Timbuktu Makes World Media Headlines & 1979 Visit

Timbuktu** Strife Makes World Media Headlines

 & A visit to Timbuktu by the author in 1979 at the end

 

 

Nearly two decades ago when I sent my zeroxed  Travelogue to Timbuktu (published only after my retirement by Turkish Daily News -1996 and Asian Age -2000) to well travelled S. Khuswant Singh , he responded that he thought it was a verbal expression only .Sam Petroda , later head of India's National Knowledge Commission was happy to learn something new .

 

Now following the creative destruction in Libya as Americans describe the mayhem there, arms and Salafi and Wahabi and other extreme forms of ideologies of Islam have crossed over to its southern neighbors including Mali, where in Timbuktu is located, making it a media household name.

 

I had traveled to Timbuktu* in November , 1979 , soon after presenting my letters of credence to president Mousa Taraore of Mali to which I was concurrently accredited from Dakar (Senegal)

 

I believe I was the first Indian official to visit Timbuktu after Major Gordon Laing of West India Regiment, who did reach Timbuktu by the Saharan route from Libya in 1826, but was murdered on the city's outskirts while trying to return. .My successors, to the best of my knowledge could not go to Timbuktu in the 20^th century, because of rebellion by Sahara's desert inhabitants, the blue veiled Tuaregs.

 

** Timbuktu the most distant place imaginable ;the Oxford English Dictionary

 

My Travelogue to Timbuktu is at the end.

 

An extract below on Timbuktu and Dr A Q Khan of Pakistan from my article.

 

Emerging Strategic Nuclear Environment: Iran & North Korea (first published on 29 May, 2005)  

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/04/emerging-strategic-nuclear-environment.html

http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/press-coverage-2005/september-2005/emerging-strategic-nuclear-environment/

 

While posted at Dakar in Senegal in West Africa ,I commenced in October 1980 the first leg of my travelathon crisscrossing continents on an Air Algeri flight which after a brief halt at Nouakchott , Mauritania , zigzagged East to Niamey, Niger's throbbing capital (thanks to uranium). Looking down from the plane, the journey across Sahara, crossing river Niger, over Timbuktu and GAO was fascinatingly dull. I wondered if all these little known places and Bamako (Mali), N'djamena (Chad) and Bangui (Central African Republic) might become household words like Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, once the reportedly buried uranium wealth underneath were mined to fuel energy needs of last decade of this century and early 2lst century.

 

But in spite of wake up calls in 1970s of hydrocarbon energy shortage, the corporate interests in oil and gas, which is so profitable, did little to develop nuclear or other means of energy. So Niger has become notorious for its uranium mines for weapons use, and sometimes for its famines. President George W.Bush used alleged attempts by Saddam Hussein, proved concocted, to get uranium from Niger for weapons, as one of the causes belli to invade Iraq.

 

However, it was the Bhopal ( India) born Pakistan national and German trained metallurgist and nuclear scientist and a globaliser in nuclear weapons technology ,Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan, who last year brought into world focus, Timbuktu ,which even the much traveled Indian journalist Khuswant Singh thought was a only a verbal expression , when I told him about it. For in November 1979 after presenting my letters of credence in Bamako, saying now or never, I undertook a journey by road and by boat on river Niger, to sample some romance of the earlier travelers, to the famous Eldorado, where during medieval centuries a pound of salt fetched an ounce of gold, attracting traders, invaders and scholars making Timbuktu a great centre of Islamic culture and civilisation. 

Who would have ever thought in 1979 that Khan would love Timbuktu so much that he would even invest in a hotel there (It appears that Hotel La Colombe (?) has been named for his wife -shades of a minor Shah Jehan).But even Dr Watson would tell Sherlock Holmes why, so that he could travel from Pakistan to Timbuktu and back and supervise transfer of yellow cake to Pakistan and elsewhere. One can easily fly east from Timbuktu to Niger or go by road or river. He went around openly, flying around to Morocco, Mali, Chad, Sudan and every where the maker of the Islamic bomb was a welcome hero.

The media accused Khan last year when the scandal about his proliferation activities exploded, of him even using Pakistan military aircrafts to transport furniture for his Timbuktu hotel project from Pakistan.  Pray Dr Watson, what came back in empty Pakistani military aircrafts. Yellow cake, of course. Not even the gullible would believe that such top secret transfers were not known to the all powerful ISI, the Intelligence Services of Pakistan or the western intelligence services. Recently a former Dutch Prime Minister said that he was stopped from moving against Khan by USA's Central Intelligence Agency.

 

The Muslim world has been oppressed and exploited by the Christian West since centuries and Pakistan's pioneering role is part of the battle to face up to the western challenge, whether as an ally ( against India ) or as an opponent ( sooner or later ). But for its nuclear arsenal, USA after 119 would have come down on Pakistan even more heavily. So Iran has only taken the Pakistan ignited torch to share its nuclear capability for peaceful uses with Muslim and other nations as part of millennia old Jihad versus Crusade. If non-Muslim third world nations too join in this struggle then it would also become a North vs. South struggle and confrontation .---

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18675539

Timbuktu's Sidi Yahia mosque 'attacked by Mali militants'

The door in the Sidi Yahia mosque which was broken leads to the tomb of saints

Continue reading the main story

Mali's coup crisis

·        'The Afghanistan of West Africa'

·        Life in Timbuktu under Islamist rule

·        Fleeing ethnic attacks

·        Mali crisis: Who's who?

Islamist militants in Mali have attacked one of the most famous mosques in the historic city of Timbuktu, residents say.

Armed men broke down the door of the 15th-Century Sidi Yahia mosque, a resident told the BBC.

The Ansar Dine group, which is said to have links to al-Qaeda, seized control of the city earlier this year.

It has already destroyed several of the city's shrines, saying they contravene its strict interpretation of Islam.

Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Bamana told the BBC that his movement had now completed nearly 90% of its objective to destroy all mausoleums that are not in line with Islamic law.

He said Sharia did not allow the building of tombs bigger than 15cm (6 inches) above the ground.

The site of Sidi Yahia is one the three great mosques of Timbuktu, according to the UN cultural agency, Unesco.

The door which has been smashed had been left sealed as it led to the sacred tomb of saints.

The AFP news agency reports that some witnesses started crying when they saw the damage.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583772

Who, What, Why: Why do we know Timbuktu?

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

Rebels in Mali have taken the historic city of Timbuktu, a place that has become shorthand in English for anywhere far away. How did this metaphor come about?

"Omg! Just found out Timbuktu is a real place!"

The news that the city of Timbuktu has been seized by ethnic Tuaregs has had some tweeters scratching their heads, unaware up to now that it even existed.

While some people will be familiar with the Tuareg people, almost everyone will recognise the place name Timbuktu, even if they think it's mythical.

Once spelt as Timbuctoo, the city in northern Mali has come to represent a place far away, at the end of the world.

The answer

It has been, and still is, relatively inaccessible

Its immense wealth in the Middle Ages made it famous

But for hundreds of years it remained out of reach to European explorers

The word itself sounds very exotic to native English speakers

As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, "the most distant place imaginable".

Its first documented use in this sense is dated to 1863, when the English writer Lady Duff-Gordon drew a contrast with the familiarity of Cairo.

In one of her Letters from Egypt, while in the Egyptian capital, she wrote:

It is growing dreadfully Cockney here. I must go to Timbuctoo.

Writers as diverse as DH Lawrence, Agatha Christie and Mr Men creator Roger Hargreaves further strengthened this association by references in their books.

In one of his final works, Nettles, in 1930, Lawrence wrote:

And the world it didn't give a hoot

If his blood was British or Timbuctoot.

Phrases that develop this idea include "from here to Timbuktu" when describing a very long journey, or "from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo" (a city in Michigan, US).

So why Timbuktu?

Continue reading the main story

Timbuktu, then and now

Mary HarperBBC News

Located on the southern edge of the Sahara, and just north of the River Niger, Timbuktu is nearly 1,000 years old. Famous writers have contributed to its mythical status. The Moorish author, Leo Africanus, described how the king of Timbuktu was so rich that some of his golden objects weighed hundreds of kilos.

The town made its fortune through trade, where salt brought in from the Sahara was worth its weight in gold. Slaves and ivory were also traded.

With its distinctive mud mosques rising from the sand, the town is a centre for Islamic scholarship. About 700,000 ancient manuscripts are held in the town's approximately 60 libraries.

But the Timbuktu of today is very different from the golden age. It is poor and parts of it are sinking under the encroaching desert sands. It has until recently attracted tourists but they have been put off by a spate of kidnappings by a group with links to al-Qaeda.

·        Mali neighbours impose sanctions

It was founded by Tuareg nomads in the 12th Century and within 200 years had become an immensely wealthy city, at the centre of important trading routes for salt and gold.

Through writers such as Leo Africanus, tales reached Europe of its immense riches, which stoked an acute curiosity on the part of European explorers.

This mystery was enhanced by its inaccessibility and many European expeditions perished, leaving it tantalisingly out of reach for centuries.

Before it was discovered by Europeans in 1830, all documented mentions of Timbuktu are about the efforts to get there, says OED revision editor Richard Shapiro.

"In 1820, people were talking about it taking 60 days from Tripoli and there were only six days without water.

"It was this legendary wealthy city, and the British hoped they could get from Africa the kind of riches Spain had got from South America."

In 1829, Alfred Tennyson described it as "mysterious" and "unfathomable" in his poem entitled Timbuctoo, and compared it to El Dorado and Atlantis.

It was not until 1830, long after the city had fallen into decline, that the first European went there and back again, Frenchman Rene Caillie.

"The Europeans came very late to Timbuktu," says Marie Rodet, lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

"For centuries, they tried to reach the place because it was a mythological place of trade and Islamic scholars.

"It had been described in Arab manuscripts in the Middle Ages so they knew about the history but they never reached it because the population never allowed them."

Locals regarded it as the holy city of 333 saints, she says, and Christians were the enemy, so Caillie went disguised as a Muslim. A Scot, Alexander Gordon Laing, beat him to it by four years but is thought to have been murdered before he could leave.

Even today, when the world has become a much smaller place, it remains relatively remote.

"You can get anywhere but Timbuktu is still very difficult to get to," says Richard Trillo, author of Rough Guide to West Africa. There is still no tarmac road to take travellers there.

The first time he went, he hitch-hiked from Hampshire in England in 1977, aged 21.

"We wanted to go to a place no-one else had been. Like many others, we had thought it a mythical place and when we realised it wasn't, it seemed like a good place for two guys to go on a gap year."

Continue reading the main story

'The crossroads of the world'

I've been to Timbuktu many times. It is of course the ultimate journey, reached either by crossing the great Sahara desert or coming down the great River Niger. Actually, rather than being at the end of the world as its mythology has it, Timbuktu is really the crossroads of worlds. When you reach Timbuktu you have either crossed the great Sahara desert or you have the whole thing ahead of you. It is where Saharan Africa meets sub-Saharan Africa, the desert meets the river, north Mali meets south. It is in Timbuktu that these worlds have always traded - salt, gold and knowledge.

Guy Lankester, fromhere2timbuktu

 

The journey was tough and took nearly six weeks, ending with a four-day boat trip on the River Niger and a truck ride supplied by a local police chief.

"Sub-Saharan Africa was so very different from the Arabic-speaking north. It felt like we had crossed an ocean, like we had skirted the edge of this huge continent. Timbuktu felt extraordinarily remote."

Trillo explains the endurance of the myth by the fact the city disappeared off the map when it fell into decline in the 17th and 18th Centuries, after the Moors deserted it and trade went elsewhere.

"For 200 years it was a city living on the sand but completely disconnected from the rest of the world and that was why it has such a mythology.

"Imagine New York suddenly under water for 200 years, and people still talking about it.

"That's when this explorer race started and everyone wanted to be the first to get to Timbuktu."

Reporting by Tom Geoghegan

 

Timbuktu shrines damaged by Mali Ansar Dine Islamists

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18657463

http://tarafits-archives.blogspot.com/2010/01/travel-to-timbuctou.html

 

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010

Travel to Timbuctou

1. Mopti on River Niger    2. Djinguereyber -Oldest Mosque, south of Sahara

3.With the Governor of Timbuctou in front of his office 4.University of Sankhore

5 River Niger from the boat on way 6. Street in Timbuctou

7 &8 Houses in which Major Gordon Laing of West IndiaRegiment, and Frenchman Rene Caille,

stayed and street scenes

It has been used by Turkish Daily News, Ankara in 1996 and Asian Age, New Delhi, 2002

 

                                                                FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY TILL FIRST PUBLISHED

 

             THE AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL@

 

S.S. Timbaktou

Mopti November 8, 1979.

 

So, finally I am on my way to Timbaktou. Aboard a German­ built river vessel - aptly named Timbaktou. Only wish had done it 160 years ago. Things could not have been all that bad then. This is supposed to be a luxury cabin, but the Grundig all-world receiver doesn't function, the frig is too small, the cool blast from the air conditioner could have been colder. And since the boat is anchored, nothing is functioning now. But I am not complaining. The life of an explorer is, after all, hard. I begin the last phase of my hard journey at 2000 hrs. Everyone on board has been warned in advance about the VIP explorer. So I lose the aura of mystery and charm of anonymity.

 

I left Bamako on 6th morning for a two-hour drive to Segu, an important industrial centre. There was little traffic and the road running parallel to river Niger was excellent. The topography reminded me of North M.P. region  bordering U.P, dry shrubby interspersed with some mango trees. An ideal climate for grapes and citrus cultivation. Saw only millet being cultivated sporadically. The water potential of river Niger for irrigation is immense. As it flows mostly through flat lands, with small barrages or irrigation pumps, agriculture could bloom which could easily make Mali not only self-sufficient but an exporter of agricultural products. In contrast, the Egyptians have exploited every drop of water from Abu Simbel to Alexandria or for that matter the Iraqis, the waters of Euphrates and Tigris. Lack of population pressure, perhaps explains the scanty utilization of Niger's water. (So would have concluded Professor Arnold Toynbee).

 

Segu is a small and dusty town with dry land architecture of a medium-sized district town in Rajasthan, barring the absence of milling and jostling crowds, which only Indian towns have. Called on the Governor, a rather taciturn and humourless bureaucrat one often comes across in India. I made my call as businesslike and brief as possible and left with an escort, a Police Inspector, to visit the State-run textile factory, built by the Chinese. The machinery is sturdy and not too modern and seems to be well run by the Malian technicians. There are supposed to be still 50 Chinois, although I espied only one. No more loitering around than in any Indian factory. Rated capacity 10 million yards per year. Didn't embarrass the Director-General, who was busy holding a conference, about capacity utilization.

 

Next on the menu was a sugar factory, again gifted by les Chinois, located another 60 kms. away of unsurfaced and dusty track. Crushing capacity 1000 tonnes per day. Once again not too complicated machinery, being competently run by the Malians themselves. Again saw only one Chinese, although nearly 40 still continue to be there.

 

The Police Inspector and the guides were full of pride at Mali's industrialization. I dutifully listened to the intricacies of spinning, weaving and dyeing, thinking of my 5 months apprenticeship at Delhi Cloth Mills in Delhi in 1957. Didn't give our own textile or sugar production figures, as the Malians would not have believed it any way. Complemented the guides, including a petite Malianne, on their industrial progress and know how. Got myself group photographed and returned to the Officers' Rest House. In the evening visited the ancestral home of Malian Ambassador (in Dakar) Guisse, established by a Faith spreading priest from Senegal in the last century. Rambling big old house with women and children milling around exactly like in an old joint family house in India. Neither the patriarch nor any one else could give the exact number of children in the family.

 

The Rest House was like any Circuit House in a medium Indian District, with aging mattresses, torn mosquito-nets and rattling air-conditioners. Sat out on the porch in the evening. Many Malians joined me and enjoyed my bad French and company; so I thought, till the bottle of Scotch was finished. I had a reasonably cooked meal. Complimented the cold and stern but rather good-looking Bambara Directrice of the hostel. By the time she had thawed, was too tired and went to sleep like a log. In the morning again visited Malian Ambassador's ancestral home. Had group photographs, for which the women turned out in all their festive finery. Left for Mopti, elated by the goodwill created.

 

 The over 400 kms. drive between Segu and Mopti was no different except for the length of distance and time & for a few desiccated hilly outcroppings. The road was reasonably good. Reached Mopti around 1.30 P.M. Called on the Governor, who had received the message of my visit and was patiently waiting, A friend of the Malian Ambassador Guisse, I handed over his letter. A Military Officer till the coup 11 years ago, the Governor has successfully turned himself into a civilian administrator. But still believes in the authority imparted by the uniform of the Commandant (Lt. Colonel). Mischievous mention of my NDC course made his military training to almost bring him to attention and made him even more polite. Discussed possibilities of cooperation between India and Mali. Found him rather knowledgeable about India till I realised that none of us had had lunch, He went to his adjoining bungalow on the Niger and I to my expanding Motel in Sevare 12 kms. away.

 

Mopti is an ancient trading centre, surrounded by the overflow of the confluence of river Beni and Niger and marshes. Les Chinoises are present here also, teaching intensive rice cultivation. So are the Americans with their Peace Corps volunteers. There were the usual bureaucratic boards proclaiming new projects, in case one did not notice the new methods of cultivation. In the evening, the Governor provided his Technical Counsellor as my escort. He was like our BDO, who can reel out statistics by yards. Took a few photographs (as proof of my visit) of the town with traditional ochre coloured banco houses and the 60-year old mosque. Visited a centre for fisheries, small atelier for construction of perouques ­traditional narrow long boats. Returned to the Motel after being suitably illuminated on the historic and commercial importance of Mopti.

 

 Next morning, after bath and breakfast, left a gift of silver cuff links and a Panipat table napkins set for the Governor. Bought a patterned woolen blanket for 5000 Malian Francs (Rs. 95). I am now waiting without an AC or even a fan in my cabin for the boat to depart. Still another three-and-a-half hours to kill. Shall try to concentrate on 'Black Holes' in the universe and 'Love and Addiction', the latter a typical American best seller, which reduces love to a profit loss relationship. Sickening and pitiable.

 

November 9, 1979 2200 hrs.

 

The boat has stopped at a largish village called Dire, where under the flash lights of the boat, a thriving market between the local population and the boat travellers has sprung up. There is much haggling and shouting. The local people wear pleasing and exotic local designs mixed up with imported designs, mostly stripes. The big boat's arrival (only for 4 months during Niger's flooding) is apparently a great occasion for the villagers, for which everyone seems to be festivally dressed up. Nevertheless, such a market has flourished here for centuries. Went down with a plain looking Canadian social worker from Bamako and her rather vivacious mother. Ate peanuts and returned through the milling crowds. Understand there is an experimental solar pump working nearby.

 

 Tomorrow morning, will arrive at Timbaktou's port of Kabara, 12 kms. from the town. Have so neatly organised the expedition that there should be no slip now. I had purposely joined the Malian table in the boat's dining room. All of them are very solicitous and hospitable. The ship has about 12 French and other non-descript European travelers. Struck acquaintance with some. Found them disappointing, complaining about lack of maintenance of the boat and over-crowding; afraid that the boat might sink. Enquired if they know swimming, adding I did not. Sarcasm went flat.

 

The boat, especially the crowded lower decks, is a world of its own, with people cooking and eating even on the top deck and the corridors. Not that I expected Maxim or Tour d'Argent standard, but the cuisine could have been better. The ship and its services are totally Malianized. Adequate and austere. No frills. That is the hardy lot of our explorer in the tradition of Mongo Park and Livingston. Shall recommend that tins and spices be carried by my successor explorers.

 

The boat journey has been tranquil - no rolling or heaving. More or less uniform scenery with mud huts and Savannah land flora. Occasionally sand dunes encroach right up to the river. Took some photographs. Hope they are printable. Noticed a curious thing at one stop called Tonka. Old portable steam engines with boiler shells lying around. Of 50/60 year old vintage. Must investigate. Possibly an unsuccessful attempt at industrialization? Once again no serious attempt at sedentary cultivation. With various international funds and Arab organi­zations flush with surplus money, ideal place for a Punjabi farmer-entrepreneur. Have packed up and wrapped up a Moradabadi vase etc. for the Governor of Timbaktou. This, along with Ambassador Guisse's letter should make things easier. I hope that the uncertain flight on Sunday morning to Bamako takes off. Four days out of nowhere, even in a well-known place like Timbaktou might be too much. Keeping my fingers crossed. Took another two tablets of quinine. No point in getting down with malaria, if it can be avoided.

 

Timbaktou November 10, 1979.

 

So, I have reached Timbaktou. Disappointed. No. Was prepared, having gone through illustrated books on the ancient Eldorado. The mystery and the attraction was for the Euro-peans, which the Berbers (North Africans) ferociously guarded it as an endless source of slaves and for exchange of one ounce of gold dust for a pound of salt in normal times and par exchange in times of scarcity. The Berbers and the Arabs knew Timbaktou, had spread Islam and converted the Pagan rulers to the faith, in fact, making Timbaktou one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning.

 

Very little now remains of the past glory. From a peak population of over 100,000 it has now dwindled down to barely 20,000. Only two years ago made into a region ruled by a Governor (something like India's pre-independent district). Located 12 kms. away from Niger, on the edge of the Sahara desert, extending from North Africa to its outskirts, where at the modest hotel I have been lodged into. The streets are sandy, reminding one of the Loharu or some such town at the edge of the desert in India, before Bansilal's dynamism got the roads paved and agriculture-based affluence changed mud huts into brick houses.

 

As the Protocol's telegram had not reached the Governor ,not surprising, arrived at the Governorate from the non-descript river port of Kabara. The Governor was extremely pleasant and helpful. Been on civilian duty for a year only. During training in USSR made friends with Indian officers. Straightaway arranged my flight back to Bamako next day, much to my relief. Arranged the sight-seeing with the Department of Tourism and sent his Information Officer Toure as an additional escort. The Governor was delighted with the Moradabadi vase. (The UP handicrafts can pitch its export sales on the slogan cf 'Our handicrafts reach Timbaktou'). Straightaway started the tour of the old city starting with the growing library of Ahmad Baba, a great historian and religious scholar who, out of hundreds kidnapped by the Moroccans in the l6th century and taken to Marakesh was the only one to survive and return to Timbaktou.

 

The library is a fitting tribute to the Baba, whose library in l6th century boasted of several thousands of volumes, when most European scholars could count their collections in tens. So far it has retrieved nearly 1500 volumes, including one as old as 1292, found in a Bedouin tent. I have photographed it for posterity. The library also boasts of an excellent collection of currently published books on Islam, and history of Timbaktou and the region. Noted down names of books which interested me. Could easily spend weeks going through these volumes. However, the real ancient heritage in the form of books and writings is jealously guarded by the old established families of Timbaktou. Thousands of these works were carted away by the Moroccans and hundreds are in Paris. The owners here are highly reluctant to expose them to the visitors. One of them, my friend Toure informed me, had a hall full of them stacked upto the ceiling.

 

Also visited the oldest Djinguereyber mosque south of Sahara ,built in the l4th century. It was designed by Es Saheli, an architect of Spanish origin with its typical architecture of stone and banco, reinforced with palmyra logs, with its crenellated walls and conical towers. The ostrich egg at the top represents the moon, symbolising perennial light in the land of Islam (Daru-Islam). The palmyra logs apart from enhancing the esthetic beauty, provide scaffolding for the annual repairs after the rains. The third oldest mosque used to be the University of Sankore, a flourishing centre of learning from l4th century onwards.( Leo Africanus refers in his chronicles to 20,000 students and 130 Koranic schools in Timbaktou.)

 

 Also visited the plaqued houses, where the first-ever Europeans to come to Timbaktou had stayed. Major Gordon Laing of West India Regiment, who did reach Timbaktou by the Saharan route from Libya in 1826, was murdered on the city's outskirts while trying to return. Barring converted Europeans and renegades, who formed part of the Moroccan armies, Rene Caille, disguised as an Arab, was the first European to go back alive next year, after visiting Timbaktou by the Saharan route, but on reaching Fez, had to hide in the French Consul's house, till safe passage could be arranged. Such was the hostility of the Berbers and Arabs against European attempts to trace the Eldorado. The name of Timbaktou derives from , the place of old woman (tin) who used to guard the water well (baktoo) for the caravans coming and going across the Sahara. Only a touristic board now indicates that hallowed spot. All places of historic importance have been duly photographed for posterity and as a proof against detractors (of my visit).

 

Let me now digress a little on the history of the region, with the middle reaches of river Niger as its artery. From Bamako to Gao, 1400 kilometres of the navigable waterway has assured, from ancient days, movement of people, merchandise and ideas. At the fringe of the Savannah land in West Africa, easily accessible to tropical forests in the south, its strategic location at the edge of the formidable but camel navigable Sahara extending upto Mediterranean and thence to Europe gave birth to flourishing trading centres like Djenne, Gao  and Timbaktou. With affluence followed arts, culture, conquerors, adventurers, religious crusaders and thinkers, making Mali a cross-road of civilizations. The earliest to establish themselves in the area was the Empire of Ghana (no similarity with the present-day Ghana), beginning in 3rd/4th century AD, possibly founded by North African Berbers. Around 8th century, the local Sonikes took over and ruled it till overwhelmed by the crusading zeal of the puritan desert Berber (Touaregs - blue veiled men) converts, but it ended in general disruption and decay.

 

Once again it was the crusading zeal of newly converted Pagan Mandingo tribal rulers, which laid the foundation of the Empire of Mali in ll th  century, reaching its zenith in the l4th century, under Mansa Mousa. He dazzled the world with his riches when he performed his historic Haj in 1324. The monarch was preceded by 500 slaves, each carrying a gold stuff weighing about 20 kilograms of gold and followed by nearly 100 camels each bearing about 150 kilograms of gold for purchases, gifts and alms. His generosity along the route so depressed the price of gold that it took a generation for it to recover.

 

After the fall of the Mali Empire came Songhais from Gao; and Moroccans from the North , not satisfied with profits from the trade in gold and slaves, but to capture the goose itself. The first Moroccan expedition was led in 1590, by Judar Pasha, a converted Spanish eunuch with a force of 4000, equipped with artillery and fire arms (little known in the area). Nearly 3000 perished in the Sahara but the surprise and the superiority of the arms won the day. Moroccans poured in nearly 25,000 soldiers, thousands of them Europeans, converts and renegades. But the source of gold were down south and finally the Moroccan forces, in the usual fashion by inter-marriage and inter-mingling became part of the local population. The destruction caused by the Moroccan intervention and the opening out of the sea-routes to the Guinea coast in West Africa by the Europeans, led to the ultimate decline and decay of the region.

 

Bamako November 12,1979.

 

Returned back to civilization yesterday noon. It was bit of a relief. Hotel De 1'Amitiee, built by the descendants of the Pyramid builders (Egyptians) on the lines of Oberoi Intercontinental, is possibly the best maintained and run in this part, including Dakar hotels and d'Ivoire in Abidjan. On l0th evening in Timbaktou, with the Governor's tacit encouragement, my escort Toure took me to a typical only male gathering, which meets regularly on Saturdays. There were eight of them, mostly married and Government servants, dressed in typical booboos (long flowing robes which can cost upto as much as Rs. 4000 each with months of intricate hand-crafted embroidery), They were sprawled or reclining on a large duree which covered the first floor roof. Normally they discuss, gossip or listen to music.

 

Wish I had taken a cassette recorder to tape the haunting local music, akin to desert Tuareg music. I drank a few cups of sweetened lemon water spiced with ginger. This was the only time I drank un-bottled water during my safari and paid the penalty for it, in the tradition of Ibn-Batua ,­ not that I could have refused this part of the hospitality. As is the local tradition, ate bread (like the Egyptian or Syrian-fermented and round like thick chapatis-Indian bread) with meat curry prepared with 12 local condiments of Timbaktou. the taste and smell was absolutely delicious. In the traditional Hamitic  (North African - Berber) tradition, which has permeated down to the land of the black (Bled-As-Sudan), I was offered the choicest morsels of meat. There were no knives or forks. I generally discoursed on India, the industrial advances (doing my duty), democratic functioning and our secular set-up.

 

Returned on foot through sand covered unlighted streets of Timbaktou, reminding me of my own childhood walks through Indian villages in the dark. Soon after return, started feeling the repercussions of drinking unfiltered Niger water and by early morning had involuntary purgings of my stomach and felt rather fatigued, further aggravated by lack of sleep that night and the night before. The hotel had a power cut (like Delhi nowadays) and it was quite something to pack or to shave in the morning at 5 A.M). with a single candle filched from Hotel De L'Amitiee. Left three bottles of water for the Canadian social worker and her mother. This gift of water in a desert, that too bottled, for the Europeans was highly appreciated. Mr. Toure presented to me in exchange for silver cuff links I had given him, necklaces and bangles made of weeds, a typically local handicraft - highly intricate, delicate and painstaking work, though not of lasting nature.

 

At the Timbaktou airport bought two pairs of chappals with Timbaktou emblazoned on them. Returned to Bamako accompanied by the Governor, who had to attend a Government meeting on the usual bureaucratic tussle between powers of judiciary and the executive. The flight, inspite of the forebodings of my friend, the Alitalia Manager, Sir Richard, who had strongly advised me to avoid it, if possible, was smooth and comfortable. It was a Russian aircraft, austerely converted to seat 52 passengers. The extra attention, because few Ambassadors based in Dakar or even Bamako visited Timbaktou, by shapely Bambara Hostesses, was rather flattering.

                                          

                                                                                                                       (Gajendra Singh)

                                                                                                                      Ambassador

 

PS . This travelogue was essentially written for Tinoo and Bulbul. I hope you also enjoyed it.

 

@(The author has no objection to the readers reproducing parts or the complete narrative, in or out of context, or even passing it off as their own travelogue)

Moslem Brotherhood President-Elect Morsi Sworn in Cairo.

Moslem Brotherhood President-Elect Morsi Sworn in Cairo.

 

What is happening from Pakistan to Turkey to Egypt is the struggle between the the Pir and the Mir, the spiritual leadership and the secular leadership, which continues. This is not surprising since Prophet Mohammad combined the role of both the spiritual leader and the military leader in him. He was a unique person in all senses.

In most of the Sunni Islamic countries the tussle between the Pir and the Mir has still not been resolved as can be seen from the goings-on in Islamabad, Ankara and now Cairo. The Islamists in Ankara have insulted and weakened the armed forces and its many retired senior most leaders and made the secular military and judicial and academic establishment impotent (But Ankara issues daily military threats to Damascus).

 

In Pakistan the secular and spiritual have been messed up in with the growing conflict between military and ISI created Jihadis at the behest of Saudi Arabia and USA for their policy objectives .The ongoing struggle and confrontations is like the one during the Ottoman empire between the Ottoman Sultan-Caliphs and the powerful Janissary corps  with the latter getting out of control or rogue and changing and even killing Sultans till they were decimated by the Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 . Will or can the Pak military do the same to the home created monster of various terror groups and Jihadis!

 

In Egypt the battle has only begun with outside interference from Washington and Riyadh.

 

At the end is a good piece from Te Aviv's Harretz on the current situation in Egypt after the oath taking ceremony by just elected President Engineering Professor Morsi (In Indian politics the only qualification to be a successful politician is to win elections by hook or crook, quite often crook, but now Mumbai corporate houses decide who would be the President or the Finance minister among others, so that unregulated loot of Indian resources continues)

 

Harretz is an excellent paper (media in Israel is freer than in USA, Turkey or Pakistan)

 

My articles with URLs on Egyptian uprising begun 16 months ago against US supported dictator for back ground reading are given below

 

.I had begun my diplomatic career from Cairo after learning Arabic in early 1960s.

 1. Peoples Revolt in Egypt; Birth Pangs of a New Middle East!                                         

This Arab revolt is against Washington unlike the WWI British engineered against Istanbul

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/02/peoples-revolt-in-egypt-birth-pangs-of.html

http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/8377-peoples-revolt-in-egypt.html

2. Arab Revolts; a Symptom of Decline of US Hegemony;

http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/8808-decline-of-us-hegemony.html

 

3. Reality and Mirages in Egypt and the Arab world!                                              Uprisings in Egypt may be orchestrated by the Americans – expert

 http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/02/reality-and-mirages-in-egypt-and-arab.html

4. The Egyptian Military Moves in, dissolves the Parliament and suspends the Constitution                                                                     http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/8652-the-egyptian-military-moves-in.html

 What to expect from Egypt's Morsi

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/what-to-expect-from-egypt-s-morsi.premium-1.444817

 

With the military managing foreign policy, the chances of a full-blown war between Egypt and Israel are slim, despite rhetoric from some quarters of the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the liberation of Jerusalem.

By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi | Jun.29, 2012 

 

What to make of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi's election as president of Egypt? What seems to be the most likely outcome is something analogous to the "constitutional settlements" of the early Roman Empire. That is, the military, like the Emperor Augustus in antiquity, will entrust to itself management of foreign policy, while granting Morsi (and a parliament, if new elections are allowed ) - akin to the Senate in Rome - considerable autonomy with regards to the direction of domestic affairs, even as the military has assumed control over the drafting of the constitution.

Indeed, such a settlement would work well for the military, because, despite its extensive control of the economy, the burden of resolving the economic crisis would ultimately rest in Morsi's hands. Currently, as Reuters reports, the country's depleted foreign reserves can only cover "three months of import coverage," while the local currency debt has increased to 600 billion Egyptian pounds ($99 billion ), up from 500 billion before the unrest began in January 2011.

 

The International Monetary Fund has indicated that a $3.2 billion loan will only be granted if the country gets its finances in order, but the prospects of such a resolution appear to be bleak. Having Morsi take responsibility, therefore, can prove useful in directing potential civilian anger away from the military. On the other hand, the perception of a settlement between the military and the president could help to attract foreign investment.

 

With the military managing foreign policy, the chances of a full-blown war between Egypt and Israel are slim, despite bellicose rhetoric emanating from some quarters of the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the liberation of Jerusalem and establishment of a "United Arab States." For one thing, Egypt lacks the means to launch and sustain a war against Israel. At the same time, however, one should not expect Egyptian firmness in dealing with rocket fire against the Jewish state or militant activity in the Sinai Peninsula.

 

In fact, one could well see the military adopt an approach toward militancy not dissimilar to the methods of the Pakistani security forces: that is, targeting those perceived to pose a direct threat to Egypt's stability, while lacking resolve at best, and at worst playing a double game with other militants in order to continue receiving U.S. aid.

 

As for the domestic scene, it is probable that the Islamization trend that has been apparent over the past five or so decades will not only continue but could also accelerate. When the likes of Hosni Mubarak were in charge, the arrangement was such that Islamist ideology was allowed to disseminate at ground level. Now that Egypt has an elected Islamist president, it is to be expected that sentiments on the ground will only become more hard-line.

 

Although it is easy to dismiss outlandish claims that Morsi wants to reinstate the discriminatory jizya poll tax - essentially the equivalent of a Mafia protection racket - on Christians (the report is an uncorroborated rumor that can be traced to one obscure Arabic website ), there is evidence that he would like to restrict the rights of non-Muslim minorities and women. Just under half of voters chose Ahmed Shafiq, but that will not act as a firm barrier against a gradualist approach to implementing Islamic law that many in the Brotherhood see as the ideal strategy to adopt.

 

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic magazine last year, Morsi made it clear that neither he nor the Brotherhood could tolerate the idea of a Christian or woman running for the presidency of Egypt.

 

While much has been made of a recent announcement by an advisor to Morsi that there are plans to appoint a Copt and a woman as vice-presidents, it should be appreciated that such positions are likely to be no more than symbolic. In fact, problems of discrimination against non-Muslims and women will in all likelihood only worsen under Morsi's presidency. Further, the spike in Salafist mob attacks on Coptic churches since the ousting of Mubarak - attacks usually sparked by the flimsiest rumors and trivialities - is unlikely to subside, and the authorities will probably continue to do nothing about it.

 

In the long run, chaos and instability are most likely to dominate the country's future. Unlike Iran, which has, since the mid-1980s, implemented a major family planning program that has dramatically slowed population growth, Egypt's population (83 million as of October 2011 ) continues to grow. It could reach 100 million by 2020, with more than 99 percent of the population living on an area of land around the Nile only 2.5 times the size of Israel.

 

Even assuming Egypt can escape from its current economic crisis, there is no sign its economy can keep up with the pace of population growth even to sustain present standards of living. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian Islamists have on past occasions denounced family planning as a Western conspiracy to keep the number of Muslims in the world in check. They have shown no intention of implementing a program to reduce the birth rate.

 

Egypt is unlikely to become a "Somalia on the Nile" as economist and columnist David P. Goldman has predicted, but in the long-term, internal stability is a remote possibility.

 

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford, and an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org.

Will Putin’s Israel Visit Calm Middle East Tempest!

Will Putin's Israel Visit Calm Middle East Tempest!

 

Since the end of World War II, international relations and movements during the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall have been mostly seen in black-and-white, with the Moscow led states in central Asia on the decline and on the defensive. Things are now changing with Asian countries led by China and Russia and hopefully India too, are trying to establish peace and security for economic growth for their people which the West had ruled and looted since the repulse of Ottoman arms from the Gates of Vienna in 16 century.

 

The most important event taking place now in the Middle East is the crucial strategic battle over Syria with U.S.-led West with support from Saudi Arabia and Gulf States along with Turkey and other Muslim Sunni states ranged against minority Alawite ruling elite in Syria supported by Lebanon and Iran and backed by Russia and China.

 

Since long Tel Aviv has been making threatening noises, along with its sympathizers and Jewish groups and lobbies in USA of a preemptive attack on Iran to stop it enriching Uranium which it is entitled to under NPT, a treaty basically designed by the West to isolate and punish upstart India. The author has proclaimed and written 5/6 articles on the subject that in end 2003 or early 2004 a more foolhardy misadventure than the illegal invasion of Iraq could have been undertaken by Bush and his handlers, the Zeo-cons. Since then after withstanding its destruction worse than that by Halagu's Mongol hordes and according to estimates after a loss of 1.4 million Iraqi lives and other consequential  ramifications, it is in the killing fields of Iraq that 6 years ago in the words of decorated US Marine Col Murtha admitted that the American army was 'broken' .It is like the destruction in WWII of 80% of Nazi war machine by the Soviet forces and people bearing terrible losses including over 10 million deaths .But with its so called scholars and media with aid from even  Hollywood films -a la John Wayne films and others and by rewriting history have given almost all the credit to Western arms. Falsely the West claims to have defeated Germany alone. Now be seen in the clutch of daily lies , the coverage of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and now over Syria .The Western media outlets have been reduced to whores and pimps.

 

By 2007 or so many  of us had felt that was it was time for Washington to organise a Dunkirk like operation for its forces and  material caught up in the quagmire of Iraq and from the grave yards of imperial armies in Afghanistan. But Washington is now ruled by financiers, bankers and warmongers who benefit from profitable throbbing and thriving armament industry feeding on endless wars .USA spends almost as much as the rest of countries put together on defense, which any one can see is to terrorise the world and its people .To hell with the declining economic condition of the people in USA and Europe. US bill on national security, external and internal ads up to a hopping US$ one trillion. US exports are less than imports by $600 billion and survives by selling securities to China and others .The mighty America economically is a paper tiger living on Chinese buying its useless paper .For how long!

 

For at least two decades if not more the American economy has been declining .It was 50% of the world economy at the end of World War II and has now been reduced to 20% so out of which a good fraction is composed of financial industry which includes derivatives and other such fancy financial instruments which do not add to the brick and mortar of the grassroots productive economy. Like a raging bull Washington has been on a spree of so-called creative destruction which began 40/50 years ago beginning in Vietnam and south-east Asia and then followed it up in many countries in Latin America and then in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, not counting operations now in Yemen, Somalia and other countries

 

It is perhaps somewhat late for US Dunkirks .We shall see what will happen in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter Washington is at the mercy of Pakistan and Russia and other central Asian states for supplying its war machine.

 

In the middle of all this comes the visit of re-elected and re-invigorated Pres Vladimir Putin of Russia to Israel  ( and then to Jordan where Cherkes from Caucasia form the Royal guards). Since  the breakup of the USSR  millions of Russian speaking citizens not all of them Jews have migrated to Israel and play an important role politically in that country. Russia migrants were encouraged and welcomed to increase non-Palestinian population in Israel.) Therefore a visit by Putin has great significance in the current evolving strategic situation in Middle East .Peace is necessary for the people of West Asia .Israeli leaders Netanyahu and Barak may outdo each other in bellicose statements, but they did not buy Operation Iraqi freedom which was sold instead to George Bush, or rather to his handlers, the Neocons and Zeocons. In fact Barak looking at the creeping quagmire after 2004 in Iraq had asked Dick Cheney if US had plan B. It did not.

 

The Chinese and Russian leadership ( and India should join them) are in no mood for more wars .The raging violence and conflict in Afghanistan and in parts of Pakistan which have also affected Central Asian republics, formerly part of USSR adjoins Xinjiang province of China. India is still suffering from 2611 and other terror attacks organized from Pakistan .China. India and Russia are slowly building their economy to bring some minimum level of life to the starving millions especially in India. Unfortunately India is following the flawed Keynesian model of capitalism which Hyman Minsky had predicted has inbuilt mechanism to topple over as can be seen in U.S.-led Western counties.

 

 Putin will hopefully try to educate and persuade belligerent Israeli leaders Netanyahu and Barak that a destroyed , disoriented and broken up Syria would not help Israel . Syria has the 2^nd most well organized Muslim brotherhood after Egypt which Assad's have kept at bay by brutal means .Even lessening of tensions in the region will be a help for all. In the heart of their hearts Tel Aviv's knows that USA is fast declining .Then what --Russia might also desire a less prominent Israeli profile in Moscow's  southern neighbour Georgia, with whom it had short brutal war a few years ago.

 

Below is a very interesting and well-written piece by Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar

 

Amb(Retd)K Gajendra Singh; 21 June, 2012 

 

When Putin meets Netanyahu 
By M K Bhadrakumar    Asia Times 21 June , 2012

The two-day state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Israel next week will raise eyebrows. Plainly put, it comes a little too early in his presidency - he took over the office as recently as May 7 - but underscores the Russian leader's sense of priority regarding Russia-Israel relations. 

Its timing comes at a juncture when the two countries are apparently far apart with regard to critical issues of regional security in the Middle East - Syria and Iran - and it seems improbable that the hiatus could be bridged easily anytime soon. Yet, Putin is returning to Israel for a second visit after a gap of seven years, and he is after all a transactional, results-oriented politician. for more 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NF21Ak03.html 

In Syria; Fierce Battle for Strategic Space & Energy Resources

In Syria; Fierce Battle for Strategic Space & Energy Resources

 

A great geo-political strategic struggle is now underway in Syria, with balance slightly tilted in favor of Syria and Iran with full support from Russia along with China. My assessment is that if peace is not brought to Syria and a political settlement sought, destruction of this crucial strategic key stone in Middle East will have very serious repercussions and strategic consequences not only for the region but also for the strategic balance and the economic and strategic health of the world for a long time.

 

Apart from other contentious issues including US led Western attempt to ignite the Shia-Sunni conflict as in Iraq , a link up of territories from the East of Caspian via Iran, Shia ruled Iraq, Alwaite ruled Syria and Hezbollah dominated Lebanon will provide routes to carry oil and gas bypassing US led projects over Azeri and Turkish territories.

 

A major actor in the struggle is Russia's newly re-elected and invigorated Vladimir Putin, who saw how his motherland, former USSR was broken into pieces and up to US$ 1 trillion worth of Russian wealth transferred to Western banks and institutions .He has declared that enough is enough. Moscow has almost full support from China in this regard because weakening or breakup of Syria would very adversely impact Iran, which when feeling cornered or worse if invaded will hit out at NATO and its Arab allies in GCC led by Saudi Arabia. It would be then be a war with no holds barred, almost.

 

India which is pussy footing on this vital issue wrongly believes that the West plus Sunni Arab countries would come up trumps. New Delhi has 6 million Indians working in the region and billions of dollars are sent as remittances to India. The whole area would be in turmoil for long and borders would be rearranged.

 

If Syria feels that the regime is being destabilized , then its 10-12% ruling Alawaite elite, it's Sunni supporters including so far security forces and the merchants, more than 10% Christian population and same percentage of Syrian Kurds would fight back ferociously.

 

Ankara has been following a very dubious foreign policy under the sway of Saudi money and influence encouraged by Washington .Turkey's border province of Hatay known as Antakya or Antioch in history, has a large Alwaite population. This was perhaps one of the reasons why the ruling Sunni regime before World War II did not protest as much as it would now, when under a dubious referendum the province was transferred to Turkey by European powers hoping that Ankara would join them in World War II. But heeding Kemal Ataturk's sane advice before his demise, Ankara stayed neutral during the War .In Turkey, the Shia Alevis comprise 15% of the population and are mostly the original Turkic migrants from Central Asia.

 

Syria and its Kurds provided a fertile soil for PKK, the Turkish Kurdish Marxist organisation which has been fighting for autonomy in south-east of Turkey since 1980s, a rebellion in which over 40,000 Turkish citizens including 5000 soldiers have been killed. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan now imprisoned near Istanbul was based in Syria with PKK training camps till 1999. Already PKK is restive again and both sides have indulged in violence, killings and reprisals. The Kurds comprise nearly 20% of Turkey's population.

 

The ruling Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) is beholden financially and supported by money from Saudi Arabia, where President Abdullah Gul worked in a Jeddah bank for seven years before returning to Ankara to join politics in 1992. Located at the interface of Europe, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa, if Turkey can influence its neighborhood, events and powers in its neighborhood can also influence Turkey. Additionally, under AKP, Turkey's secular armed forces, a stakeholder in the nation's emergence out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and its modernization and secularization, have been insulted and humiliated .So a colonel's coup cannot be ruled out sometimes in future.

 

It is true that in Syria, the majority Sunni population is ruled by minority Alawaite elite, but the Arab Spring, actually was and hopefully remains Arabs revolt against US propped up the dictators like Hosni Mubarak and others. USA with its influence and Saudi Arabia with its petrodollars worried that the Arab Spring might flower in the mediaeval Kingdom ruled by Saud dynasty might lead to overthrow of the regime .So Riyadh and other kingdoms and sheikdoms in the Gulf have joined hands along with European and NATO states and Sunni Turkey with their military muscle to divert attention away from the peoples revolt , with obscurantist and extreme Muslim organizations like Muslim brotherhood Salafis , Al Qaeda and their kind being shoved and pushed into positions of power . For how long.

 

Since the re-inauguration of Putin's presidency, the Russian president has shown clear intentions of resisting U.S.-led Western encroachment on Russian space in Central Asia and in the Middle East where also its strategic interests lie. In this it has substantial support from China, which needs energy from Iran where it is investing heavily. The encroachment by NATO and the West right into the heart of central Asia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan was stopped by energizing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (in which Iran has Observer status)

 

A Reinvigorated Putin

 

After declining to attend the G8 meeting at Camp David, Putin after visiting Belarus, an important piece in restoring the old core Russian order, went to France and Germany. Paris now under a socialist president Hollande is inclined to move away from the US hegemony which has been France's policy since the days of Charles de Gaulle. Germany under a Conservative Angela Merkel would be more difficult to persuade, although her two predecessors Schroeder and Kohl had tried to move away from American strangle hold with US troops still stationed in the country even though World War II ended in 1944. Both of them paid the price of Washington's anger and lost elections and power.

 

Intervention by NATO forces and some Arab and Muslim countries like Turkey in Libya after a blatant misinterpretation of the UN Security Council resolution has brought catastrophe on the people of Libya ( Western corporate media is stunningly silent on the ongoing tragedy with Al Jazeera joining with gang of BBC, CNN and Fox News).While reportedly 5 to 10,000 Libyans were killed before the NATO's shock and awe intervention, since then upto 100,000 people have been reportedly killed, it's ruler Qadhafi killed like a dog much to the glee of the West and its supporters. The country lies in ruins and people are being killed daily ,with Al Qaeda, Salafi and other extremist elements taking over power .In spite of this horrible example the West and Sunni Muslim countries are determined to do an encore in Syria.

 

There are Syrian groups supported and even infiltrated from outsiders under various names which have refused to negotiate with the Syrian regime and the West and some of its allies are asking for open intervention. But the situation is quite different from Libya. Syrian ports are the only ones in Mediterranean where Russian naval ships can dock and refuel. The Russians have supplied to Syria top-quality missiles and other equipment to defend the country. The Russian presence itself should act as a deterrent to any foolhardy adventure which if it goes wrong like the simple attempt to rescue American Embassy hostages from Iran in 1980 could boomerang on Obama's re-election chances as that fiasco had on Jimmy Carter's

 

India's Changing Stance on Syria

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar wrote recently that India buckled under the combined pressure from Washington and the alluring charm of the oil monarchs of the Persian Gulf.  India's Syria policy took a circle last week to return to where it all began at the 'Friends of Syria' meet in Tunis on February 24 , notwithstanding a visit by Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi . The 'Friends of Syria' is a coalition of western countries and Saudi Arabia and Qatar that roots for 'regime change' in Syria. South Block had abstained on the resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 1 over alleged human rights violations by the Syrian government. India came out strongly supportive of the mission by the joint UN envoy Kofi Annan. An 'inclusive' Syrian-led, Syrian-owned dialogue. This phase ended last week with India voting in favor of the resolution sponsored by the United States and Turkey at the UNHRC demanding an international inquiry into the recent violence in Houla. India effectively rejoined the 'Friends of Syria'.

The Indian vote is based on political expediency insofar as the US-Turkish resolution presumes that the Syrian government is responsible for the Houla massacre, and in spirit it contravenes the Security Council resolution on Syria.

 

India saw many exchanges with Gulf nations ; a Joint Commission meeting with Saudi Arabia (January 6); travel advisory on Syria (January 7); foreign-office consultations with UAE (February 8); defense minister visits Saudi Arabia (February 13); EAM's visit to Cairo (March 2); visit by MOS for external affairs E Ahamed to Saudi Arabia (March 13); visit of deputy foreign minister of Saudi Arabia (March 30); state visit by emir of Qatar (April 4); joint visit by EAM and MOS Ahamed to the UAE (April 14); visit by UAE foreign minister (May 16); visit by crown prince of Bahrain (May 29) and travel advisory on Syria (May 30). India appears like a camp follower. Storm clouds are gathering over Syria. The systematic assault by the US and its Saudi and Qatari allies on Annan's mission, debilitating and discrediting it at every point, is entering a crucial phase and an overt intervention in Syria is likely. Indeed, top US officials have spoken of intervention even without UN mandate. The specter that haunts the region is a Syria plunging into protracted civil war that could be far more catastrophic for regional security and stability than the bloodbath Lebanon went through for over a decade.

 

Writing in Lebanon's Al Akhbar of June 5 As'ad AbuKhalil raised "Some Questions on the Houla Massacre...and Beyond,"

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/some-questions-houla-massacreand-beyond

 

He said,"It is not known who perpetrated the Houla massacre. It is certain though that both sides (the Syrian regime army and the gangs operating under the banner of the Free Syrian Army) have a record of brutality and disregard for human lives to qualify them to do the job.

 

"What is certain is that Houla was a propaganda blitz that dominated Western as well as Arab (Saudi-funded and Qatari-funded) media. The romanticizing of the so-called "Syrian Revolution" (the deeds of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Syrian National Council and the Muslim Brotherhood deserve the label of revolution as much as George W. Bush deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and as much as Bashar Assad deserves to serve as president of Syria) clashes with the actual record of the armed groups operating under the umbrella of the FSA.

 

"But it is time that we raise questions and we expose lies surrounding the Syrian uprising. Let us first remember that Western media basically surrender control of their editorial policies to their governments when they decide to go against a developing country. We remember that few raised questions about the wisdom of forming an army of militant Muslims in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The cause of what later produced al-Qaeda was championed. I remember Dan Rather in Afghan clothes riding a horse and reporting on the "heroes" of the fight against communism. Lies and fabrications and exaggerations were the symptom of the coverage of Afghanistan at the time. And when the communist regime fell and was later replaced by the Taliban, there were no demands for accountability and no one asked Dan Rather if he ever met Bin Laden during his media stunt in Afghanistan.

 

"When Western governments were preparing for the invasion of Libya (you were led to believe that only Qatari forces were on the grounds in Libya by the way, given their battle-tested experience), the West's media yet again published unsubstantiated reports and claims about what was happening in Libya.

 

"The same media that stood silent when all Western leaders groveled before Gaddafi suddenly woke up to the reality of dictatorship in Libya. All sorts of claims were made: the number of 100,000 dead was thrown about casually (of course, it later proved to be untrue), and reports of foreign mercenary armies were a staple of the coverage (that was also untrue and the reports themselves fueled a racist anti-black campaign by the Libyan fighters after "liberation").

 

"Whatever happened to that woman who made that claim about being raped by Gaddafi's soldiers? Why was she deported from Qatar and what became of her? No one asked, and the media turned the page and started another campaign.

 

"It should be mentioned that some decent journalists may feel pressured to toe the line not only by the conventional wisdom of the establishment around them but also because the regime (whether in Libya or in Syria) is an awful dictatorial regime that does not deserve to last one day longer.But it should be stressed that the well-funded (mostly by Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia) press offices of the exile Syrian opposition constantly and daily feed the Western media a large supply of lies, exaggerations, fabrications, and wild scenarios. These media offices (like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – and for everything else that propaganda requires) never have to account for their information or claims.

 

"They provide names of people inside Syria and Western correspondents merely Skype with them. Those whose names are provided by the press offices of the Syrian exile opposition merely confirm or reiterate or repeat verbatim whatever is being said by the exile offices. There have been videos shown on YouTube (since YouTube is the favorite source for Western media on Syria) in which injuries are faked and children are coached to speak about their experiences. All that never makes it into Western media.

 

"Even the obvious lies never get challenged. From very early on, there were many lies spread that have yet to be exposed. For months, Syrian opposition exile groups insisted that there were no armed opposition groups and they stressed that their movement is purely peaceful (and when pictures of armed men were displayed, they were dismissed as enemy propaganda).Yet, suddenly and without explanation, the same groups started to brag about and praise the armed opposition groups who ostensibly were leading a purely peaceful revolution. The propaganda agenda was clearly exhibited with the various statements (especially by exile opposition figures in Western and Saudi media) to the effect that the Syrian regime is being assisted by fighters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, and the Mahdi Army.

.

"Similarly, the Syrian exile opposition also duped the Western press (and Western audiences in workshops, conferences, and panels) to think that the Syrian uprising is led by liberal peaceful feminists (and they would often name a woman or two), and would insist that the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the uprising in Syria. Of course, now we know better. Various leading figures in the Syrian National Council admitted belatedly that indeed the Muslim Brotherhood is running the show, and only after a year of the uprising did some in the Western press publish articles about the influence and clout of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

"The Houla story is still murky. No one knows what happened. We know that there are innocent civilians who were killed. We know that both sides are exchanging accusations and we know that both sides are habitual liars. But we can raise some questions:--This does not settle it. We still don't know what happened in Houla. But a healthy dosage of skepticism is in order in the case of Syria especially as Western governments seem to pushing in the direction of military intervention.

There are many sides of the story but the Western media is only covering one side. (Neil Mac Farquhar flat out lied when he claimed twice in the New York Times that Syrian TV does not mention the armed clashes in Syria). To be sure, both sides can't be believed and their claims can't be taken at face value, but it is high time that real investigation of the Syrian story be undertaken by people who are not beholden to governments – East or West."

 

For Syrian Peace mission led by former UNSG Kofi Annan and its current fate and counter action against Western powers and Sunni allies being planned by SCO in Beijing watch this space.

 

K.Gajendra Singh, June 7, 2012 .Mayur Vihar, Delhi.

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/08/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.html

 

 

 

 

Economic Malaise Continues to Deepen

Economic Malaise Continues to Deepen

 

"Keynes's collective work amounted to a powerful argument that capitalism was by its very nature unstable and prone to collapse. Far from trending toward some magical state of equilibrium, capitalism would inevitably do the opposite. It would lurch over a cliff," --- Hyman Minsky

 

A few months after I had shifted back to Delhi in end 2007, having stayed abroad from 1989 and since 1996 after retiring from Ankara, as an accredited journalist, with last 10 years in Bucharest, I sent to my civil service batch mates and others my article on onrushing crisis in world economy, which is literally being dragged towards a catastrophe by Wall Street something akin to the American film "Runaway Train", with US economy leading like the rogue locomotive.

 

Some of my 1961 year civil services batch mates and others specially in India, who had held almost all the top positions in India's federal economic ministries and departments dealing with economic matters and revenue found fault with my analysis that the manifest American economic hegemony could ever be challenged. Some of them took particular objection to my comment that

 

" have always considered an economist as someone who could not become a scientist and tries to shape economics, with its many variables and unpredictables based on fickle human nature , greed and other factors, to conform to the rigors of exact sciences with its equations and graphs .Like an Alchemist's it is hit or miss and when garnished with self serving propaganda, it is a dangerous cocktail "

 

They were still skeptical when I sent around my article in end March 2008 predicting a traumatic economic fall by September, 2008, which was hosted by dozens of websites and blogs and much appreciated

 

The Decline and Coming Fall of US Hegemony, March 30, 2008 http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m42600&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

The piece at the end was my third (but unpublished) article on the decline of the American century and its hegemony, since 11 September 2002. List of all my articles on the subject is

 

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/02/short-history-of-decline-of-american.html

 

What did surprise me then and continues to anger  me very much is the Indian media especially TV channels , all have been unfortunately taken over by India's corporate interests and were misleading the investing public with a rosy picture of the rise and rise in the Sensex. In Indian media not only on economic matters but in other sectors too this has been the fate of fourth pillar of democracy.

 

Once independent, media led by USA and other Western countries, barring some exceptions, now telecasts spins such as by BBC, CNN, Fox channel and others. This false propaganda barrage led the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, or for that matter the situation in Libya before and after the brutal assassination of its leader Qadhafi .Now the Dogs of War are swarming around Syria, led by NATO powers, Saudi Arabia, Gulf Emirates and Kingdoms along with an Islamist party dominated Turkey and upcoming Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt and Tunisia. Truth has become a rare commodity in Western media. Earlier independent, Qatar based Al Jazeera news outlet too has now joined the gang of BBC and CNN.

 

Even when I wrote the article below it was felt that sooner or later India's GDP growth would hover around 6% of so ,but tall claims have been made on the basis of foreign direct investment, a good portion of it the black money stacked abroad by India's corrupt politicians, business houses and bureaucrats via officially recognized  shady route , Mauritius ,stock exchanges have become like yo-yo Casinos with cheap US stimulus funds without any backing and ill gained Indian hot money moving in and out. .

 

Against overpowering inequities in wealth and incomes in USA ,in hundreds of cities beginning with The Wall Street , there are daily demonstrations and sit ins .Violent riots have taken place in UK and other European cities .In India the equivalent has been the movements led by Gandhian Anna Hazare and Yoga teacher Baba Ram deo , the former attracting middle classes ,weighed by the daily exactions of the corrupt ruling classes and their tools , while the latter has strong roots among hundreds of millions of poor masses in urban and rural areas ,whom he has been teaching Yoga for years and bringing about a remarkable improvement in their health .More than the combined efforts of health departments of governments , now centres of corruption and loot of public health funds .

 

The ruling dispensation mired in corruption and moral decay refuses to see the truth at its own peril. 

 

The American leadership is still telling lies to the people although all indicators indicate coming catastrophe sooner than later. Two reports of the United States Government released this week suggest that the so called recovery of the American economy may be losing momentum. The Labor Department admitted that the economy added fewer than half the number of jobs in terms of the market expectations and an acute long-term unemployment problem remains with a total of over 40 percent of the unemployed having been out of job for more than six months. The Commerce Department lowered the economy's growth estimate to 1.9 percent from the estimated 2.2 percent, which in itself was lower than the actual 3 percent growth in the last quarter of 2011.

 

The fraud being perpetrated on public in America and elsewhere by US bankers, financiers, corporate interests and military industry complex with loyal support from their followers elsewhere in India is now in the final stages of a likely collapse, sooner than later along the lines of the October 2008 which sent shockwaves to very foundations of Keynesian neo-liberal model of capitalism.

 

In India, finally the leadership, our so-called experts in neo-liberal capitalism is confessing that there is something wrong with the Indian economy. Let me quote from my conversation with one such expert in 2000.

 

Confidence in the US Dollar;

Before 9/11, at a lunch for the Turkish PM at the Rashtrapati Bhavan I had demurred to an Indian economist, now occupying a very high position about the inequities of the current economic order , founded on the US dollar as the dominant reserve currency, which accounted for 68 percent of global currency reserves, up from 51 percent a decade ago. Yet in 2000, the US share of global exports ($781.1 billion out of a world total of $6.2 trillion) was only 12.3 percent and its share of global imports ($1.257 trillion out of a world total of $6.65 trillion) was 18.9 percent.

"Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon arbitrarily took the dollar off the gold standard ($35 per ounce) in force since the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has become the global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat, despite record US current-account deficits and the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion against a GDP of $9 trillion. (It is now 9 trillion in a GDP of around 13 trillion)

"India has to maintain ample foreign-exchange reserves, which have now reached $60 billion. Most of this must be kept in low-interest US securities, which US companies like Enron can then invest in India and force governments to guarantee 15 percent returns. Thus US companies earn billions of dollars by investing Indian savings in India. "[This argument I had used in my piece,'Decline of the American Century ' used by Asia Times on 11 September, 2002, first anniversary of 11/9.]

The economist [looked at me disdainfully] replied with great insouciance," Yes, but you have to create confidence as US has done in the dollar." .I had to move away quickly not to give vent to my feelings of dismay and disgust .Since then many lunches have been organized at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and look where is the confidence in the US dollar. (In just 12 years)

Below is my article of January 2008, which had brought quick retorts and brickbats from my batch mates and friends. 

K.Gajendra Singh, June 4, 2012, Mayur Vihar, Delhi.

 

 

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS –AGAIN?

          

After record falls in share index around the world, caused by imminent recession in USA, the US Federal Reserve announced immediate three-quarter-point cut, the largest in 26 years, which calmed the situation, perhaps temporarily. US President George Bush's $ 150 billion tax rebates were seen as too little and too late and had triggered a frenzy of selling.

 
"Right now it's 50-50 whether you're going to have a recession in America," said John Silvia, chief economist at the US bank Wachovia. "In the first quarter, growth will be negative and the Fed is struggling to keep it in positive territory for the second quarter."

Profits at the US's second and fourth largest banks, Bank of America and Wachovia, have been all but wiped out by the deepening sub-prime crisis with both companies yesterday announcing multibillion-dollar write downs. The results follow news this month from market leader Citigroup of an $18bn write-off, leading to the biggest loss in the firm's 196-year history. All told, the world's big banks and broking houses have written off an estimated $120bn since the summer.

 

I have repeatedly said that navel watching Indian media and so called policy makers think and behave like frogs in a well, albeit a big well . In spite of the developing economic crisis in USA for more than a year    , our media and the government remained complacent and refused to see the onrushing tempest. Analysts commented if at all that India would not be affected  much by the US crisis .PM and FM , both economists warmed by the rising Sensex based on influx of hot money took credit for the blooming of the Indian economy till the bull dream turned into a night mare since Monday ,ending the Bollywood like dream run into a hangover many an investor in India woke up to after predictions of Sensex crossing 25,000 in near future , to find it crashing down from a recent high of 22,000 to below 17,000. Investors on lost a whopping Rs 15.82 trillion in the last seven days of market mayhem that included a fall of more than 4,000 points in the benchmark 30-share sensitive Index or Sensex.

 

Following US Fed decision and calming effect in the US and East Asian shares , Indian Sensex recovered to over 17,000 on Wednesday, 23 January . It could stabilize higher for the time being.

 

I have always considered an economist as someone who has failed as a scientist and tries to shape economics, with its many variables and unpredictable's based on fickle human nature and other factors, to conform to the rigors of exact sciences with its equations and graphs .Like an Alchemist's method it is hit or miss and when garnished   with self serving propaganda, it is a dangerous cocktail

 

Capitalism is once again in crisis but the centre of gravity unlike the last 1997-98 crisis is in the heart of capitalism, USA. Having globalised and attached the world economy to its coat tails, the US recession is dragging down the whole world.

 

In 2000 after the 1997-98 economic crisis I had written;

 

"In August/Sept 1998 the very bastions of capitalism were reduced to utter panic and incoherence after the collapse of East and South East Asian economies, the decimation of the rouble and impending fall of the Brazilian economy. On September 8, The Washington Post under the title "Rethink Capitalism "wrote,' what is frightening about the world's current economic troubles is a sense that rules we thought we understood don't seem to apply now. Until a few months ago, we thought we knew what a developing country had to do to join the ranks of the wealthy. We thought we knew how a Communist country could transform itself into a capitalist one. The general understanding was that as the world became more connected, it also would become more prosperous. Now, with Russia and much of Asia having crashed, with Eastern Europe and Latin America imperiled and with much of Africa going backward, the certainties of only a year ago seem far from certain.—'

 

"Some other headlines around the same time were 'Global Capitalism, Once Triumphant, Is in Full Retreat 'by Robert J. Samuelson in Newsweek','In Russia, the Liberal Western Model Has Failed 'by Martin Malia in International Herald Tribune etc. There were similar articles in Foreign Affairs of CFR, Washington and other journals. After chiding Asians for their crony capitalism , in Sep 1998, LTMC a big US Investment firm run by two 1997 Nobel Prize Winners for Economics (derivative trading?) had to be bailed out as its bets around   the world amounted to US$ 100 billion .Perhaps in expatiation Amritya Sen was given next year's prize for his writings on famines and democracy. "  from my article "CAPITALISM  IN  CRISIS AND  FAILURE  OF  GLOBALISATION' -at the end.( It was published in the Romanian Journal of International Affairs, Bucharest Volume VI 1-2 , October , 2000 )

 

Confidence in the US Dollar;
Before 9/11, at a lunch for the Turkish PM at the Rashtrapati Bhavan I had demurred to an Indian economist, now occupying a very high position about the inequities of the current economic order , founded on the US dollar as the dominant reserve currency, which accounted for 68 percent of global currency reserves, up from 51 percent a decade ago. Yet in 2000, the US share of global exports ($781.1 billion out of a world total of $6.2 trillion) was only 12.3 percent and its share of global imports ($1.257 trillion out of a world total of $6.65 trillion) was 18.9 percent.

"Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon arbitrarily took the dollar off the gold standard ($35 per ounce) in force since the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has become the global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat, despite record US current-account deficits and the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion against a GDP of $9 trillion. (It is now 9 trillion in a GDP of around 13 trillion)

"India has to maintain ample foreign-exchange reserves, which have now reached $60 billion. Most of this must be kept in low-interest US securities, which US companies like Enron can then invest in India and force governments to guarantee 15 percent returns. Thus US companies earn billions of dollars by investing Indian savings in India. "[This argument I had used in my piece,'Decline of the American Century ' used by Asia Times on 11 September, 2002, first anniversary of 11/9.]

The economist replied with great insouciance," Yes, but you have to create confidence as US has done in the dollar." Since then many lunches have been organized at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and look where the confidence in the US dollar is.

Even in the so called socialist era in India before 1991, Indian state sector had lower share in GDP than that sector in UK, but India was demonized by the West as almost a communist state for not opening India to FDI .It is policies of that era implemented by Nehru and others that gave the economic and industrial strength and resilience, and human resources to build up the Indian industry.
Even then officers, especially in economic affairs department of Indian Ministry of Finance and elsewhere (with possibilities of a deputation to the West controlled Institutions) were chosen with tacit approval from USA controlling the IMF, World Bank and other Washington consensus institutes. They were, if found in tune with western thinking, then seconded to these Institutions. They earned fat pensions and have continued to promote policies favoring the West. These gentlemen and others retiring from multinationals have the temerity to write against Nehru's economic policies .Many are in important decision making positions in India. Somebody should request Wajahat Habibullah, Chief of Central Information Commission for information on the pensions earned by these worthies, who now are in the government or writing in corporate owned Indian media promoting unabashed capitalism and globalization .The list will amaze the Adam Aadmi and explain, why when they say that India is shining, the electorate votes out the villains (in walks another set)

Let me give an example from elsewhere.

 

Victor Yushchenko
Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko as the head of the newly-formed National Bank of Ukraine in 1993 enforced the IMF's usual shock therapy economic medicine which only impoverished the economy. He created a new Ukrainian national currency, which resulted in a dramatic plunge in real wages and the standard of living tumbled. In 1999,   Yushchenko was appointed Prime Minister because of loans which IMF etc had promised. In the now discredited IMF programs, it closed down part of the country's manufacturing base. Yushchenko also tried to undermine bilateral trade in oil and natural gas with Russia and demanded that this trade be conducted in US dollars rather than in terms of commodity barter. In 2001, he was dismissed following a non-confidence vote in the parliament-"Viktor Yushchenko has fulfilled obligations to the IMF better and more accurately than his duties to citizens of his our country, Olena Markosyan, a Kharkiv-based analyst, opined in Ukrainian centrist daily Den" (BBC Monitoring, 16 Nov 2004).

Yushchenko was elected President in a December ,2004 re-poll as a result of US led West supported franchised 'street revolutions ', earlier carried out successfully in Serbia and Georgia but which  failed in Belarus , Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan .There were many write ups in Guardian, Globalsearch and other websites which documented western agencies' massive financial and logistic support to Yushchenko.  According to New Statesman Yushchenko was supported covertly by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Freedom House and George Soros' Open Society Institute, the very entities, which helped oust Shevardnadze in Georgia the previous year. The NED has four affiliate institutes: The International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). They" provide technical assistance to aspiring democrats worldwide." Basically they help install pro-US puppets under the pretext of promoting democracy.
While in 1990s and earlier, countries like Mexico. Brazil. Argentina, Thailand. Indonesia became victims of recession this time it is the United States. In my view it is always the speculation on land and buildings, which have no agreed intrinsic value in crunch, which bring economic downfall as in South East Asia in 1997-98. Indians have still not caught on but I have been saying since many months that the land and housing values in spite of genuine demand have reached too sky high .They are not commensurate with returns on rents aka , speculation capital has entered the sector even from abroad.  The housing and land price boom will soon come down sharply.

Basically using jiggery pokery the investment banks and speculators in the West have created various kinds of funds and liquidity and disappointed with the returns from one country go to another , demanding opportunities for direct investment (FDI). "Eventually it becomes clear that the investment opportunity wasn't all it seemed to be, and the money rushes out again, with nasty consequences for the former financial favorite. That's the story of multiple financial crises in Latin America and Asia. And it's also the story of the U.S. combined housing and credit bubble. These days, we're playing the role usually assigned to third-world economies," said US economist Paul Krugman in New York Times last week.

In early in 2005, Ben Bernanke before he was named chairman of the US Federal Reserve asked: "Why is the United States, with the world's largest economy, borrowing heavily on international capital markets "rather than lending, as would seem more natural?"  His answer was that the main explanation lay not here in America, but abroad. In particular, third world economies, which had been investor favorites for much of the 1990s, were shaken by a series of financial crises beginning in 1997. As a result, they abruptly switched from being destinations for capital to sources of capital, as their governments began accumulating huge precautionary hoards of overseas assets.

The result, said Mr. Bernanke, there was a "global saving glut": lots of money. In the end, most of that was forced to go to the United States. Why? Because, said Mr. Bernanke, of the "depth and sophistication of the country's financial markets." Krugman retorts that those U.S. financial markets, it turns out, were characterized less by sophistication than by sophistry, which" my dictionary defines as a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone." E.g., "Repackaging dubious loans into collateralized debt obligations creates a lot of perfectly safe, AAA assets that will never go bad."

Continues Krugman,"In other words, the United States was not, in fact, uniquely well-suited to make use of the world's surplus funds. It was, instead, a place where large sums could be and were invested very badly. Directly or indirectly, capital flowing into America from global investors ended up financing a housing-and-credit bubble that has now burst, with painful consequences."
Another main reason is US-Saudi axis , with the former protecting the degenerate but Wahabi ideology spreading dynasty ( and others in the Gulf ) through Madarsas and support to Jihadis and nominating oil prices in US dollars , forcing the oil importing nations to keep US dollar reserves . But slowly things are changing with oil prices being quoted in Euros or basket of currencies and other such measures .And transfer of dollars into Euros .Iran President Ahmedinjed must be delighted.

An apologia ;I am a simple electrical engineering graduate from Banaras of 1958 vintage , who taught it at Patiala for three years and found that chief engineers at IDPL , which I managed in 1985 and 86 remembered even less of engineering. The job was all about management. In spite of efforts to learn economics I remain a dilettante. Still I keep on trying.

 

The article below was written for late President K.R Narayanan .Having been his First Secretary in early 1970s when he was Ambassador to Ankara he was very kind and always granted me an audience of half an hour or more whenever I visited Delhi, when he resided up at the Raisina Hill. He also indulged me to 'lecture' on what ever I was writing on. I had spoken to him in early 2000 about the crisis in Capitalism .Next day he telephoned to enquire if I had written much on the subject   .So I wrote this piece for him.

 

It was written based on some further reading of the history of Capitalism and Banking dynasties , and experience of postings and tours in communist and post Communist countries like Romania, Germany (East ) , Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan among others. It will provide a useful background on post Communist era, when mafias have taken over many of the institutions if not these countries for the US led west.

 

Unlike George Bush, who has approval rating of just over 30% in USA, Vladimir Putin has an approval rating of over 70 % in Russia. According to a recent Public Opinion Barometer, conducted by the Soros Foundation Nicolae Ceausescu the demonized dictator remains in the first position of   great Romanian leaders during the last hundred years, with 23 per cent votes, followed by current President Traian Basescu, with 15 per cent. The lower positions are taken by Ion Iliescu (7 per cent), Kings Carol I (6 per cent) and Mihai I (6 per cent), Gheorghiu Dej (3 per cent), King Ferdinand (3 per cent), Nicolae Titulescu (2 per cent), King Carol II (2 per cent), Ion Antonescu (2 per cent), Emil Constantinescu (1 per cent.) You will learn the reasons in the piece below.

 

Stay tight and take care .With best wishes Gajendra 23 January.2008, Mayur Vihar, Delhi