Unarmed Civilans Gunned Down

daveirl

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therecklessone

Another story that stayed under the radar so far...

Evidence of sex abuse by UN staff in Congo

Again, replace UN with US and Congo with Iraq, and this would be front page news.

mike65

At last the fightback!

I saw that UN story and had intended to post about it. The French in the Ivory Coast are having a terrible time on all fronts but you'd never guess
from the media that anything much was happening.

Mike.

shotamoose

I've been reading quite a lot about it, guess I must know how to get past the anti-American liberal media bias or something. Obscure sites like the BBC and New York Times seem to have quite a lot of coverage.

For what it's worth, my take on what I've read is that the Ivorian President Gbagbo has stoked up popular anti-French resentment in order to consolidate power and deflect attention from his failure to deliver peace. The French have responded by bombing his entire airforce, which to this uninformed observer does not seem the best way to defuse the situation. Haven't seen that video yet, but mowing down civilians is likewise not a good way to win hearts and minds, as the Americans have discovered in Iraq.

By the way, I find this trend of people starting up threads with comments like "I can't believe there's nothing on boards about this (except for this thread obviously), just goes to show people don't really care unless it's the Americans doing something etc etc" quite annoying. Someone has to be the first one to post on a particular topic - can't you do it without simultaneously attacking other people for not doing so?

sovtek

Yup looks like the French government still have a little bit o knee jerk imperialism left in em yet.
I expected the "ah ha what about the French! what about the French!"about a month ago.
What can I say about it...as far as I'm concerned there is little I, as an American, can do about it.
My government is a different story though.

SkepticOne

sovtek wrote:

What can I say about it...as far as I'm concerned there is little I, as an American, can do about it.
My government is a different story though.

I agree. The less Yanks involved the better. Both the French and the Ivorians have quite enough on their hands already.

mike65

shotamoose wrote:

I've been reading quite a lot about it, guess I must know how to get past the anti-American liberal media bias or something. Obscure sites like the BBC and New York Times seem to have quite a lot of coverage....

....By the way, I find this trend of people starting up threads with comments like "I can't believe there's nothing on boards about this (except for this thread obviously), just goes to show people don't really care unless it's the Americans doing something etc etc" quite annoying. Someone has to be the first one to post on a particular topic - can't you do it without simultaneously attacking other people for not doing so?

On the first point, you're right as far as you go, but you and I both know that the coverage on the main news programmes on TV has been scant and thats where the "unwashed" get thier world opinion from.

Secondly if you want to see the effect of NOT having a pop at the anti-US brigade check this thread. Note the posting dates. Its been viewed 115 times as of now.

Mike.

Sand

Im wondering why the French started shooting in the first place - there was a large crowd alright, but they mainly seemed to be standing around shouting stuff - there wasnt even the missles youd expect from "peaceful protestors". Surely the French/UN soldiers must have had good cause?

That said though, Im now convinced that the U.N. is the best option for Iraq. Lets introduce slavery, sexual exploitation of minors and shooting protestors into the mix.

Now I'm not exusing the American's crimes, I'm just pointing out a disgusting incident that's not getting the coverage it disturbs because people are too occupied with the evil Americans killing Margret Hassan, or whatever tinfoil hat theory they have.

Yup - It reminds me of the way middle eastern regimes saturate their media with stories about Israel/Palestine and now Iraq to divert their peoples anger to external targets rather than to their own domestic failings. At this stage, the same could maybe be said about the European media which will devote page after page to Americas failings, disasters and problems which can only help European leaders gloss over their own.

Redleslie2

The French are beheading terrorists apparently. Link.

Cardinal Bernard Agre said last week he had seen young girls decapitated by the French army - a charge President Gbagbo said he believed to be true.

sceptre

therecklessone wrote:

Another story that stayed under the radar so far...

Evidence of sex abuse by UN staff in Congo

Wasn't it on the news months ago? I know I heard about it months ago.

daveirl

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passive

it said protestors, not terrorists. i dunno about beheading, which sounds like a pretty random and absurd acusation really but there was a skull blown apart in that video anyway. that was pretty screwed up and harrowing...

I don't see how they could justify those deaths, apart from the complete denial... but i'd like to know why they opened fire as they did. the camera man wasn't watching the troops when the shooting started and was running while it was taking place so the actual cause is very unclear.

I dunno why people aren't talking about it. but i suppose it is proportionally a lot smaller than the war in iraq, which has more of a back story that the whole world has been following so there's less interest in this situation.

Redleslie2

daveirl wrote:

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Stinks of rabble-rousing hate-mongering propaganda to me actually, a bit like booby trapped corpses and jessica lynch's rape.

shotamoose

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Having watched the video, can I just say that I missed the bit where it shows French Soldiers Machine-gunning Civilians. I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that you can't tell from that video. At the start, a big crowd is standing around in front of some tanks and other military equipment that as far as I can see are not identifiably French. Then there's shooting. Then we see lots of injured and dead people. Then we see some French troops.

To repeat, I'm not simply taking the French side, and I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just not sure that video shows what you're saying it's showing.

therecklessone

sceptre wrote:

Wasn't it on the news months ago? I know I heard about it months ago.

About 30 cases of abuse, including the sexual abuse of minors, involving both military and U.N. civilian staff, were reported in the spring in the northeastern town of Bunia.

T'would appear you're right. First I heard of it was during the week on RTE's Aertel. I do recall other cases of sexual abuse in Africa countries from two years ago, and UN affiliated Police officers involved in prostitute trafficking in Kosovo in 2001.

Original point remains the same TBH. Put in a US/Iraqi context, heads would be expected to roll and there'd be some claiming that the buck should stop with Donald Rumsfeld...

boomdogman

The French destroyed the Ivorian Air Force as an act of retalitation for an attack.

Yes they are very knee jerk and very imperial, especially concerning French speaking countries, the former colonies. They never could forgive the Americans for not rescuing the situation at Diem Bien Phu either.

Sparks

sceptre wrote:

Wasn't it on the news months ago? I know I heard about it months ago.

Was that the report where those accused were Irish soldiers?

Nuttzz

No, I'd say you are thinking of the Irish solider caught with a prostitute in Eritrea.

OfflerCrocGod

First of all there has been media coverage, it doesn't get that much coverage because it's frankly not that big a deal Ivory Coast does not have oil and France isn't doing this unilaterally like the US - those UN cars going up in flames aren't there for a vacation! - also the fact that this is mainly an internal matter with rebels trying to attack a goverment and not an outside force trying to conquer a whole country based on some obvious lies about WMD makes this a lot less interesting to the media. The number of casualties is far smaller as is the peace keeping force - the US isn't a peace kepping force but I'll gloss over that.

Secondly - where are the French troops killing all these people I was promised in this video? All I see is a lot of green blurring some gunfire in the background and then lots of people lying on the ground - a few injured - but noticeably no French troops shooting people. There are troops though - if you click on my first attachment you will see them. They do seem a bit black for French people but maybe the just got a really good tan? Those troops are UN troops as you can see here that means that quite a few countries are involved:

Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, India, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Moldova, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Togo, Tunisia, Uruguay, Yemen and Zambia

The French troops are well trained they most likely won't be stupid enough to fire on Civs for no reason, the other nations though.......who knows? The second attachment is what looks like French troops and they are show in-between shots of a headless corpse......the camera never pans to the troops, so you can't be sure they are even in the same place, it just lets the viewer make up it's own mind as to cause of death. Really odd that maybe the cameraman didn't want to stress his back by lifting the camera up and showing us who was around and where he actually was, it must be a heavy camera.

Thirdly the website that hosts that file is nothing but an Ivory Coast Goverment Radio website - not what you would call impartial now is it? There are good reasons why I don't trust that website and they are pretty much linked with the reasons why the UN troops were attacked and had to defend themselves. I think this BBC article sums them well.

National television and radio has been broadcasting fervent, not to say feverish, messages calling on people to take to the streets.

On occasions, the messages have strayed from the motivational to the incendiary.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded what he called "hate media" be stopped immediately.

Sorry but I don't like the taste of propaganda - it's very sour, not my sort of thing at all. In the end people were stirred up by hate propaganda and decided to attack the UN troops, the troops defended themselves which is only expected and 10 or so people got killed. Now why is this in even the remotest sense like what is happening in Iraq with the Americans? 100'000 >> 10 The troops have been there for over two years keeping the peace between the goverment and the rebels, with little trouble. It's just suddenly the goverment has gotten tired of this and decided to try and launch some air strikes againts the rebels, somehow they blew up French troops instead. The French bitch-smacked the air-forces planes into pieces and frankly I couldn't agree more and so does the UN. This not like Iraq at all.

Redleslie2

Bomb kills Venezuela prosecutor.
Five killed in Brazil land clash.

There's two more stories that are being conveniently ignored by the anti-american tin foil hat crazies. But I bet some wacko will still attempt to smear the CIA over the Venezuela thing at least. :rolleyes:

the_syco

Redleslie2 wrote:

The French are beheading terrorists apparently. Link.

President Gbagbo wrote:

"I wasn't in the hospitals but everyone who went there said it. We can assume this testimony repeated by several people is true."

He wasn't there, but someone told him that it happened. Notice that no-one has claimed to have seen it, but that someone else has :rolleyes:
Seemingly, even though he didn't see it happen, it did.

BBC wrote:

On 6 November the Ivorian air force killed nine French peacekeepers while attacking the rebel stronghold of Bouake in the north of the country.

Mr Gbagbo suggested that, as he had not seen the bodies of the French soldiers, they may not exist.

Seemingly, if he didn't see it it didn't happen.

Redleslie2 wrote:

jessica lynch's rape.

Even the soldiers who "rescued" her doubt the story. As for "empting all her magazine's", that'd be kind of hard, as seemingly they wouldn't work due to the sand in them. The amount of current and ex military that nit-picked the entire story says something in its self, about how "true" it was.

=-=

[url=http://au.news.yahoo.com/041113/21/rpvy.html]Yahoo.com[/url] wrote:

More than 4,000 foreigners have been evacuated from the country, with civilians and United Nations staff being flown from Abidjan.

French patrols are still looking for foreigners who may be hiding in their homes.

The French military is coordinating the evacuation in Ivory Coast and other nations are also sending aircraft to the international airport in Abidjan.

The Royal Air Force has evacuated more than 200 British nationals to nearby Ghana.

The foreigners were forced to flee after more than five days of violent demonstrations and looting.

Get your people out, and let the country blow itself up, or is it a case of get your people out, and concentrate all your power on the conflict, so that you don't have to spare 25% of your army protecting your people?

=-=

But this wouldn't be the first time the president, or Liberian mercenaries allied to President Laurent Gbagbo's army, killed civilians;

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/03/09/ivorycoast.reut/]CNN.com[/url] wrote:

Rebel commander Ousmane Coulibaly said he believed more than 200 civilians were killed in Friday's attack on Bangolo. He blamed the deaths on Liberian mercenaries allied to President Laurent Gbagbo's army.

[url=http://www.usafricaonline.com/ivorycoasty2k.massacre.html]usafricaonline.com[/url] wrote:

120 civilians massacred in Ivory Coast by government forces
Survivors say government forces killed villagers, unarmed civilians

=-=

Finally, as Mr Gbagbo had 2 Sukhoi Fighter Jets, I'd say he has a few other nice toys. They may have been used in the bombing which killed the French, as they drop cluster bombs (they don't have air to surface missile's).

France has since sent over a few Mirage jets, which are pretty damn good, but may have not been much of a match to the Sukhoi's, so the airbase being bombed may have just being a tactial bombing, using the killings as a justification.

Hobbes

therecklessone wrote:

Another story that stayed under the radar so far...

Evidence of sex abuse by UN staff in Congo

Again, replace UN with US and Congo with Iraq, and this would be front page news.

Too early in the morning for me to go reading up on it. But I do recall the last comment in that news story before. It was spun as "Anti-UN" news around the the time of the US case for war and I did go looking up on it. It was actually a US contracting company that was running the prostitution. It also disappeared under the radar after this was found out.

Still yet to see the French video.

Hobbes

Redleslie2 wrote:

Bomb kills Venezuela prosecutor.

But I bet some wacko will still attempt to smear the CIA over the Venezuela thing at least. :rolleyes:

Hardly, but you did read the story right and not just title and made up your own opinion?

Let me quote...
He had been preparing a case against about 400 opposition members, including politicians, lawyers and businessmen, accused of supporting a short-lived coup against Mr Chavez in 2002.

I would be intrested how the media in Venezuela spin to say that Chavez killed him. :rolleyes:

Lemming

I downloaded and watched that large 103mb file of french troops apparently gunning down civilians and all I have to say is ...

"ummm. Where exactly was that in the video?"

The footage was *heavily* edited with lots of different scenes and I suspect, locations, meshed together. The french troops are only seen at the end, as opposed to the rather coloured looking troops at the start and middle of the footage when all the violence occurs.

The Corinthian

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Well... at least they didn't surrender this time...

sovtek

Sand wrote:

That said though, Im now convinced that the U.N. is the best option for Iraq. Lets introduce slavery, sexual exploitation of minors and shooting protestors into the mix.

Unlike what's going on now in Iraq, of course.

Yup - It reminds me of the way middle eastern regimes saturate their media with stories about Israel/Palestine and now Iraq to divert their peoples anger to external targets rather than to their own domestic failings.

Those failed Middle East regimes that had no amount of help from "us" you mean?
Of course we can throw Al Hurra (spelling) into that mix now.

At this stage, the same could maybe be said about the European media which will devote page after page to Americas failings, disasters and problems which can only help European leaders gloss over their own.

Yup, European leaders are no different there.
Luckily in Europe you have very mainstream access to various adversarial media as well as foreign media so as to be able to tell whose probably telling the truth.

sovtek

Redleslie2 wrote:

Stinks of rabble-rousing hate-mongering propaganda to me actually, a bit like booby trapped corpses and jessica lynch's rape.

Now red....take off your tin foil hat.

:rolleyes:

sovtek

therecklessone wrote:

Original point remains the same TBH. Put in a US/Iraqi context, heads would be expected to roll and there'd be some claiming that the buck should stop with Donald Rumsfeld...

Show us memo's that the equivalent of Donald or hell even Chirac either ordered or knew about these crimes and then I'd be doing the same...actually I'm already convinced Bush, Chirac and Martin should answer for supporting the overthrow of Aristide.

Redleslie2

sovtek wrote:

Now red....take off your tin foil hat.

:rolleyes:

I think I'll open a shop selling the bloody things.

Hairy Homer

The Corinthian wrote:

Well... at least they didn't surrender this time...

Now now Corinthian. In my experience, labelling an entire country as being prone to retreat and surrender can cause rancour and upset.

(With a little help from Google's translation tools)

Casseruola, Caldaia, Nero.

The Corinthian

Hairy Homer wrote:

Casseruola, Caldaia, Nero.

I was wondering how long it would take you to comment