Sunday 27 November 2011

Are We Independent?


What is Independence?

Most of us in Barbados offer a lot of lip service to the concept but what does it mean? The dictionary will tell us:

Freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

It seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Would anybody disagree with the notion that we should be free from the control of others? Of course not. To suggest otherwise would imply that we are the property of others, that we are subjects or slaves. The other parts of the definition all rest on the freedom from control: influence of others isn’t always a bad thing. It is good to sometimes seek advice or guidance from someone else. However, you are still free to choose what to do with that advice, and so you are free to choose how you will let that influence affect you, so long as you are free from control. The same is true of support, aid, or the like. So a more simple definition of independence, cutting down to the root of the issue, would be:

Freedom from the control of others.
Can we in Barbados seriously say that after forty-five years we have achieve that state?
Every November Barbados is decorated with blue and yellow lights, (or to the purists among us - aquamarine & gold), and the whole island is decked with national flags and buntings everywhere. The Garrison Savannah is cleaned up and perfectly groomed in preparation for the annual Independence Day parade. The armed and unarmed forces are drilled and practiced so that on the day our citizens can take pride in the military precision and discipline of our uniformed men and women, boys and girls as they march to the sounds of the combined Royal Barbados Police & the BDF Bands.

The Governor General and the Prime Minister make their all too familiar ritualistic speeches which lack any true substance. The annual independence addresses have become a monotonous dialogue prudently expressing politically correct statements, failing to inspire a populace desperately looking for guidance. They merely rephrase the speeches of the last forty odd years. Similarly, all the other politician given a chance will mindlessly voice platitudes that they think suitable for the occasion with the intention of appearing relevant to the people who must decide their fates come election day.

But is the national celebration of Barbados’s Independence Day anything more than a meaningless tradition? Can Barbados make any serious social changes or take any political decision that conflict with the policy of her neighbouring countries or any powerful Western nation? Before taking a decision, the government has to think about how Caricom will react, how the UK will receive it and how the USA will view it. Are we going to offend the United Nations or any one of dozens of other powerful international interest groups? So, if no decision is made independently in the national interest by ignoring others' viewpoints, then,where is the independence?

If we as a country decided tomorrow that we were going to start hanging convicted murderers, we will feel the wrath of the International Human Rights organisations which are powerful enough to influence the actions of international donors and lending agencies. Barbados could not risk this in times of plenty and it would definitely be disastrous in these current turbulent economic times. Would the IADB even consider a loan for The Four Seasons Project if it was under pressure from Amnesty International?

Who can forget in 2007 at the United Nations Meeting of the Human Rights Committee, Eighty-ninth Session when the delegation of Barbados, headed by Louis Tull faced a flurry of questions from experts of the Human Rights Committee on its legal stance on the death penalty, corporal punishment, the criminalization of homosexuality and police brutality in Barbados, as it presented its third periodic report on progress in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Experts critiqued everything from the scarcity of statistics on police brutality and prevention methods to the accepted practice of flogging children in public schools, as well as the lack of a national human rights commission. Several experts urged the delegation to ban the death penalty on humanitarian grounds. One expert noted a strong “founding fathers” approach on law of treaties in Barbados and the tendency to allow public opinion to dictate human rights policy, regardless of whether it was just.

Only recently, at the just concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, we have witnessed the overt attempts by Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron to influence Barbados’s social policy by commented that those countries receiving British aid should adhere to proper human rights, including the reform of legislation banning homosexuality. Despite the efforts at damage control being done by the government, only time will tell what effect the claim by France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy that Barbados is among 11 tax havens that should be shunned for failure to conform to acceptable tax practices, will have on the economy of Barbados.

Political independence is no independence. Under the plea of political expediency, one nation is always overtly or covertly aligned with some other countries. Mere geographical territorial independence is no true or substantial independence. It is economic independence that is true independence, some people claim. Others refute this. They say that if the oil-producing countries increase the price of crude oil, we are compelled to increase our domestic petrol prices. A recession in a major economically advanced country like the United States has a telling impact on Barbados too.Then where is Barbados’s economic independence in an interdependent world that has become a global village?

Still, we steadfastly cling to the belief that Barbados has enjoyed independence for the last Forty-five years. This misunderstanding has to be corrected. Whichever way we look at it, no nation, no community, no society, no individual is independent in the true sense of the term. In our childhood we depend on our parents. During our youth, we depend on our spouse. In old age, we depend on our adult sons or daughters, sometimes even our grandchildren. Political leaders depend on the citizens to stay in office. As citizens, we are dependent on the government, for all social benefits, services and security. We are controlled at every stage of our operations. We work under certain constraints. We are restricted even in our physical movements. We are restrained. Thus, our life depends on various factors of the state and society. Where is our independence? The moment fuel prices rise there is a rise in the price of electricity and transport with the resulting price inflation for almost all the consumer goods. In this way, things are interdependent. Then, how are we economically independent?

We as a people need to reflect on our achievements and strive to progress but the blind acceptance of this concept of Independence leaves us vulnerable to the reality the confronts us in this world. Independence is a political idea and not a physical reality. It is a state of mind that was perpetuated by politicians like Errol Barrow. It was said of him that "He found Barbados a collection of villages, and transformed it into a proud nation." That is not inherently a bad thing but it is not the full story. We had a lot that we could be proud of as a people before independence.

I believe that after 45 years we need to look back to the times before 1966 when we were a collection of villages. This was a time when each family had it’s own breadfruit tree and banana patch in the back yard, a spinach vine on the paling and a small kitchen garden growing just enough for family and friends, when the few fowls in the yard kept the family supplied with eggs, the kitchen garden with fertiliser and provided the occasional Sunday meal, when the lone cow or goat supplied them and their neighbours with fresh milk. When the village butcher supplied the meat from livestock bought from the same villagers he served and each village had a tailor, a dressmaker, a carpenter, a mason that supplied the needs of their neighbours. Every Saturday the village barber set up shop under the almond tree beside the field where the children played marble cricket.

Our children made their own toys and cricket balls and bats were made by hand. Every boy could make a guttaperk and set a fly-stick. He knew how to use the gum from the trunk of the breadfruit tree to make gum-sticks to catch canaries. He knew how to catch sand cockles on the beach the use as bait to catch pot fish. He knew the best places to gather whelks and cowheels and knew how to make a fire on the beach and cook them. He could scale and clean a fish as easily as he could peel a banana. It was a rite of passage to be able to climb a coconut tree. He knew where the best dunks trees grew and when the sea grapes will be ripe. In St.Philip, where I grew up, during the school vacation children left home after breakfast and only returned home at dust and parents knew that they would not be hungry because they were “independent” enough to live off the land. Now after 45 years of independence, my teenage daughter sits at the table in the kitchen and expects me to bring her a glass of juice from the refrigerator.

In these times the village enjoyed a greater degree of “independence” than most of us do today.

I am not advocating the rejection of progress. All that I am asking is, that as we reflect on the last 45 years of Barbados as an “independent nation”, think not only of what we have achieved but consider what we have lost. Many of the things that have made us Barbadian have become lost to our children over the years and I am afraid it will take a determined effort to reverse this trend. When we ask our children to be proud of our nation, what are we asking them to be proud of? As Errol Barrow so eloquently put it back in 1986. “What is their mirror image?” Do they know what it is to be Bajan? Maybe someone should write an e-book on “How to be a Bajan”. Maybe then, if you sent an email, BB or SMS broadcast and advertised it on Twitter and Facebook, our children may read it on their Kindles, Ipads, Blackberrys and laptops.

If you think seriously about it you will realise that we are less independent than we were in 1966 and growing more dependent daily.


Saturday 19 November 2011

The Fight for Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At 11.7 million square miles including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With 1.0 billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population.

When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, I was one that believed that he would resist the potentially disastrous, military colonizing policy that had been pursued by former US government administrations toward Africa. As his father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Luo from Nyang'oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya, I assumed that the president would have a special interest in policies that would adversely effect Mother Africa. I was wrong.

After over two years in office it is clear that the Obama administration is following essentially the same policy that has guided U.S. military policy toward Africa for more than a decade. Indeed, the Obama administration is seeking to expand U.S. military activities on the continent even further. In its 2011 budget request for security assistance programs for Africa, the Obama administration is asking for $38 million for the Foreign Military Financing program to pay for U.S. arms sales to African countries. The administration is also asking for $21 million for the International Military Education and Training Program to bring African military officers to the United States, and $24.4 million for Anti-Terrorism Assistance programs in Africa.

The Obama administration has also taken a number of other steps to expand U.S. military involvement in Africa. The most significant being the support of The U.S Africa Command, AFRICOM. AFRICOM received $274 million in Fiscal Year 2010. The Obama administration has requested $298 million for the command for Fiscal Year 2011. AFRICOM was officially established on October 1, 2008 with administrative responsibility for U.S. military support to U.S. government policy in Africa, to include military-to-military relationships with 54 African nations. Its stated mission is to “protect and defend the national security interests of the United States by strengthening the defense capabilities of African states and regional organizations and, when directed, conducts military operations, in order to deter and defeat transnational threats and to provide a security environment conducive to good governance and development.”

According to it’s official website, AFRICOM supports U.S. national security interests by conducting a wide range of programs and activities that help African states and regional organizations--at their request--meet their security and defense goals. Strategic objectives are:

  • Ensure that the al-Qaida networks and associated violent extremists do not attack the United States; 
  • Maintain assured access and freedom of movement throughout their AOR; 
  • Assist African states and regional organizations in developing the will, capability, and capacity to combat transnational threats such as terrorism, piracy, and the illicit trafficking of weapons, people, and narcotics; 
  • Assist African states and regional organizations in developing the capacity to execute effective continental peace operations and to respond to crises, and; 
  • Encourage African militaries to operate under civilian authority, respect the rule of law, abide by international human rights norms, and contribute to stability in their respective states. 
If we are to put the establishment of AFRICOM into perspective we need to take a look back to 1980 when President Carter in his final State of the Union address designated the free flow of Persian Gulf oil as a “vital interest” of the United States and declared that the USA would use “any means necessary, including military force,” to defend that interest. To implement this policy, widely known as the “Carter Doctrine,” the U.S. Department of Defense established the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) to oversee U.S. military operations in the Gulf area and built up a substantial military infrastructure in the region. Later presidents subsequently cited the Carter Doctrine as the basis for U.S. combat operations during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the war in Afghanistan from 2001 until the present, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It would seem that the “Carter Doctrine,” proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980 has today been extended to Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

Compared to the Middle East, Africa possesses a relatively modest share of the world’s petroleum reserves. Approximately 9.4 percent of proven world reserves, compared to 61.7 percent for the Middle East. Nevertheless, the world’s major oil-consuming nations, led by the United States, China, and the Western European countries, have exhibited extraordinary interest in the development of African oil reserves, making huge bids for whatever exploration blocks become available and investing large sums in drilling platforms, pipelines, loading facilities, and other production infrastructure. Indeed, the pursuit of African oil has taken on the character of a gold rush, with major companies from all over the world competing fiercely with one another for access to promising reserves. This contest represents “a turning point for the energy industry and its investors,” in that “an increasing percentage of the world’s oil supplies are expected to come from the waters off West Africa,” the Wall Street Journal reported in December 2005. By 2010, the Journal predicted, “West Africa will be the world’s number one oil source outside of OPEC.”

It is in this context that we must view the world’s growing interest in African oil. African oil output may never reaches the levels of the Middle East but it is expected to continue growing in the years ahead at a time when output from many other areas is in decline—and this, more than anything else, makes it significant. Combined oil output by all African producers is projected to rise by 91 percent between 2002 and 2025, from 8.6 to 16.4 million bbl/d. Even if this projection proves overly optimistic, Africa will still figure among the very few major producing areas that are expected to post significant production increases in the years ahead. In an environment where any increment in output will be highly prized, Africa is thus a powerful magnet for the world’s giant oil companies.


The United State now obtains about 24 percent of its total oil imports from Africa As a result, the United States now imports more oil from the African continent than from the entire Middle East, and is expected to get an even larger percentage of its oil imports from Africa in the coming years. In December 2000, the National Intelligence Council of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Africa would be supplying 25 percent of America’s total oil imports by 2015. Most oil industry analysts now believe that this estimate was too conservative and that Africa will actually be supplying a considerably greater percentage of U.S. oil imports throughout the next decade.


Despite the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009, U.S. government policy on the procurement of African oil is largely governed by the National Energy Policy Report—the final report of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG)—which was issued on May 17, 2001. The NEPDG was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, a high-level body appointed by President Bush in February 2001, and its final document is often referred to as the “Cheney Report.” In the most general terms, the report calls on the federal government to undertake numerous initiatives to substantially increase the nation’s supply of energy, including energy derived from petroleum. In light of Africa’s unique ability to increase its oil output in the years ahead, the Cheney report highlighted Africa’s potential to supply an ever-increasing share of America’s energy needs. “West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and natural gas for the American market,” the report states. Moreover, “African oil tends to be of high quality and low in sulfur, making it suitable for stringent refined product requirements.” Particular mention is made of the oil potential of Nigeria and Angola. Nigeria’s 2001 production is estimated at 2.1 million bbl/d in the report, and that country is said to harbor “ambitious production goals as high as 5 million barrels of oil per day over the coming decades.” Angola is also described as a “major source of growth,” with the potential “to double its exports over the next ten years.” On this basis, the Cheney report calls for vigorous action by the United States to promote increased oil output in Africa and to channel these additional supplies to markets in the United States. To accomplish this, American oil companies are encouraged to increase their investments in Africa and African countries are encouraged to welcome and facilitate such investment.


AFRICOM has stressed that its mission is not combat-oriented. But I share the concern that this will inevitably develop. U.S. military officials confirmed that the Defense Department was considering the formation of a 1,000-strong Marine rapid deployment force for the continent. One of those could well be in Nigeria, which is grappling with a 5-year-old insurgency in its southern oil-producing zone, the country's economic backbone, Christian-Muslim conflicts in the north and a deepening political crisis over the presidency. The religious fighting has raised fears that al-Qaida will find Nigeria, one of Africa's main oil producers and an important supplier to the United States, fertile ground for infiltration. The collapse of Africa's most populous nation would threaten U.S. oil imports and could, according to some analysts, bring down much of oil-rich West Africa with it. A 2005 Central Intelligence Agency assessment of Africa's long-term prospects predicted that "most of Africa will become increasingly marginalized as many states struggle to overcome sub-par economic performance, weak state structures and poor governance."
China's growing encroachment on the continent in Beijing's ever-growing drive for oil, gas and raw materials for its expanding economy is also seen as a potential threat since the West also wants them. This could lead to power struggles in a score of African states.


In May 2008, the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, hosted “Unified Quest 2008,” the Army’s annual war games to test the American military’s ability to deal with the kind of crises that it might face in the near future. “Unified Quest 2008” was especially noteworthy because it was the first time that the war games included African scenarios as part of the Pentagon’s plan to create a new military command for the continent. The five-day war games—co-sponsored by the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), the Special Forces Command, and the Joint Forces Command—were designed to look at what crises might erupt in different parts of the world in five to 25 years and how the United States might handle them. In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers, “Unified Quest 2008” brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games.

One of the four scenarios that were executed was a test of how AFRICOM could respond to a crisis in Somalia—set in 2025—caused by escalating insurgency and piracy. Unfortunately, no information on the details of the scenario is available. Far more information is available on the other scenario—set in 2013—which was a test of how AFRICOM could respond to a crisis in Nigeria in which the Nigerian government is near collapse, and rival factions and rebels are fighting for control of the oil fields of the Niger Delta and vying for power in that oil-rich country, the sixth largest supplier of America’s oil imports.

The list of options for the Nigeria scenario ranged from diplomatic pressure to military action, with or without the aid of European and African nations. One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days, which even he thought was undesirable. “American intervention could send the wrong message that we are backing a government that we don’t intend to,” Stanovich said. Other participants suggested that it would be better if the U.S. government sent a request to South Africa or Ghana to send troops into Nigeria instead.
As the game progressed it was determined that the government of Nigeria was a large part of the problem. “We have a circle of elites [the government of Nigeria] who have seized resources and are trying to perpetuate themselves. Their interests are not exactly those of the people.” (Brackets in original text). The game ended without direct U.S. military intervention on the ground, because one of the rival factions executed a successful coup and formed a new government that sought stability. As a result of the coup, “we no longer had tensions. Now what you had was a government interested in reconciliation between various tribal factions, NGOs, and multinational organizations to build capacity for humanitarian relief.” said U.S. Army Major Robert Thornton, an officer with the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.


At the end of the war game the participants drew up a set of recommendations for the Army’s Chief of Staff, General George Casey, for him to present to President Bush. These recommendations do not appear to be publicly available, so we don’t know what the participants concluded as a result of the war games beyond the lessons mentioned in Thornton’s report. But we do know that since the war games took place in the midst of the presidential election campaign, General Casey decided to brief both John McCain and Barack Obama on the results of the exercise. However, one can easily draw the conclusion that should a similar scenario arise in the future that the American Government would do it’s utmost to ensure the result is the same as that of the wargame. The establishment, by any means necessary, of a puppet government.


We can only wonder what Barack Obama thought of the wargame and what lessons he learned from General Casey’s briefing. One might hope that he came away with a new appreciation for the danger, if not the outright absurdity, of pursuing the strategy of unilateral American military intervention in Africa pioneered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was retained as Defense Secretary by President Obama when he took office, and Army Chief of Staff General George Casey, who also kept his job under the Obama administration. But President Obama has decided instead to expand the operations of AFRICOM throughout the continent. He has proposed a budget for 2010 that will provide increased security assistance to repressive and undemocratic governments in resource-rich countries like Nigeria, Niger, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to countries that are key military allies of the United States like Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Rwanda, and Uganda. And he has actually chosen to escalate U.S. military intervention in Africa, most conspicuously by providing arms and training to the beleaguered Transitional Federal Government of Somalia as part of his effort to make Africa a central battlefield in the Global War on Terrorism. So it is clearly wishful thinking to believe that his exposure to the real risks of such a strategy revealed by these hypothetical scenarios gave him a better appreciation of the risks that the strategy entails.


In fact as recent as 11 October 2011, President Barack Obama announced he was sending 100 combat troops to central Africa to advise forces aiming to hunt down the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army, which stands accused of gross human rights abuses over the course of two decades.  In a letter to Congress, Mr Obama said: "These forces will act as advisers to partner forces that have the goal of removing from the battlefield Joseph Kony and other senior leadership of the LRA. In an attempt to head off criticism, Mr Obama stressed that the American troops would not act independently and would only fire on LRA forces "in self-defence". "Although the US forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces," the president said.

The United States’ interest in Africa is driven by America’s desire to secure valuable natural resources and political influence that will ensure the longevity of America’s capitalist system, military industrial complex, and global economic superiority – achieved through the financial and physical control of raw material exports. While America’s prosperity may be waning due to a number of current factors, policy makers are bent on trying to preserve America’s global domination and will pursue policy objectives regardless of the downturn in the economy at large. The U.S. has a long history of foreign intervention and long ago perfected the art of gaining access to other countries’ natural, human, and capital resource markets through the use of foreign trade policy initiatives, international law, diplomacy, and, when all else fails, military intervention. Typically and historically, diplomatic efforts have largely been sufficient for the U.S. to establish itself as a player in other nations’ politics and economies.

The U.S. has followed a great deal of its diplomatic interventions with the establishment of extensive networks of foreign military posts - designed to influence other nations and protect what are defined as U.S. strategic national interests. This global reach is evidenced by an extensive network of over 737 military installations all around the globe, from Ecuador to Uzbekistan, Colombia to Korea. The model for successfully accessing these nations and their critical financial and commodities markets is changing, however, particularly as it relates to renewed intervention in Africa. The new intervention is directly linked to two factors: the fast paced and heated battle with rivals China and Russia over their access to key natural resources, and the U.S.’ declining ability to manage a bloated international network of overseas military outposts.

Access to natural resources – particularly oil and rare earth elements - is critical for the U.S. to remain a dominant industrial and military power, especially since the U.S. has experienced a decline in natural resource production while China’s production and foreign access to strategic materials has only increased. A sustained increase in oil imports has been underway since domestic U.S. oil production peaked in the 1970s, with oil imports surpassing domestic production in the early 1990s. Strategic metals, such as the titanium used in military aircraft, and rare earth elements used in missile guidance systems are increasingly produced by China or under the control of Chinese companies. The issue is of such importance that 2009 saw the creation of the annual Strategic Metals Conference, a forum designed to address concerns related to US access to metals with important industrial and military uses. The second annual conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio in January 2010, saw dozens of engineers and military personnel express heightened concern over China’s near monopoly over rare earth metals. China controls around 95% of the world’s rare earth output and has decided to restrict the export of these metals, leaving international consumers short by approximately 20,000 tons in 2010.

China’s rapidly developing economy, recently over taking Japan as the world’s second largest, continues to log nine to ten percent annual growth in Gross Domestic Product, and is fueled by a rapidly growing middle class as well as new export markets around the world. The demand for raw materials has led to new policy initiatives in which Africa has taken center stage for Chinese investment. China has gained access to Africa by, in large part, offering favorable aid packages to several nations which include loans, debt forgiveness, and job training. In contrast to Western aid packages, Chinese aid has few if any strings attached.

China’s platform for developing trade with and providing aid to Africa was of such importance that in October 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was launched. Fifty African nations participate in the forum which serves as the foundation for building bridges of economic trade as well as political and cultural exchange. The forum, and indeed China’s Africa strategy as a whole, has been so successful that Africans view China as an equal partner in trade and development, validating the politically and culturally significant “South-South” economic alliance that the FOCAC maintains is at the foundation of its engagement with Africa. This plays on the historical disparities that Western powers created and exploited in their former “North-South” colonial relationships with Africa and has been a key factor in developing strong bonds and a highly favorable opinion of China among Africans. Survey data indicates that most Africans share the view of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade when he says:

“China’s approach to our needs is simply better adapted than the slow and sometimes patronizing post-colonial approach of European investors, donor organizations and nongovernmental organizations. In fact, the Chinese model for stimulating rapid economic development has much to teach Africa. With direct aid, credit lines and reasonable contracts, China has helped African nations build infrastructure projects in record time—bridges, roads, schools, hospitals, dams, legislative buildings, stadiums and airports. In many African nations, including Senegal, improvements in infrastructure have played important roles in stimulating economic growth.”

“It is a telling sign of the post-colonial mindset that some donor organizations in the West dismiss the trade agreements between Chinese banks and African states that produce these vital improvements—as though Africa was naive enough to just offload its precious natural resources at bargain prices to obtain a commitment for another stadium or state house.”

In fact, opinion polls clearly reveal that Africans see Chinese influence as being far more positive than U.S. influence. China has clearly gained a substantive advantage in working with dozens of African nations as U.S. influence continues to wane.

Russia has also taken a renewed interest in Africa, reminiscent to some in the U.S. media as a revision of the Soviet Union’s Africa Strategy in which the Soviet Union created numerous “Soviet Treaties of Friendship and Cooperation” as a counterweight to Western capitalism and institutions like the United States Agency for International Development, (USAID). Russian President Medvedev, and Prime Minister Putin have been making their rounds in Africa with “legions of Russian businessmen, targeting diamonds, oil, gas, and uranium” and have been establishing commodities production agreements with several nations. Putin’s push to restore Russia’s international stature, power, and prestige has led Russia to purchase in excess of $5 billion of African assets between 2000 and 2007. Russia’s investments in and trade with Africa are quite small when compared with both the U.S. and China. Still, Russia has made an increase in trade and the acquisition of African raw materials.

Chinese and Russian influence is quickly spreading and is seen in many cases as a viable and preferable alternative to the Western model which, particularly considering Africa’s colonial past, is seen to attach unfavorable conditions to aid and development that are designed to enrich the West at the expense of the people of Africa. Africans have in effect identified what sociologist Johan Galtung considers to be a “disharmony of interests” that the U.S. is trying to manage through new diplomatic efforts. The U.S. continues to lose influence in Africa to China and Russia, both of which are increasing their influence at a steady clip, and continues to be branded as imperialist in the eyes of Africans. The U.S. is well aware that it needs to improve its image in Africa in order to realize its strategic goals.

To acheve this the US has embarked on a covert militarization strategy. Of some interest is Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, a key military outpost and strategically important piece of real-estate in the Horn of Africa, precisely where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. The United States government entered into an agreement with the government of Djibouti that has several striking features:



· U.S. military personnel have diplomatic immunity
· The United States has sole jurisdiction over the criminal acts of its personnel
· U.S. personnel may carry arms in the Republic of Djibouti
· The U.S. may import any materials and equipment it requires into the Republic of Djibouti
· No claims may be brought against the U.S. for damage to property or loss of life
· Aircraft, vessels, and vehicles may enter, exit, and move freely throughout the Republic of Djibouti.

Such an agreement allows the U.S. to maintain a small permanent presence in Djibouti, but staff and stock up with as many military personnel and weapons as it deems fit for any particular operation inside or outside of Africa as needed. Additionally, the agreement gives the U.S. the flexibility it wants to operate freely without interference from or liability to the people and government of Djibouti.

This base offsets a number of problems with AFRICOM. After several nations objected to the presence of a physical headquarters in Africa, AFRICOM’s commander, General William E. Ward, went on record several times to say that a physical command presence was not needed in Africa (even though the U.S. initially did try quite hard but unconvincingly to establish a permanent headquarters there). The command is currently based in Stuttgart, Germany, and will remain there for the foreseeable future, mainly in deference to African objections.

AFRICOM’s size was also an important factor. It has no large garrisons, no sizeable staff beyond the headquarters in Germany and the small number of forces and civilian support personnel based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti as part of Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), and no large armory to sustain division or brigade sized operations. The small size and staff of U.S. basing operations like CJTF-HOA is the new model for U.S. foreign intervention. Instead of large garrisons, the U.S. has created a series of Forward Operating Locations (FOLs). FOLs are “smaller, cheaper, and can thus be more plentiful. In short, the FOL can lie in wait with a low carrying cost until a crisis arrives, at which point it can be quickly expanded to rise to whatever the occasion demands.” Arrangements have been made with several countries, north, south, east, and west, including Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia.

AFRICOM’s staffing structure is a military-civilian hybrid for two reasons: to convey the message that the combatant command does not have an exclusive military purpose, and to gain influence over African nations’ domestic and foreign policies. AFRICOM has a civilian deputy commander and a large civilian staff, in part made up of U.S. State Department personnel, (a usual euphemism for CIA personnel). These civilian personnel include foreign policy advisors from the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs, humanitarian assistance advisors from the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as advisors from the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security. Africa’s burgeoning relationships with China are seen as undermining Western “efforts to bolster good governance, improve respect for human rights, and reduce corruption,” hence the need for civilian subject matter expertise to help the Africans manage their civil affairs and security.

To overcome poor public relations, the command built several activities into the structure of AFRICOM, to include the building of schools in poor villages, air and sea port construction projects, the distribution of medicine and textbooks to children, military-to-military training programs, and legal operational support. Military personnel have also taken a more deferential tone in speaking about the way AFRICOM interfaces with African nations. Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller explained: “We do not lead or create policy . . . . Our programs are designed to respond to what our African partners have asked us to do.”

Public relations efforts have been of such importance to the military, the U.S. Army War College published a research paper in March 2008, entitled “Combating African Questions about the Legitimacy of AFRICOM”. The paper expressed Africa’s strategic importance to the United States, yet recognises that the creation of AFRICOM prompted a “hostile” response from African leaders. It urged the U.S. to learn more about African institutions and to engage them rather than ignore them. It also advocated that U.S. personnel gain a stronger understanding of Africa’s colonial past while pushing for African nations to become more multilateral in working towards a common goal. It called for the increased use of “soft power” that could be leverage by the U.S. Department of State in winning the public relations fight for Africa.

The world need to keep a close eye on the unfolding of events in Africa. This especially applies to those of us of African decent. The economic giants of the world have their sights firmly set on Mother Africa and the board is being set up for one hell of a game. Let us hope that commonsense prevail and the people of Africa can benefit from all this attention. But...who am I fooling.

Let me conclude with a thought provoking quote from Kwame Nkrumah that is as relevant today as when he led Ghana into independence in 1957. He was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963.

"A recent development in the psychological war is the campaign to convince us that we cannot govern ourselves, that we are unworthy of genuine independence, and that foreign tutelage is the only remedy for our wild, warlike and primitive ways. Imperialism has done its utmost to brainwash Africans into thinking that they need the strait-jackets of colonialism and neocolonialism if they are to be saved from their retrogressive instincts. Such is the age-old racialist justification for the economic exploitation of our continent."   Kwame Nkrumah

Monday 14 November 2011

If your Neighbour’s House is on Fire. Wet yours.

Protestors outside St. Paul's Cathedral.
Over the past few months, I was paying close attention to the Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010. To date revolutions have occurred in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya, resulting in the fall of its regime; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman; and minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. Clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 have also been inspired by the regional Arab Spring. I had heard of the Occupy Wall Street movement but was of the opinion that it was a strictly American undertaking until on 17 October 2011when London police sealed off routes to the London Stock Exchange, (LSE), and the same day Italian officers conducted nationwide raids following protests against economic inequality. Only then did I realise that the protests spanned four continents.

The following was an online comment made with regards to the ongoing protest in America that in my opinion aptly sums up the Occupy Wall Street struggle.

“ These governors, mayors, city councils, police chiefs and street cops of America need to realize that it is NOT UP TO THEM whether or not Americans peaceably gather , protest, discuss, or demonstrate. It's up to a document called the US CONSTITUTION. Zuccotti Park is no longer just a place - Zuccotti Park is everywhere. You can beat us and arrest us and tear-gas us, you can try to "permit" us to death....but you can't kill an idea. You can't keep down a people’s hopes and dreams for a better life.....a life with dignity and freedom....for us, and for our kids. More power to Occupy Wall Street, as it spreads to every town and city. Because OWS is us, and for us, and by us. It comes up from the grassroots, and it lifts us up in turn. With OWS America has found it’s voice, and that voice demands fairness and justice - for ALL. This land IS our land! AND WE WANT IT BACK! We want our LIVES back! We want our FUTURE back! But it’s much more than just words.... it’s much more than just politics.... it’s your LIFE, and how you want to live it. So why not take some time, find a quiet place somewhere, and consider this: Each of us has only one brief life....one chance....one roll of the dice....and many choices. The time has come to choose....to risk...and to act. If not now...then when? If not you, then....who? You DO have the power my friend....and the choice IS yours. Don’t let your dreams die....”

More than 800 people have been arrested in New York since the protests began in September 2011 as demonstrators solidified their hold on Zuccotti Park, which has become the headquarters of Occupy Wall Street. The demonstrations began with about 6,000 people gathering in Times Square for what organizers called a “global day of action against Wall Street greed” on October 15. The protests then spread to Europe and Asia, with more than 100 people injured in Rome after as many as 200,000 people gathered. Italian police launched raids in cities including Rome and Milan, according to the Ansa news agency, while gas masks and balaclavas were seized in Florence. A board placed on Paternoster Square, home to the LSE, said the area is private and that “any licence to the public to enter or cross this land is revoked forthwith.”

In Amsterdam, protesters lined up at the entrance of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and greeted employees with slogans. Demonstrators burnt fake money and hosted an alternative exchange, bidding for “shares” titled stress, health, future and happiness. About 50 people took over a disused hotel close to the Puerta del Sol square, the focus of demonstrations in Madrid. In Zurich, an estimated 1,200 protesters at the weekend occupied the Paradeplatz, home of Credit Suisse Group AG, the Swiss Social Democratic Party’s youth organization said in a press release. Over 60 people stayed overnight, until police asked them to leave. Protests have now moved to the nearby Lindenhof, overlooking Zurich’s old town. In Australia, about 30 people gathered in front of the central bank in Sydney. Signs on a nearby fence included: “When I do it, it’s counterfeiting. When the Reserve Bank does it, it’s called Quantitative Easing.” Another 70 protestors occupied Melbourne’s city square in front of the Westin Hotel. Chicago police arrested about 175 protestors in Grant Park after they refused to disperse. Tokyo, Toronto and other cities also saw protests in support of the month-old movement, which organizers say represents “the 99 percent,” a nod to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. In Hong Kong, protests continue after about 40 demonstrators slept overnight in a foyer beneath the Asian headquarters of HSBC Holdings Plc in the central financial district. Equipped with tents, bullhorns and a gas-powered generator used to help them recharge their laptops, the protesters occupied the public thoroughfare under the building as about a dozen police stood by. Demonstrations were also held in Seoul and Taipei. In Rome on October 15, firecrackers were thrown at the Ministry of Defense and windows of Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini and Poste Italiane SpA shattered. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called “the unbelievable violence” in Rome “a worrying signal for civil coexistence.”

It is estimated that there were demonstrations in 1,500 cities worldwide, including 100 in the U.S.
When Metropolitan Police officers carrying batons and gas sprays manned steel barriers close to St Paul’s Cathedral in London, blocked supporters of the Occupy London Stock Exchange group from approaching the LSE they set into motion an interested series of events.When the protestors were denied access to the LSE they took up residence in the environs of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The protestors main targets are bankers and politicians, whom they blame for a capitalist system they say has gone badly wrong, yet their presence outside St. Paul's has also caused deep division within England's official church, the Church of England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion.. Soon after they arrived, the clerics who run St. Paul's shut the cathedral for nearly a week, citing safety reasons. St. Paul's hasn't closed since Hitler's bombers blitzed London. There was a huge outcry and words of disapproval, even from other churchmen.

The controversy grew even bigger when St. Paul's launched legal proceedings to remove the protest camp. Some clerics believe the church should, like Jesus, be on the side of the poor and, therefore, should support the protestors. A heated debate began in Britain about the church's role. "Wasn't there some old anarchist way back who stormed into a church, knocking over tables, complaining about moneylenders?" a blogger asked. (Yes, he meant Jesus.) Yet St Paul's was now telling protesters to leave. 

It was losing £16,000 ($24,700) a day in tourist revenue.

Perceptions grew that the cathedral's main concern was money. On October 27, Giles Fraser tweeted his resignation as Canon Chancellor. Three day later, the Dean resigned too. I found the resignation of Giles Fraser indicative of the level of turmoil within the church because as a cleric Giles Fraser has never been afraid to court controversy. The married father-of-three, 46, is widely known as a media commentator and is a regular tweeter. Ordained as a deacon in 1993, he was a philosophy lecturer before being appointed St Paul's Canon Chancellor in May 2009. He was a founder of Inclusive Church, the best-known group campaigning for the full recognition of gay lifestyles. At the height of concern about homosexual clergy in 2008, he welcomed the world's first openly gay Anglican Bishop, the Right Reverend Gene Robinson, to preach in his church. This was despite the bishop having been banned from attending a special church conference on the issue.

England's bishops were strangely silent about the turmoil in the cathedral, and until recently even the Archbishop of Canterbury had nothing to say. There was national incredulity. The church, jeered Mark Field, Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, was a national joke. "The whole thing is farcical," said Field. "You couldn't make it up. This tented community has been there for two weeks and has hardly brought the foundations of capitalism to its knees. The only capitalist organisation that has lost out is St Paul's."

The church's most senior cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has now weighed in. He's positive about the protest.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: “It's triggered awareness of the unfinished business really in the financial sector. The unfinished business between government and banks, the whole sense of the need to press for something that will deliver a juster more rational system.”
The comments of the Archbishop would seem to be in favour of the protestors but I believe it was an attempt to mitigate the damaging image of the Church being more motivated by money than by people’s sufferings. I must confess that I have always had concerns about the financing of the Church of England, given it’s history and association with the infamous Roman Catholic Church. This caused me to conduct some research into their funding.

It takes just over £1000 million a year to run the Church of England, financing its 13,000 parishes and 43 cathedrals. Around three-quarters (£750 million) comes from worshippers in the parishes. Around 15 per cent (over £160 million) comes from the Church Commissioners who manage assets of £4.4 billion (at the end of 2008) on behalf of the Church. In addition, income for the Church of England is generated from:
£50 million through income on reserve funds in parishes;
£50 million through income on reserves in dioceses and cathedrals;
£30 million from fees paid for weddings, funerals and chaplaincies.

The Church of England’s investment portfolio is made up of shares in banks, oil and mining companies, according to its latest annual report. Despite criticism of bankers' bonuses by church leaders and a commitment for the church to go green, its top 20 share holdings at the end of 2009 included BP and Shell, mining companies Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, banks HSBC and Barclays, as well as Nestle. More on these later.

The investment portfolio of the Church is managed by the Church Commissioners who have a goal of maximising profit within an ‘ethical framework’. I personally have my doubts that ethics and the pursuit of maximum profits can coexist in the same organisation but that is just my opinion.

The Church also has substantial holdings in commercial property including out of town shopping centres. It has sold a significant proportion of its social housing over the last 25 years. The Church Commissioners' 2009 annual results reports that they had achieved a 15.6 per cent return on their investments during 2009 as the stock market recovered. The Commissioners’ asset value grew to £4.8 billion at the end of 2009. The value of the assets of the Church Commissioners ten years ago was £4.4 billion.
“The Church Commissioners have had a satisfactory first decade of the twenty-first century”, writes the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, in his introduction to the Report.
“The bottom line is that the Commissioners’ assets grew at an annual rate of 5.1 per cent, two percentage points better than the average fund and 2.4 per cent faster than inflation or, in other words, by 2.4 per cent per annum in real terms.”

The Church Commissioners say they do not see their work as part of the church’s mission, but something that funds it. “Our task is to develop proposals on how best the Commissioners’ funds should be used to advance the Church’s mission”,

The above statement is saying to me that the Commissioners'  job is to make money. We are not part of the Church’s mission therefore we are not bound by any religious, moral or ethical concerns in the pursuit of making money.

The Church of England’s Top 20 Shareholdings (figures in £millions)
HSBC (94.8)
BP (90.7)
Royal Dutch Shell (82.1)
Vodafone (69.1)
GlaxoSmithKline (54.8)
Rio Tinto (37.8)
BHP Billiton (34.4)
AstraZeneca (33.2)
Tesco (29.8)
BG (29.5)
Unilever (29.4)
Anglo American (28.9)
Standard Chartered (27.2)
Barclays (24.6)
Nestle (23.0)
Reckitt Benckiser (18.4)
Microsoft (17.8)
Xstrata (17.4)
Treasury Variable Rate Index L
inked 2017 (17.0)
Wal-Mart Stores (14.0)

In light of the above I find it rather difficult to believe that the Church of England is on the side of the man in the street protesting the power and influence of “big business”. They are themselves big business!
Furthermore, the above only show the Church’s major holdings. What about the 6 Million dollars they have invested in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Despite the questionably ethical standards of many of News Corp. publications and media houses, the Church of England would not part with it’s shares even in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, because they still see it as a “good investment”.

Since 1977, Nestle had been under international scrutiny for it’s role in the promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries, which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary suffering and even deaths of babies, largely among the poor. In May 2011, the debate over Nestlé's unethical marketing of infant formula was relaunched in the Asia-Pacific region. 19 leading Laos-based international NGOs, including Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE International, Plan International and World Vision have launched a boycott of Nestlé and written an open letter to the company. Among other unethical practices, the NGOs criticized the lack of labelling in Laos and the provision of incentives to doctors and nurses to promote the use of infant formula. Despite this the Church of England still has 23 Million pounds invested in Nestle. Why? They know that Nestles business practices, though questionable, net them huge profits.

Their substantial investments in pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline (£54.8 million) and AstraZeneca (£33.2 million) does no give them the Church any incentives to promote good health practices among the peoples of the world nor does their interest in BP (£90.7 million), Royal Dutch Shell (£82.1 million), BHP Billiton (£34.4 million), Anglo American (£28.9 million), inspire confidence in the Church’s promotion of a Green World. Investments in Barclays (£24.6 million) and HSBC (£94.8 million) makes one question the Archbishop's sincerity in supporting banking reform to the detriment of the Church’s bottom line. (HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world. HSBC's international network comprises around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.)

This is only one fund administered by the Church. Space would not permit me to examine the investments of the £1 Billion. (yes with a “B”) managed by the Church of England Pensions Board and the millions managed by the CBF Church of England funds. Suffice to say they are advised by the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. The same group that advises the Church Commissioners.

In the fight between ethics and money, money will always win. Ethics will not help in the maintenance of church buildings and new building work costing in the region of £160 million per year. As a business man I understand the economics but don’t preach, (pun intended), to me about ethics.

The world stand at a crossroads. People all over are clamouring for change. People has lost confidence in their politicians and their Churches. As I continue to observe the uprisings in Middle East, the rumblings in Europe, the USA, Asia, Africa and Australia, I wonder where is all of this leading. Coming closer to home, let us not forget that in early March 2011, protests targeting pay cuts to civil servants and increased utilities rates broke out on Providenciales Island, the commercial and tourism center of the Turks and Caicos islands. Protestors blocked the road to the airport, some chaining themselves to roadside railings, threatening the vital tourist industry. Talks between the demonstrators and the British officials in charge of the dependency were soon arranged. On March 16, Britain announced that that it would deliver a “bail-out package” for the islands worth $417 million, a sizable figure considering the fact that territory’s entire GDP in 2006 was an estimated $722 million. Although the British government insisted that the “rescue package will not be used … to reverse current cuts,” it did reduce tensions, at least temporarily.

October 2011 saw States of Emergency and curfews in Trinidad, curfews in Westmoreland, St. Catherine and August Town, St. Andrew in Jamaica. How long before we start seeing similar actions across the wider Caribbean? The Trinidadians have a saying, “If your neighbour’s house is on fire. Wet yours.” We are definitely seeing the smoke. As I was writing this, a passage I had not read for many years came to mind.

“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” Revelation 6:4

I can clearly see that “peace is being taken from the earth”. And, the scariest part of this is....I am not religious.

Friday 11 November 2011

We Will Remember Them.


World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

We must remember that this is also a day on which millions of people enter a quiet meditative state around the world to remember the start of peace at the end of WWI, at exactly 11AM. This not a simple coincidence but an engineered artefact of global history. Someone choose the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11 month as a time that required people going quiet and thinking of peace. Was this to harness energy on some special event in the future?

In Barbados, Remembrance Day, unlike some parts of the world, is not a public holiday. It is recognized as November 11, but the parade and ceremonial events are carried out on Remembrance Sunday. The day is observed to recognize the Barbadian soldiers who died fighting in the First and Second World Wars.

However, when speaking to my teenage daughter about Remembrance Day I realized that it held very little significance for her. In fact she didn’t even know what it meant. I vividly remember the Roll of Honour 1 & 2, of the fallen being read off the plaques on the School Hall in a special morning ceremony at the Lodge School every Remembrance Day, beginning with the reciting of the Ode of Remembrance:-

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.


How many schools today bother to observe the traditions and teach the stories that have shaped the lives of my generation. I was still at the Lodge School when I first heard the story of The Unknown Warrior from the late, Capt. Carol Mapp. Capt. Mapp was a chemistry teacher at the Lodge School and the Officer in charge of No.2 Cadet Company, of which I was a proud member. Fortunately for me, a few years later, the then Major Mapp was Barbados’s Military Attache in London when I was an Officer Cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. At my request, Major Mapp arranged for me to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the museum in Westminster Abbey. And to this day I can say that it was one of the most awesome and soul fulfilling occasions of my life.

The British tomb of The Unknown Warrior holds an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, London on 11 November 1920, simultaneously with a similar internment of a French unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in France, making both tombs the first to honour the unknown dead of the First World War.

The idea of a Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was first conceived in 1916 by the Reverend David Railton, who, while serving as an army chaplain on the Western Front, had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil-written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'.
He wrote to the Dean of Westminster in 1920 proposing that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried with due ceremony in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to represent the many hundreds of thousands of Empire dead. The idea was strongly supported by the Dean and the then Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Arrangements were placed in the hands of Lord Curzon of Kedleston who prepared in committee the service and location. Suitable remains were exhumed from various battlefields and brought to the chapel at Ste Pol near Arras, France on the night of 7 November 1920. The bodies were received by Rev George Kendall OBE. Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt and Lieutenant Colonel E.A.S. Gell of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries went into the chapel alone. The remains were on stretchers each covered by Union Flags: the two officers did not know from which battlefield any individual body had come. General Wyatt with closed eyes rested his hand on one of the bodies. The two officers placed the body in a plain coffin and sealed it. The other bodies were then taken away for reburial by Rev Kendall.

The coffin stayed at the chapel overnight and on the afternoon of November 8, it was transferred under guard and escorted by Rev Kendall, with troops lining the route, from Ste Pol to the medieval castle within the ancient citadel at Boulogne. A company from the French 8th Infantry Regiment, recently awarded the Légion d'Honneur en masse, stood vigil overnight. The following morning, two undertakers entered the castle library and placed the coffin into a casket of the oak timbers of trees from Hampton Court Palace. The casket was banded with iron and a medieval crusader's sword, chosen by the king personally from the Royal Collection, was affixed to the top and surmounted by an iron shield bearing the inscription 'A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country'.

The casket was then placed onto a French military wagon, drawn by six black horses. At 10.30 am, all the church bells of Boulogne tolled; the massed trumpets of the French cavalry and the bugles of the French infantry played Aux Champs (the French "Last Post"). Then, the mile-long procession – led by one thousand local schoolchildren and escorted by a division of French troops – made its way down to the harbour.
At the quayside, Marshal Foch saluted the casket before it was carried up the gangway of the destroyer, HMS Verdun, and piped aboard with an admiral's call. The Verdun slipped anchor just before noon and was joined by an escort of six battleships. As the flotilla carrying the casket closed on Dover Castle it received a 19-gun Field Marshal's salute. It was landed at Dover Marine Railway Station at the Western Docks on 10 November. The body of the Unknown Warrior was carried to London in South Eastern and Chatham Railway General Utility Van No.132. The van has been preserved by the Kent and East Sussex Railway. The train went to Victoria Station, where it arrived at platform 8 at 8.32 pm that evening and remained overnight. (A plaque at Victoria Station marks the site: every year on 10 November, a small Remembrance service takes place between platforms 8 and 9.)

On the morning of 11 November 1920, the casket was placed onto a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery and drawn by six horses through immense and silent crowds. As the cortege set off, a further field marshal's salute was fired in Hyde Park. The route followed was Hyde Park Corner, The Mall, and to Whitehall where the Cenotaph, a "symbolic empty tomb", was unveiled by King-Emperor George V. (The Cenotaph in Barbados was built 5 years later in 1925).The cortège was then followed by the king, the Royal Family and ministers of state to Westminster Abbey, where the casket was borne into the West Nave of the Abbey flanked by a guard of honour of one hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross.

The guests of honour were a group of about one hundred women. They had been chosen because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war. "Every woman so bereft who applied for a place got it".
The coffin was then interred in the far western end of the nave, only a few feet from the entrance, in soil brought from each of the main battlefields, and covered with a silk pall. Servicemen from the armed forces stood guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed silently past. The ceremony appears to have served as a form of catharsis for collective mourning on a scale not previously known.

The grave was then capped with a black Belgian marble stone (the only tombstone in the Abbey on which it is forbidden to walk) featuring this inscription, composed by Dean Ryle, Dean of Westminster, engraved with brass from melted down wartime ammunition:

BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY
OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY
11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY
MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT
WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT
MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE
HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD
HIS HOUSE
Around the main inscription are four texts:
THE LORD KNOWETH THEM THAT ARE HIS (top)
UNKNOWN AND YET WELL KNOWN, DYING AND BEHOLD WE LIVE (side)
IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE (base)
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS (side)


All of us can recall moments in our lives that help define us. Moments that we knew changed us. For reasons I have not ever fully understood, this story had a profound impact on my life and the direction I wanted it to take. This story was told to a number of us that Friday afternoon beneath the majestic Cabbage Palms that bordered the junior field. Capt. Mapp was in a rare talkative mood. Never before or since had he taken the time to talk to us in that way. I do not recall the names of the other lads that listened with me that afternoon and I cannot say how it effected them but I hope that they were somehow inspired as I was.

As I write this the clock on my computer has ticked passed midnight and the date now reads 11/11/11. Today at 11:11am as I pause in my busy day to observe two (2) minutes of silence in remembrance of all the soldiers who have given their lives, not only in the two World Wars but in the many conflicts since, it will be my solemn wish that our generation will not neglect our responsibility to instill into our children a sense of duty to country. How can they appreciate the freedoms they enjoy if they are not aware of the sacrifices that were made for them? Concepts like honour, dedication, perseverance, devotion, duty,faithfulness, fealty, obedience, obligation, must again be taught by the personal example of our leaders, parents, teachers and role models. In this month of remembrance and independence I will close with the words of Henry Ward Beecher:-

“A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.”