

African Countries Forced by France to Pay Colonial Tax - vinnyglennon
http://www.siliconafrica.com/france-colonial-tax/

======
alain94040
That articles looks bogus. For instance:

 _It’s such an evil system even denounced by the European Union, but France is
not ready to move from that colonial system which puts about 500 billions
dollars from Africa to its treasury year in year out._

According to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_France](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_France),
that's pretty much equivalent to the budget of the French government. If that
number were true, France finances ought to be in better shape.

~~~
fchollet
$500 billion is roughly 25% of the entire GDP of all of sub-saharan Africa. It
is more than the entire GDP of the countries mentioned here.

Of course it is bogus. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence...

I must say I am quite surprised to see a poorly written propaganda hoax
article make the frontpage of HN. It is linked to the general decline in
quality of HN? Is it a voting ring? Or is it because the headline pulls all
the right triggers in the minds of bay area tech people?

I see a lot of accounts created in the last couple hours posting in this
thread, so it might well be a voting ring situation.

~~~
dang
I looked at the data and it doesn't seem to be a voting ring, though it's hard
to exclude that for certain. Also the new accounts posting in this thread seem
to disagree with each other.

As far as I can tell, it is mostly that a lot of users thought the article was
interesting. Presumably it wasn't obviously a hoax to them.

In the end, flags defeated upvotes on this story.

------
haliou
My first post on HN :) I'm not sure the situation is a simple as the author
implies. It is true that when the French left Guinea in 1958 they took
everything with them. Eventually Guinea turned to communist Russia with even
greater consequences.

The author claims "Right for France to pre-deploy troops and intervene
military in the country to defend its interests". This is not true as it's a
defence agreement against external aggression, not internal civil war. For
example they did not intervene for any side during the 2002-2004 civil war in
the Ivory Coast.

The usage of Franc CFA is actually beneficial to those using the currency as
it's value is pegged to the Euro, hence helping to control inflation.

I do not dispute the facts that Africans countries ought to be more autonomous
(after all that's what independence is), but this stems more from a failure
from Africans politicians than anyone else.

~~~
saikaisi
>"For example they did not intervene for any side during the 2002-2004 civil
war in the Ivory Coast."

That's no true. France supported Alassane Ouatarra, the current president who
lost the election, but was backed by France which troops fired on people on
the street and also bombarded with helicopters the presidential palace to
force the elected president Laurent Gbagbo to give power to Alassance Ouattara
supported by France.

Links are all over the net to prove that.

The fact and history behind the CFA is much more dark, than presented.

I agree with you, Africans should fight the French to become more autonomous.

~~~
haliou
You are mixing the facts. I stated the 2002-2004 war. The election were held
in 2010.

During the civil war[1] 2002-2007 The country was divided in two with the
French military separating both side, the French were authorized to act by UN
resolution 1528 (very important!)

The elections were held in October 2010, the counting took months and the
Electoral commission declared Alassane Ouatarra the winner in December 2010.
Laurent Gbagbo refused to stand down, claiming he won. Thus the 2nd civil war
began[2]. The stand off continued until April 2011 when the rebel took control
of the country including Abidjan and with the help of the French removed
Gbagbo.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Ivorian_Civil_War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Ivorian_Civil_War)
[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Ivorian_Civil_War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Ivorian_Civil_War)

~~~
saikaisi
Similary to the case of Lybia, the UN resolution didn't ask France to bombard
the presidential palace, and also shoot people on the street.

We need to care more about facts and deeds not UN wind bags.

~~~
haliou
I'm not a defender of France or what they did. I'm African born in the Ivory
Coast and simply wanted to clarify a few things from the article.

------
tokenadult
I see that several comments here doubt that the factual statements in the
submitted article are true. That's something to think about before deciding
how to respond to the article being posted here.

My comment on the substance of the article is that one way to reality-check
French colonial policies in Africa is to see whether African countries that
had a different history during the period of Western colonialism on the
continent fared differently in recent decades. Ethiopia was an independent
country except for a brief period of being conquered by Italy in the 1930s,
becoming liberated again during World War II. Liberia was formally
independent, although bound to the United States by economic ties as it was
founded as a repatriation site for freed slaves from America. Various
countries in Africa were British or Belgian or Portuguese or even (briefly)
German colonies before gaining independence. Looking at what former colonies
of a particular colonizing country have in common might shed a little light on
what the varying colonial policies and post-colonial policies have done in
Africa.

------
finid
> We often accuse African leaders of corruption and serving western nations
> interests instead, but there is a clear explanation for that behavior. They
> behave so because they are afraid the be killed or victim of a coup. They
> want a powerful nation to back them in case of aggression or trouble. But,
> contrary to a friendly nation protection, the western protection is often
> offered in exchange of these leaders renouncing to serve their own people or
> nations’ interests.

The same arrangement prevails between the defenders democracy and smaller
countries that can't defend themselves against Big Brothers.

Why do you think Uncle Sam chose to invade Iraq when the House of Saud is the
real evil in the ME?

~~~
toyg
The choice of Iraq over Saudi as Great Enemy has little to do with size or
power; back before the Iraq-Iran war, Iraq wasn't a poor country. In fact, if
Saddam hadn't misread US responses when he hinted at the possibility of taking
over Kuwait, he would probably still be in charge and I bet he'd have
developed a great friendship with King Abdallah by now.

The Saudis are safe because they will "do the right thing" when the chips are
down -- see for example their recent refusal to cut oil production: there is a
drunk Russian bear to quiet down, prices have to stay low to make him feel
pain, so the Saudi Kingdom will make the "right" choice even if it costs them
some cash. That's what a reliable partner does, and as long as partners remain
reliable (and strategically irreplaceable), there is no reason to take them
out.

~~~
finid
In other words all that noise about "our values" is just hot air.

Btw, if by "a drunk Russian bear" you 're referring to Putin, the guy does not
dring, or at least, he does not get drunk, unlike most Russian men of his age.
That's one reason Russian women like him.

~~~
toyg
"Drunk" was a joke playing on Russian stereotypes in the West and on the
expression "drunk with power" (the Russian military is currently making a
spectacle of itself all over Scandinavia and the Baltic, not to mention the
little issue of Crimea).

~~~
finid
> the Russian military is currently making a spectacle of itself all over
> Scandinavia and the Baltic, not to mention the little issue of Crimea)

Whatever the Russian military is making of itself, it's nowhere near as bad as
what the "Coalition of the Willing" has been up to in
<insert_any_corner_of_the_globe>

------
deodorel
The problem might be that, during most of history, The majority of African
groups either didn't have enough resources in order to accumulate enough
wealth to afford working organized structures/states or were too fragmented.
Most European states were also plundered countless times but the lands are
richer so they were able to recoup. The French have a complicated history with
franceafrique but you can say the same thing with any great power at some
moment in time.

------
pc2g4d
Doesn't the legend on the map translate as "UN and African Union Missions" ?
That's not the same as the English text, which describes that map as "French
military bases in Africa".

~~~
omarali
Look at the top right, it says "French presences".

------
jacques_foccart
Another foreigner discovers the wonders of Francafrique, but he gets the
mechanism wrong.

Although trying to study the place from third party sources is like watching
Rashomon, this is pretty much how it works: \- "friendly" dictator is
installed and maintained so long as he cooperates. \- aid packages are sent
over (in cash, by plane) and loans made with friendly zero interest \- money
flies straight back via Geneva to finance French parties (e.g. RPR and Chirac,
but also Mitterrand whose network was a subset of Pasqua's, ironically; who
knows who is in charge these days) \- country is maintained in poverty by any
means practical (rigged election equipment with magical 90%+ wins, flying in
1,000 soldiers into Congo from Chad, shipping weapons by the crate...) so as
to lower the cost of keeping it under control. This includes financing both
sides of a war (as in Angola), and the "black governors" as some call them
deliberately installing the rule of corruption from top to bottom (see Mobutu
for the best example). The loans and missing aid definitely help keep the
finances problematic, especially when they cause future resource production to
be promised away for years as collateral.

It's important to note that Francafrique has been internationalised; FX
Verschave, who despite being almost a communist has been very good at keeping
track of the whole thing thinks the French networks have become subsets of the
US ones. Cuba, Russia were also big players on the chessboard. As for the
targets the saying is the louder they complain about the West, the closer they
are. Omar Bongo was hand-chosen by De Gaulle (cf Foccart's memoirs) and
trained and educated in France. He was the most reliable and famous, so close
to the French government he arbitrated disputes between ministers.

You basically hear two sides of the story: \- "communists are trying to take
over the place and we must stop them and forget human rights for a while
whilst we do so" (CIA, Rhodesians, South Africans back in the days) \- "the
Western capitalist powers will do anything to conquer their colonies and keep
them in control, but we're the democratic choice" (Madagascar, Ghana, Zimbabwe
and the aforementioned left wing countries). Some of the claims are pretty
bold, for example aforementioned Verschave claims the left wing Mitterrand
made Le Pen's political career happen (from 0.4 to 10% of the vote) in
exchange for maintaining a nice vivier of far-right youth that could be relied
on for African "holidays" and the occasional false flag car burning in
Algerian-French banlieues.

I don't think either side is right of course but you can glimpse crumbs of
truth from each side, and occasionally pockets of data emerge as the various
powers take the fight to the press and public temporarily, or some Don Quixote
decides to try her hand at windmills like Eva Joly against Elf (cf "Poisoned
Wells" which is a nice taster to the place). I look forward to reading the
declassified intelligence documents in 70 years or whatever it is. Mercenary
accounts can be pretty entertaining too - I'll close with Simon Mann's quote
about the French DGSE and military intelligence, "whatever you do, we can do
dirtier".

~~~
jacques_foccart
I can't edit my post due to being a new user, so I'll add that the incentive
for foreign countries is not just financial; it's VERY helpful for countries
to have a source of black funds that Congress or whoever is supposed to be
accountable for it does not "need" to "see". This is Jack Nicholson in a Few
Good Men all over again - the public enjoys the "blanket" and doesn't ask
about what it takes to maintain it.

It's also helpful in inter-agency rivalries, as whoever has the most
resources, particularly black resources, can be the most efficient. Believe it
or not there are several factions in France, aforementioned DGSE is the
"official" actor outside the borders, but the DST has their own agents as well
(yes, outside the territory) and then you have the military intelligence
apparatus which competes against the other two and is in theory supposed to
run the "mercenaries".

~~~
pm90
This is very disturbing. I had thought the days of dirty financial politics
were getting over, but it seems that the fight is just getting more intense. I
can see why though: if France or US does not take a side, China will (used to
be Soviets earlier). So its always this stupid game which others play and the
common Africans are haplessly caught in the middle wondering why their
countries are so impoverished.

------
stefantalpalaru
> if French is the only language you speak, you’d have access to less than 4%
> of humanity knowledge and ideas

Any relevant piece of knowledge is already available in French. I understand
the author's dislike of everything french, but this is going too far.

------
saikaisi
This is really Horrible.

Probably, why 80% of the 10 countries with the lowest literacy rates in the
WORLD among adults are in francophone Africa.

Namely: Benin (40%), Burkina Faso (26%), Chad (34%), Côte d’Ivoire (49%),
Guinea (29%), Mali (23%), Niger (29%), and Senegal (42%).

~~~
pavlov
That sounds simplified. Mali, Chad and Niger are inland desert countries whose
enormous total land area consists mostly of Sahara. They would still be
desperately poor even if their official language were English, Dutch or Danish
instead of French.

Conversely we could look at African countries that haven't had to suffer
meddling from a colonial parent, and they don't seem to be much better off.
Liberia has been independent for a long time. The Democratic Republic of Congo
doesn't suffer from Belgian military interventions. Neither is a paradise.

~~~
vinceguidry
Ethiopia fought off Italy, had some really bad times, but is doing well now.
They actually had something like a state with which to fight off European
aggression.

The French really were terrible at colonial administration. They had a way of
letting emotions guide their decision-making and no compunctions whatsoever
about asserting how morally superior they were to the locals. This led to
truly horrific massacres on both sides, that continued until very recently,
where most of the rest of the post-colonial world had largely moved on.

You see the remnants of that colonial legacy in the French attitude towards
African and Islamic immigrants. As bad as classism gets in the US, it only
rarely provokes violence. French civil unrest is often terrifying, as the
Charlie Hebdo massacre has shown. That was actually tame compared to a lot of
what happened in Algeria.

There are deep, raw, and gaping wounds that will probably never be healed. The
old generation will just die off and the younger generation are, due to French
apathy, falling under the spell of Islamism.

~~~
jacques_foccart
It is amusing to note that Ethiopia's victory against the Italians was in
(some say, large) part due to a Brit. Cf the Gideon Force.

