Re: Re: Anthrax attack in Africa
- Original Message - I don't recall this incident, but it suggests a US connection. Any comments? In Zim's main weekly, the Financial Gazette, I used to have a column, and this is what I wrote on this story on 29 January 1993: How Rhodesia poisoned SA The South African Defense Force and South African Police are capable of untold horrors, and, via the independent press and the Goldstone Commission, scandals emerge nearly every week which otherwise should, in a humane society, lead to the government's resignation. Yet the origins of the most contemptible covert operations aimed at civilians or opposition political groups may never be known, if President FW de Klerk's current plans for a no-strings-attached amnesty plan are eventually consummated. So it is up to insiders to reveal occasional secrets, and to gutsy researchers to put these into some form of coherent story. Thus it is useful to look at fresh allegations about Rhodesian-era contributions to modern-day South African roguery by Mr Jeremy Brickhill. Currently an Oxford doctoral student and filmmaker, Mr Brickhill fought for ZAPU in the 1970s and in 1987 nearly lost his life when aspiring assassins carbombed him at the Avondale shopping centre. His analysis of the role of Rhodesian chemical and biological experiments in South Africa can be found in the Winter 1993 issue of the American magazine Covert Action Quarterly, in an article entitled Zimbabwe's Poisoned Legacy: Secret War in Southern Africa. For years rumours have circulated about nefarious Rhodesian Special Forces experiments, including former CIO director Ken Flower's own admission that poisoned uniforms were planted for ZANU's use, leading to the deaths of hundreds of cadres. One case of likely biological warfare, reports Dr Meryl Nass of the University of Massachusetts in the same magazine, was an extraordinary outbreak of anthrax in 1978-80: It affected large areas, killed thousands of head of livestock, and produced the largest number of human anthrax cases in one disease outbreak ever reported in the world. It caused extensive economic hardship in areas with a predominantly black population, while leaving white areas unscathed. Mr Brickhill reviews a range of evidence of chemical and biological warfare conducted against ZANU and ZAPU guerrillas in the late 1970s by the CIO and Selous Scouts. He discusses the means by which the Rhodesians' Operation Favour manipulated Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Mr Ndabaningi Sithole to recruit 5 000 pro-government guerrillas notorious for their undisciplined and murderous behaviour. And he suggests how, subsequently, Operation Winter transferred the Rhodesian lessons and military assets directly to South Africa under the nose of British transition team and US authorities. Mr Brickhill maintains that had the major Western players been so inclined, much could have been done to halt the migration of trained killers and their wares down South: Field testing of chemical and biological weapons by the Rhodesians must have been of great interest to many other countries. With their extensive penetration of the Rhodesian military and intelligence services, the British intelligence service MI-6 could hardly have failed to learn the details of the poison war. Ken Flower himself confirms the close liaison he maintained with the CIA, MI-6 and other Western intelligence agencies. By the time the Lancaster House deal was negotiated, Mr Brickhill says, the future of the Rhodesian military was decided: The South Africans were to be the principal beneficiaries of the Rhodesian [covert military] assets; they, after all, had to carry on the fight [against the ANC]. The Rhodesian assets were happy enough to go to South Africa. The British and Americans, while not displeased with the arrangement, were concerned with potential political and diplomatic repercussions. Hence the stipulation that the transfer of the Rhodesian assets should appear to be informal and unorganised. Even Mozambican FRELIMO officials were drawn into the web of deception by the British, Mr Brickhill insists. They were told that if they agreed to help keep ZANU guerrillas under control and committed to the election process, the MNR would be disbanded. Mozambique's former Security Minister Sergio Vierra later told Mr Brickhill: We were naive. We were very naive. At the time independence was being celebrated in Zimbabwe, the Rhodesian Special Forces were already being assimilated into the SADF. The Recce Commandos welcomed the Selous Scouts and SAS, and the poisons technology was incorporated for future use. Mr Brickhill alleges that the shadowy Civil Co-operation Bureau of the SADF ─ acknowledged to be the centre of 1980s death squad activity ─ was originally set up to encourage Rhodesian dirty tricks operators, and many of the CCB operators were Rhodesians. The SADF also established the Directorate of Special Tasks with the Rhodesians, which organised the
Re: Anthrax attack in Africa
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/opinion/02KRIS.html The NY Times had an interesting editorial blasting the FBI for not arresting the anthrax suspect, who the author seems to think is the guilty party. In the course of the story, the author asks: Have you examined whether Mr. Z has connections to the biggest anthrax outbreak among humans ever recorded, the one that sickened more than 10,000 black farmers in Zimbabwe in 1978-80? There is evidence that the anthrax was released by the white Rhodesian Army fighting against black guerrillas, and Mr. Z has claimed that he participated in the white army's much-feared Selous Scouts. I don't recall this incident, but it suggests a US connection. Any comments? = On a related note: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/DG03Aa01.html Remembering an African martyrdom A review of Ludo De Witte's The Assassination of Lumumba (translated from the Dutch by Ann Wright and Renee Fenby). By Sreeram Chaulia I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakeable faith and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery . - Patrice Lumumba from his death cell, January 1961 July 2 is the anniversary of the birth of one of Africa's greatest sons, Patrice Emery Lumumba. He died young at the age of 36, when he was felled by a hail of bullets whose origin dated back to a diabolical six month long plot of the Belgian and American governments and their puppet collaborators in newly independent Congo. When Belgian sociologist Ludo De Witte published the Dutch version of this book in 1999, Brussels instituted a parliamentary enquiry into the long-suspected and just-proven allegations of direct Belgian responsibility for the assassination of a legally elected Prime Minister of a sovereign country. The enquiry concluded against the grain of evidence that Belgian ministers of Gaston Eysken's cabinet of 1960-61 were morally responsible, but had not ordered Lumumba's physical elimination. Public apologies to the Lumumba family and the Congolese people were added as sops to sweeten the eyewash that sought to protect the highest authorities of the land whose hands were unquestionably soaked in Lumumba's blood. The English translation of De Witte's investigative post mortem will help disseminate to a world-wide audience the four decade old truth that Brussels is still balking to admit - its heads of state and government, foreign minister, minister for African affairs and consuls in Africa all acted as first rate criminals and conspirators in a bid to recolonize the Congo and liquidate the hope of the masses, Lumumba. It shatters to smithereens the publicity smokescreen erected after 1961 that the assassination was a Congolese affair, a settling of scores among Bantus, which had nothing to do with the West. In De Witte's own evaluation, his book is a staggering example of what the Western ruling classes are capable of when their vital interests are threatened (p xxv). Enemy number 1 of the neo-colonial cabal De Witte's central thesis is that Lumumba became a man who frightened the Belgians once they realized that he helmed of a holistic anti-colonial revolution that would uproot all vestiges and structures that benefited the former colonial masters. The pillars of Belgian imperialism - mining corporations and trusts, white army officers and bureaucrats, religious missions, etc - expected to hold on to their exploitative and privileged positions after independence, albeit with an African façade. Prime Minister Lumumba and other radical nationalists like Pierre Mulele took independence seriously and began Africanizing key paraphernalia of governance and law and order in the two short months they were allowed to hold office, July and August of 1960. Belgian sovereign Badouin, Prime Minister Eyskens and Foreign Minister Wigny charted out a strategy of using the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga as a lever against Lumumba's Congo by aiding its secession. Besides putting up the reactionary Moise Tshombe as the legitimate President of Katanga and helping him militarily to secure his independence against Lumumba's center, Wigny wrote in September to his consulate in Congo-Brazzaville, the constituted authorities have the duty to render Lumumba harmless (p 23). The Belgian minister for African affairs, D'Aspremont Lynden, authorized a clandestine mercenary operation called Operation Barracuda in October saying, The main aim to pursue is clearly Lumumba's elimination definitive (French emphasis original, p 25). Meanwhile, CIA chief Allen Dulles told the Eisenhower administration that Lumumba was a Castro or worse and persuaded Ike to declare at a National Security Council meeting that he favored Lumumba's elimination. Chemical scientist Gottlieb was sent to the Congo with poisonous gases to mount an operation to either seriously incapacitate
Re: Re: Anthrax attack in Africa
In the recent Lumumba movie, they bleeped out Frank Carlucci's name when they were organizing the assassination. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anthrax attack in Africa
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/opinion/02KRIS.html The NY Times had an interesting [op]editorial blasting the FBI for not arresting the anthrax suspect, who the author seems to think is the guilty party. In the course of the story, the author asks: Have you examined whether Mr. Z has connections to the biggest anthrax outbreak among humans ever recorded, the one that sickened more than 10,000 black farmers in Zimbabwe in 1978-80? There is evidence that the anthrax was released by the white Rhodesian Army fighting against black guerrillas, and Mr. Z has claimed that he participated in the white army's much-feared Selous Scouts. I don't recall this incident, but it suggests a US connection. Any comments? The article was a valiant effort to produce an unconspiracy theory for the anthrax episode--patriotic motivation plus bureaucratic FBI fumbling. Chip Berlet himself could have done no better. Totally, pathetically, unconvincing, of course. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner)
