you mean speak to language. programs in documentaries in arabic in school here on. reporting from the world's hot spots seventy ip interviews intriguing stories for you. then try. to find out more visit our big. dog called. hello and welcome to cross talk were all things considered i'm peter all about a new scramble for africa cloaked under the guise of fighting terrorism and in

support of noble western values africa is again in play is this continent at the center of a vast natural resource grab why is the u.s. deploying troops in thirty four african countries and how does the new actor of china add to this mix. to cross the rio neill colonialization of africa i'm joined by michael mower in london he is an expert on africa at the london school of economics also in london we have adel darwish he is the political editor of the middle east magazine group and in paris we cross to emmanuel to plea he is the president of the institute for perspective security studies in europe all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want michael if i could go to you first i mean if you read western media it's the worst fighting terrorism jihadism in africa is that the worst problem africa has right now.

it's definitely one of the key problems africa is grappling with and a picture clearly to do with. mali and the fact that the whole of north of mali had until recently been occupied by terrorist jihadist islamist groups which basically had serious potential for destabilizing the whole region and of course the state of mali ok michael but does that justify interventions military interventions you think. it. becomes a problem for the international community and our smiley the state of mali is unable to do with it obviously there has to be international support and that can sometimes mean foreign intervention depending on the scenario at stake i mean in the case of mali at the ninth of january the international community had to

really get out and had postponed every action till september two thousand and thirteen but then the jihadists decided to make an incursion and were heading towards but michel on the ninth of january when france decided that they were going to intervene on the tenth of january to stalk the question and the violence towards but marco so actually the jihadists to go to burma call is more or less a blessing in disguise because if they hadn't done that the whole war that given up on mali and had left to its fate until september twenty third take a mighty. blessing and a spark disguised as kind of odd adel where do you come you know this if development issues or terrorism go. into a geographic and historic perspective. as we. understand. to establishing bases in the whole of the whole region which actually extends

from sub-saharan africa although we do. every single. it would be jihadists who actually started the. most of the the challenge the legitimacy of governments. when the us intervention even if you go back to nine eleven and new york which triggered the afghanistan war it was al qaida that. it's. ships in the city it's eight in the am and it was these you had this who actually started. the stability in somalia which led to piracy so what some people would call intervention came as a result of jihadist terrorist attacks not the other way around ok you wouldn't say mali was an example of that though would you. malley was

a classic example like afghanistan somalia and yemen where you have if you have a snake problem is. a spirit and the central government did not respond still you have a very large vast space with with sort of weak asunta law sort of here then you have military you've already admitted to me in mali because you know i just it's. exemplar to that coup and that is in. the end so in order to sort of learn from that it's not like afghanistan and somalia and so on you have to rush to fill that vacuum up fortunately the only sort of reasonable three in power with democratic accountability that had bases in the region with the french i'm. not i'm not going to the french by my view they drove eight hundred ma is.

perfectly i mean the issue is which is a different issue anyway not to leave them when they're on the whole african sort of community have to all right well that you mentioned france let's go to him and he went to paris ok go ahead paris react to what you just heard. well i would like to have come from to compliment to the point of you stating what you mention saying that is terrorism is judge is the major negative effect affecting the. afghan population let's have in mind that what is going on sale is a long jewing instability and the judges are there because there is into beginning the weakening of a certain number of states that's the first issue the second issue is saying that africa is nine hundred million inhabitants and that's ahead gaza's only one hundred fifty million inhabitants so what is happening now is hell and it's dreadful of

course and i'm grateful that france has been capable of intervening is a more wider problem it's a problem of the weakening of the states and the people who are replacing what normally should be the ledger to miti of a state the legitimacy of an army and the legitimate stakeholders so the major issue that is facing africa is weakening of state institution that's one second of all the lack of pan african solidarity which is also something that must be. put into interests and put in debate concerning the million and the syrian crisis and the third parts more than judaism is to link between jet isn't big criminality and the drug smuggling agenda which is huge in this part of africa but can also be. located in other parts let me let me i don't finish the let me go to

michael i mean why are these countries weak in the first place and you think military interventions are a good idea. well in this country's weak festival because it's a former colony of france and haven't kept iraq together since independence. it's a bit of a pep plex city that you know are these cuts are trying to say that france france is interested in states' legitimation or democrats for that matter if we look across africa apart from uganda which is unlawful and equatorial guinea which is loose a phone if you find any state in africa where the head of state has been there for a very long time and where the maximum limits of the presidency has been exceeded constitutionally you know road always francophone and we're talking about congo brazzaville come a room booking office so chad. tunisia and to recently got on to recently jail

until recently until recently all nine cases are francophone and the reason that happens because all these states have military pacts with france where bar france has special forces stationed in the capitals and the area is that if the head of state is in trouble let's see if there's a coup d'etat or france will jump to the aid of the person which actually means that they can rule with impunity they don't care about governance they don't care about they did to me ok ok did you meet your boy there emmanuel just let's go to paris go ahead and let's go to paradise to jump in on that specific specific point of view saying that france as you know in february two thousand and nine decided to . have a more transparent more. more. to really build to reshape its relation with a certain number of countries where military agreements i have to say that is not

one of the states where for outside the military remit child was neither one of the states or so we were. be very conscious on saying what my colleague has just said that special forces are here to intervene in case of a rebellion in case of domestic internal. misbehavior of militaries or rebels again france in this case in mali is intervening on behalf of a resolution united nations resolution twenty eighty five it is intervening on behalf of a follow up of african led mission i feel now and again it is only doing what others were willing to do but did not have the capability of doing as it was mentioned we do have bases in africa three bases one in when india also is when in djibouti and when you charge so that that has to be taken in consideration one last bit have in mind that

a many to many too late when you took power in one thousand nine hundred one was very democratic and that those other examples were democracy in francophone states is also a reality i would take the example of seagal ok adel go ahead jump in you want to jump in before go ahead. yes i was just going to say we should not really confuse. the reaction with the action or the cause. of the actions of the cause so the had actually been a stable democracy there would be a need for the french to intervene if we cast our mind back twenty years ago and what happened in rwanda. which was actually a mega mega tragedy i mean do we really want to wait. until another tragedy like rwanda actually happened and then we'll see well you know why didn't we intervene so actually ok michael i what we're hearing and hearing we're hearing you know this

africans can't rule themselves to him sounds like to me go ahead no i'm not i'm not going to i'm asking michael now cause and effect michael it's it's essentially you know. it would appear that france went in and that's all well and good because of the cover of a u.n. resolution but the underlying current really is our friends intervene because of their special interests in mali and of course about the backlash of the growth of terrorism which will in the end i think france if it does not intervene so it's not necessarily i mean the great gentlemen i'm going to jump in here and we have to go to a short break and after that short broke we'll continue our discussion on africa stay with our team. this one. isn't.

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welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about africa and the major powers. ok about to go back to paris manual why does france have to be so involved in africa i thought colonialism was over well it is absolutely well it doesn't look that way it doesn't look that way it looks like a neo colonial project now is that our head is that is that because we intervene when we were asked to do so it was the first time that we were doing that so i think it's a it's a rupture well you know you can say something's moral how it looks like moral hazard to me ok just call the french they'll take care of it. well just call the french because we are the only ones who have bases there it's base it's a it's broadly the the answer i will give to you is that we have force that are

predisposed to intervene because we are present throughout. mission in those we have a thousand four hundred soldiers now in charge and we are present in central africa again history is something you have to take into account and we are in a francophone area and most of these countries do have in mind that fifty percent of the currency of these countries is backed up by the. defense and the process are is also something we have to take in consideration as a legacy of story but let me just if you. please little please do please do respond to your question what is the interest that france is defending or the under agenda the secret agenda that france may have i would just has in mind that if that is the case then we should have intervened in a jail when there was a rebellion and there was

a coup in two thousand and ten because obviously most of the french interest if there is that is to be summarized in the jail in the lead where we have rain extraction we have very few. mining gold or oil or or gas extraction in the italians do so in the northern western part of many but not the french ok adel a lot of people would say it's an asset grab you know africa's the last great place to grab assets go ahead adele. well how i'm always sort of quiet and used by all these clear. neo colonialism and grabbing africa would be very interesting to see if any of those people who are are these columns which show me a spread sheets where for example the cost of french prisons in bases the cost of british intervention in libya and france.

how much of that cost of the british taxpayer french taxpayer any taxpayer going purred with the money. the sources coming out from this country whether it's mineral export and it imports taking out of that the local employment and tax collected by the governments of this country if actually someone comes out with this is a spread sheet and show me that french presence or british intervention adele western powers are in actually pretty. good going to tell then are you convinced by in some other countries do things out of interest michael go ahead jump in. well i mean you have to ask yourself where was france post-independence mali where the central government in bamako had several agreements over the decades with the other

words with the turks north and kept breaking these agreements to the extent that decided that they wanted independence where was friends in the jail where the president had basically stayed for too long and exceeded their limits where was france and all these other cases it's quite clear that there's a pattern that france is only interested in its interests in the natural resources and doesn't care too much about good governance and then when it comes to the critical point france into vain is to look and appear are safe where their savior but they're actually condoned the whole process to the. to the situation that brought to trouble. a lot of saddam now at least at so many cases at the at the office of what role has france been playing implicitly or explicitly see to bring this to us to this point ok menu in paris you want to respond to that. well

it's an everlasting debate as a frenchman i'm always obliged to defend the french policy and i would have to take basic facts france has been doing a three week operation a counter terrorist operation it is not a stab releasing operation. a few days ago our minister of french ministry of foreign affairs of abuse centers france once the mission is accomplished and there is a debate of what is the mission are we going to stop where once the major northern cities are liberated as go and to move to have been in the in the past days or are we going to pass. the mission to other actors and this is exactly what we're going to do again. who has in mind the schedule normally the words jew to intervene in next september we were obliged to intervene because no one at the military capability to stop the two

thousand. armed jihadist column which was heading from from from the north from the north to march and maybe to bamako or elsewhere book you never saw or western part of new year and i do have in mind that now we are into legend to mitt and legal intervention and this is precisely the fact why we are calling for a united nation why france is calling for united nations mission observation observer to be mission if france hadn't underneath agenda then we would do like we have done in the recent years and of course as an analyst i have to say that there is a shift in the nature of the. operations we do not have any more defense agreement we have shared strategic partnership with francophone countries and with other countries which which we did not have contacts i will take the example of nigeria

where we are training. patrol in order to enhance a more secure area in the gulf of guinea ok well military training doesn't always work out we saw that with mali i tell if i can ask you i mean do you see the militarization of africa i mean not in states the united states is arming and training a lot of armies on the continent is this worrying well i think the why is that the united states is not taking a leadership and now fortunately you have a president well it can only invade so many countries at a time. oh he's very he's very good in making speeches and the big bow is but when it comes to action it's zero. p.p. people especially on the left are used to love naked fun of president bush at least it was decisive. from obama we have not seen the leadership when it actually came

to libya and gadhafi and his sons was threatening to slaughter people from house to house and street to swell i mean libya didn't work out too well french still hasn't worked out very well and listen i'm going to french actually action not american action the american skin didn't give logistics and i wish i wish the americans with some kind of leadership because what we will have modern as it is the french action the french do not have the capability to actually sustain a long jump in there and it could be counterproductive yes the people of mali out applauding them and so on but the need finance and logistics support we don't want public opinion in france to turn against operation so you need some kind of international force and the only history has proved with american leadership in this kind of intervention it doesn't quite work well therefore why don't we go into the how do you define the mission well how do you define work well over the african union backing from the united go ahead jump in does advocate need more or less

interventions. africa needs. support where the mattis and i think i have to say that france ought to be congratulated for intervening on the tenth of january but part of it also it's because of the guilty complex on the back of the intervention in libya which actually caused a spillover of turkey's groups into mali itself. so i think that we need to sort of come to a situation where the union resolutions will be able to co-opt both international international support to to actually mitigate the whole civilian problem i mean just before the coup in march two thousand and twelve and with the whole international body had actually met in bamako to put together a package of humanitarian economic and military package for the whole problem.

up to that so i think that it would be a good idea to get back on track on those terms and whilst the un is currently pushing for putting together a resolution to take forward a military operation to secure the territorial integrity of mali i think that of the parties before the coup need to also come together on track to to to put together the whole package that will solve the problem. across mollies monies neighbors as well. so we'll have to wait and see you know the true role that dates national community i'm talking about africa equalize the u.n. security council france of course the us i mean we're aware that the u.s. now wants to have a drone base. in we are also aware that there is of those already a drone base in birkenau for so and i mean i mean. joe i'm going to give you the last word in a program is that good now american drones are going to africa is

a good. we're out of time i tell go ahead and i think drones from from from a tactical point of view sort of better making human errors because. pilots are humans after all of them actually drove the road in you were brawn's you know you're going to have these fears are going to be ok man you well i have you know we still have thirty seconds so many well go ahead you wanted to say something please to. just remind everyone that africa is not ok to do nothing that the strategy of the americans and they have this capability. everest as you mentioned captain sanogo was trained by the americans not by the french i have to put that clearly in mind of the spectators is having a dual point of view concerning all right i wish we had another half an hour gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in london and in paris and

thanks to our viewers for watching us here are t. see you next time and remember cross talk rules. download the official. cell phone language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television just. now with your mobile device you can watch r.t. anytime anywhere.

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