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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Aug 04 2010 - 08:52:37 EDT
Inside Africa: The new scramble for Afrika's minerals, the untold story
Dr. Kwame Osei
04/08/2010
_____
column
Accra - 125 years ago the Western imperialists including America, Britain,
France and Germany met at a round table to carve up Afrika into
neo-political and neo-economic entities. This was known as the "Congress of
Berlin" that became dubbed: "The Scramble for Afrika"
Today the same western powers but now including the Asians and the European
Jews are now involved in another "Scramble for Afrika", this time for some
very precious minerals of which could have just an impact as that first
scramble for Afrika.
West Africa has become the scene of intense competition between
international mining companies as the price of minerals has risen after the
recession of 2009.
This has become known in certain circles as the "New Scramble for Afrika"
based on the rich untapped deposits of minerals crucial for lap tops,
computers, cars, mobile phone components, micro-chips and many other
household and industrial good that the West and China needs.
"This latest scramble for Afrika is part of the New World Order that I have
been referring to in which the sole objective is to loot Afrika and keep
Afrika a basket case and is proof of the neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism
that Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah warned us about more than 50 years ago and
in the centenary of his birth, these prophecies have come true in the light
of this development and other sinister developments on the Afrikan
continent.
At the centre of this disturbing development is a region that covers parts
of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It is cited as the largest of the
world's remaining undeveloped minerals deposits.
Guinean Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam recently approved a joint venture
between the Brazilian giant Vale and General Resources, run by Israel-based
Beny Steinmetz. The northern part of the Simandou Mountains (the region of
Guinea being explored by this joint venture) is disputed territory-Rio Tinto
still disputes the Guinean government's decision to remove half of its
Simandou exploration rights.
Towards the end of General Lansana Conte's regime, after Rio Tinto's rights
had been revoked, Steinmetz took control of the northern Simandou block.
Vale then paid the Beny Steinmetz Group (BSG) $2.5 billion to take part in
the venture.
These two companies intend to spend $8 billion on building mines, ports, and
railways in Guinea and Liberia by 2020 to extract the iron ore from the
region.
The ore is to be transported out by railway through Liberia - finding its
way back to the West to enrich the west and is a further part of the
economic enslavement that I have been trying to impart into the minds of the
readership.
Rio Tinto is collaborating with Chinalco, described by the Financial Times
as "China's state champion", in a joint venture to develop the Simandou
southern block.
Hyperdynamics Corporation, based in Texas, is prospecting for oil in West
Afrika. In March it renounced its claim to 70 percent of its offshore sites,
in order to concentrate on onshore deposits in Guinea.
In May, Hyperdynamics confirmed that it had signed a revised
production-sharing agreement with the Guinean government to extract oil
deposits. Dana Petroleum, a Scottish oil and gas explorer, announced in
December 2009 that it had agreed to buy a 23 percent interest of the
Hyperdynamics concession.
Bellzone, a British mining firm, declared in May that they had secured a
promise of funding by China International Fund (CIF) for new iron ore mining
in return for access to the iron ore produced. CIF is funding all the
required infrastructure development required for the project (at an
estimated cost of $3 billion) including a 286 km railway, as well as port
and power development.
The iron ore must be transported along a Trans-Guinea railway to be built in
collaboration with Rio Tinto. The railway will link what is left of the Rio
Tinto's Simandou concession to Bellzone's Kalia concession, and then go on
to a new port.
CIF is a Hong Kong-based company with connections to the Chinese government,
which last year pledged to invest $7 billion in Guinea in exchange for
access to mining and oil rights.
The deal was officially made public in the aftermath of the military coup in
Guinea, after the junta of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara had murdered over 150
opposition protesters in (the capital) Conakry's stadium in September 2009.
China is willing to enter such costly arrangements because its industry
requires increasing amounts of many raw materials, but especially iron ore
ALL found in Afrika. China has gone from being a net steel importer to a net
steel exporter. Its steel industry has dramatically increased its output
volumes. Domestic steel prices have reduced as a result, and the leading
steel producers are boosting their exports to increase profits.
Presidential elections are due in Guinea soon, with some of the parties
saying that no new contracts should be signed before the elections, and that
they will renegotiate the contracts if the elections bring them to power.
Such claims are mainly for public consumption-the giant corporations exert
huge influence over national politicians - i.e. that these multi-national
Western and Asian mining companies have already bribed both sides meaning
that whoever wins the Guinean election, their interests are already
safeguarded.
Other companies involved in the scramble for West Afrika's rich vast mineral
deposits worth tens of billions of dollars are BHP Billiton, the UK steel
company ArcelorMittal, the Russian company Severstal, Jersey-based AmLib
Holdings plc and the state-owned Chinese mining company, Chinalco. Rio Tinto
and BHP Billiton are British-Australian transnational mining and resources
groups with headquarters in London and Melbourne.
On 14 June, it was reported that BHP Billiton had signed a $3 billion deal
with the Liberian government to develop a large-scale iron ore project. In
January, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced the government
was granting a 25-year license for its Western Cluster to Elenilto, part of
the Engelinvest Group, controlled by Israeli businessman Jacob Engel.
Western Cluster is one of the largest iron ore mining sites in the world,
with reserves of over 1.1 billion tons of iron ore. Earlier this year,
ArcelorMittal resumed work on its $1.5 billion Mount Nimba project in
Liberia that had been suspended since May 2009. Production is expected to
start up in the middle of 2011.
In Sierra Leone, the London-listed African Minerals plans to begin
commercial production at its Tonkolili project in early 2011. The company
says the reserves are amongst the biggest in the world. Also in Sierra
Leone, London Mining is to spend $300 million over four years on its Marampa
project, expected to achieve primary ore production of 5 to 8 million tonnes
a year by 2013.
Liberia and Sierra Leone have recently been mired in civil wars, started by
the West namely America and Britain using stooges like Charles Taylor to
carry out their dirty work, whilst they present themselves as being the
saviours of these two countries whilst demonizing the likes of Taylor who
they were willing to sponsor and support to deliver their agenda while
Guinea with the French pulling insidious strings has been close to civil war
since the military coup in 2008. In the Liberian civil war, more than a
quarter of a million people died, half of them civilians.
British and US troops were "sent" into Liberia and Sierra Leone to suppress
the rebel groups. Both the civil wars themselves and the incursions by
western backed and financed troops were mainly driven by greedy western
ambitions to dominate the countries' mineral resources.
Between 1997 and 2001, Sierra Leone was subject to interventions by Ecomog
(the West African force dominated by Nigeria), Britain and the United
Nations.
Since the end of the conflicts, no substantial aid has been sent in to help
with rebuilding or easing the plight of those whose livelihoods were
destroyed by the conflicts that were started by the West and yet it was the
same west who stated that they would send aid to re-build what in essence
THEY helped to destroy - see the nature and double talk of western
geo-politics!!!
All three countries suffer from grinding poverty, very low life expectancy
and high infant mortality rates. Sierra Leone and Liberia are close to the
bottom of the table of the United Nations Development Programme Human
Development Index.
The yearly gross domestic product of Liberia is around $1.5 billion, while
that of Sierra Leone is no more than $4.5 billion.
This shows the glaring disparity between the billions of dollars of profits
made from these countries vast mineral deposits and the chronic poverty and
underdevelopment suffered by the local population - all for the sake of
Western and Asian economic domination whilst the masses of Afrikans go
hungry, go to bed without adequate water and electricity supplies and lack
adequate healthcare - something that people in the West and the developed
parts of Asia take for granted at the Afrikans expense.
The major effect of the expansion of mining in this region will be to widen
this disparity still further.
Relevant Links
* West Africa <http://allafrica.com/westafrica/>
* Ghana <http://allafrica.com/ghana/>
* Commodities <http://allafrica.com/commodities/>
* Mining <http://allafrica.com/mining/>
* Business <http://allafrica.com/business/>
In addition to this is scramble for Zimbabwe's rich mineral resources like
chrome, hence the political instability in the country and the big one the
scramble for D R Congo's vast mineral resources like cobalt, colthan,
platinum, steel and diamonds.
Therefore what the above article highlights is what I have said so often is
that there is a New World Order in which the prime agenda is to loot
Afrika's resources, keep the continent and people of Afrika forever
impoverished and enslaved whilst others namely Europeans, Americans and
Asians enrich themselves and their people at our expense.
The above article should also inform the wise of us the REAL reasons behind
the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and the instability in Guinea.
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