Bank documented media reports of land deals over the period between 2008 and 2009.
The deals were for nearly 60 million hectares worldwide, roughly the size of a country like Ukraine – and two-thirds of the land acquired was in Africa.
While new figures continue to emerge, all evidence points to a phenomenon of unprecedented scale.
Also, some individual deals are for very large areas. For example, Liberia recently signed a concession for 220,000 hectares.
Money to be made
Media attention has focused on investments by Middle Eastern and Asian government-backed operators but Western companies have also been heavily involved.
Companies acquire land because they expect world food and commodity prices to increase – so there is money to be made in agriculture.
Some governments have also promoted land acquisitions abroad as a way to secure affordable food for their people.
In many African countries, agriculture has suffered from years of neglect – and investment is needed to improve productivity and market access.
But not all investment is good – and growing evidence strongly indicates that large land deals are not the way to go.
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John Perkins “Confessions of an Economic Hitman
John Perkins — Bio
As Chief Economist at a major international consulting firm, John Perkins advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies. His books on economics and geo-politics have sold more than 1 million copies, spent many months on the New York Times and other bestseller lists, and are published in over 30 languages.
John’s Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (70 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list) is a startling exposé of international corruption. His The Secret History of the American Empire, also a New York Times bestseller, details the clandestine operations that created the world’s first truly global empire. His Hoodwinked is a blueprint for a new form of global economics. The solutions are not “return to normal” ones. Instead, John challenges us to soar to new heights, away from predatory capitalism and into an era more transformative than the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. His writings detail specific steps each of us can take to create a sustainable, just, and peaceful world.
John is a… Continue reading
A Major AFRICOM & US State Department Campaign to Undermine Chinese Influence in Central Africa
According to their website, the American NGO, Invisible Children, claims now to have had over 80 million viewers to their YouTube video, “Kony2012,” since its release on YouTube a few weeks ago. For anyone with the patience to sit through the entire YouTube of Kony2012, it is questionable how truthful the figure of 80 million viewers is. Eighty million is unprecedented in YouTube history by all accounts.
The video features such prominent Hollywood personalities as Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Lady GaGa, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs and other notables. It’s a slick, sentimental story directed by Jason Russell, a 33-year-old now-hospitalized American filmmaker who apparently just underwent a bizarre mental disconnect on the streets of San Diego. The YouTube video depicts a young Ugandan, Jacob Acaye, whom Russell claims he befriended some ten years earlier after Acaye escaped conscription into Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as an 11-year-old killer. The film portrays Kony as the world’s worst beast and terrorist, in effect, Africa’s Osama bin Laden.
The Invisible Children NGO is itself opaque. It reportedly rakes in millions from sales of such things as buttons, Invisible Children T-shirts, bracelets and posters priced from $30-$250, but it ranks low on transparency regarding other donors. The group, which employs around 100 people, is expected to raise millions of dollars from their “Kony2012” video, but so far it refuses to say how much has been donated or how it will spend the money. The founders of the group, who advocate direct US military intervention in response to the LRA, had been previously criticized for posing with guns alongside members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in 2008, an organization widely accused of rape and looting. The group issued a statement in response: “We thought it would be funny to bring back to our friends and family a joke photo. You know, ‘Haha – they have bazookas in their hands but they’re actually fighting for peace’.”
According to the London Guardian, Invisible Children’s “accounts show it is a cash-rich operation, which more than tripled its income in 2011” to nearly $9 million, mainly from personal donations. Of this, nearly 25% was spent on travel and film-making. Most of the money raised has been spent in the US, not for Africa’s “invisible children” or even visible ones. According to information obtained by the Guardian, “the accounts show $1.7million went to US employee salaries, $850,000 in film production costs, $244,000 in ‘professional services’ – thought to be Washington lobbyists – and $1.07 million in travel expenses. Nearly $400,000 was spent on office rent in San Diego” Charity Navigator, a US charity evaluator, gave the organization only two stars for “accountability and transparency.” The USAID, a State Department agency which coordinates its foreign interventions with the Pentagon and CIA, openly states on its website that it has funded Invisible Children Inc. in the past.
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Joseph Kony resolution introduced in House
Two House lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a resolution supporting efforts to counter the Lord’s Resistance Army, hoping to build on the momentum created by a viral YouTube video spotlighting the atrocities of LRA leader Joseph Kony.
The resolution, introduced by Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. and Ed Royce, R-Calif., calls for, among other things, expanding the number of regional forces in Africa to protect civilians and placing restrictions on individuals or governments found to be supporting Kony.
Kony gained notoriety in the U.S. this month when a 30-minute video produced by the group Invisible Children went viral, picking up more than 50 million views in just four days. The video spotlighted how the Ugandan warlord has been accused of kidnapping up to 30,000 children in the past 26 years, using girls as sex slaves and boys as child soldiers.
Invisible Children has since taken heat for how much of its budget it spends on aid to Africa versus marketing. Additionally, some Ugandans have complained the video misrepresents and over-simplifies the issue.
Still, McGovern said in a statement that the new attention the African conflict is receiving is a good thing.
“I am hopeful that we can use this momentum as a force for change,” he said. “We must do all that we can to protect innocent civilians — especially children — and end LRA violence once and for all.”
Last year, McGovern and Royce introduced and helped pass into law “The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.” Subsequently, President Obama sent 100 U.S. troops to Central Africa to serve as advisers in efforts to hunt down Kony.
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Sam Childers – Machine Gun Preacher
The Sam Childers Story
Machine Gun Preacher Sam Childers grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania. His parents were decent, honest people but at an early age Sam started to show a knack for getting into trouble. His father, a former marine, grew fond of saying “Boy, somebody’s gonna kill you one of these days!”
A Troubled Teen
By his early teens Sam was constantly in fist fights, selling hard drugs and sleeping with married women. He continued to slide deeper into a life of violence and crime until he became a Shotgunner – an armed guard for drug dealers. It was during this stage of his life that he met Lynn, a stripper, who would later become his wife.
Unlearning a Life of Crime
Sam, haunted by his father’s words, became increasingly concerned that he was going to be killed because of drugs and slowly began to distance himself from his former life. He found a job in construction and prospered despite his continuing drug and alcohol habit. Lynn, meanwhile, returned to the Church she had forsaken as a young adult.
