many question the sudden resignation of pope benedict the sixteenth shock waves that reverberate throughout the catholic world. forces reclaim the city where a surprise attack by militants almost spoils. of a victorious campaign. eighteen coal miners died in an underground blast and russia's republic investigation is now looking into the cause of the tragedy. coming up peter lavelle and his guests discuss the ongoing strife in africa and foreign interests there that's in cross talk next on our two.

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 actually china add to this mix. to cross the rio neal conan old zation 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 hear the president of the institute for

perspective security studies in europe all right gentlemen cross talk 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 at the moment a picture clearly to do with. mali and the fact that the whole of north of mali had until recently been occupied by terrorists and jihadists islamist groups which basically had serious potential for destabilizing the whole society and region and of course the state of mali 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 i mean in the case of mali at the ninth of january the international community had to really give out and had to postpone every action till september two thousand and thirteen but then the jihadist 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 cation and the advance towards about marcos so actually the jihadists to go to bomb our core 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 michael. blessing and

a spark disguised as kind of odd adel where do you come you know this if development issues of terrorism go. into a geographic and historic perspective. as we. understand the threat 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 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. you are. chips in aid in the am and it was you had this or actually started

well 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. well mally malley was a classic example like afghanistan somalia and yemen where you have if you have a snake problem. a spree that the central government did not respond to you have a very large vast space with with sort of weak asunta low sort of gear then your. military already admitted to me in mali it was you know i just it's. cool and that is in. the end so in order to sort of learn from that it's not

afghanistan and somalia and so on you have to rush to fill that vacuum fortunately the only sort of reasonable theory and power with democratic accountability that have bases in the region with the french i'm. not i'm not the french market they drove eight hundred miles and the 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 or it will that you mention france it's going to remain you are one para so ok go ahead paris react to what you just heard. well i would like to have come from to compliment to you point of you stating what you mentioned saying that is terrorism is judges the major negative effect affecting the. afghan population. let's have in mind that's what is going on sale is a long jewing instability and the judges are there because there is. in

the 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 billion 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 are replacing what normally should be the alleged timidity of a state illegitimate you have an army and the legitimate orders for the major issue that is facing africa is weakening of state institution that's one second of all the lack of. african sort of diety which is also something that most. put into interest and put in debate concerning the man and the crisis and the third

part more than jihad ism 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 of the let me let me i don't finish 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 you haven't kept iraq together since independence. it's a bit of a pep plexi to you 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 an unlawful order 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 and constitutionally. do you. always francophone and we're talking about congo brazzaville come a room booking office so chad. to miss you and to recently gotten to recently in the jail until recently until recently or nine cases are francophone and the reason that happens because all these states have. pacts with france where about france has special forces stationed in the capitals and the areas 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 mean to imply there emanuel just. go to paris go ahead let's go to paris to jump in on that specific specific point of you saying that france as you know in february two thousand and nine decided to. have

a more transparent more. let's say more. to really build to reshape its relation with a certain number of countries where they had military agreements i have to say that is not one of the states where for outside the military agreements child was neither one of the states or so we would 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 nation resolution twenty five it is intervening on behalf of a follow up of african led mission 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 you have also when in djibouti and when you charge so that that has to be taken in consideration one last bit have in mind that many too many too late when you took power in one thousand nine hundred one was very democratic and that those other examples were democracy in front of a state is also a reality i would take the example of syria ok delgo. ed 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 confuse the cause. of that action to the cause so the had actually been a stable democracy there would be a need for the french to intervene if we cussed on my own back like twenty years ago or what happened in rwanda. which was actually

a mega mega tragedy i mean do we really want to wait. until another tragedy like rwanda which would actually happen then we'll see you know why didn't we intervene so. ok michael i what we're hearing and hearing we're hearing you know this africans can't rule themselves klim sounds like to me go ahead no i'm not i'm not going to get like i'm asking michael now go ahead and cause and effect michel. it's a it's a surely you know. it would appear that from this wedding 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 affect france if it does not intervene so it's not necessarily i mean you're right gentlemen i'm going to jump in here and we have to

go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on africa stay with r.t. . if you. couldn't take three. four three. three. three. three. three broadcast live video for your media project free media dog r t v dot com. well. it's technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered.

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documentaries in spanish matters to you. a little tentative angola's stories. here. the spanish find out more visit i. welcome back to cross all things are considered i'm peter a little 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 actually

a well it doesn't look that way i don't know what our way looks like a new colonial project now 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 it sounds like some or all of 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're the only ones who have bases there it's base it's broadly the the answer i would give to you is that we have force that are predisposed to intervene because we are present throughout the 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 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 have 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 your 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 adele lot of people would say it's an

asset grab you know africa's the last great place to grab assets go ahead. 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 on these columns which only has spread sheets where for example the cost of french prisons in bases the cost of british intervention in libya and france. how much that cost of the british taxpayer french taxpayer any taxpayer going per with the money on the sources coming out from this country whether it's mineral nit export imports taking out of that the

local employment and tax collected by the government of the country if actually someone comes out with this is a spreadsheet and show me that french presence or british intervention of adel western powers are in a different vision people who are doing a good golly 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 no off 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 due to the situation that brought to the trouble. a lot of said i'm not listed so many cases at the at the office of what rojas friends be plain implicitly or explicitly see to bring this to the us to this point ok menu on 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 go to has 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. i do have 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 legit 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 of there 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 such a 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 the united states the united states is arming and training a lot of armies on the continent is this worrying. well i think the wiring

is that the united states is not taking a leadership an opportunity you have a president well it can only in so many countries at a time. oh he's very he's very good in making speeches and the big bow is about when it comes to action and it's zero. people especially on the left use of the law of nature fund or 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 snow 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 what works well for the african union backing from the united go ahead jump in does advocate need more or less interventions. africa needs. support where the martis 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 and the queen to up to this i think that it would be a good idea to get back on track on those terms and wow the u.n. 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. you know i'm going to give you the last word in the program is that good now american drones are going to africa is a good. time adel go. 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 drawn. you know you don't have these fears are going to be ok man you well i have you know what we all have thirty seconds so many well go ahead you want to say something

please do. just remind everyone that africa is not the case in africa that the strategy of the americans and they have this capability i'll say selling that as you mentioned the noble 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 today to my guests in london and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are see you next time and remember. these.

wealthy british style. guys. markets. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to the report. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

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