Locals detained as Bush speaks on slavery

[Rspaight]

The administration displays its continuing talent for making friends...

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jht ... ID=3055276

On Goree Island, Bush Visit Sparks Anger
Tue July 8, 2003 12:00 PM ET

By Clar Ni Chonghaile

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (Reuters) - President Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday.

"We are very angry. We didn't even see him," said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour.

N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6 a.m. and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday.

Bush came to Goree to tour the red-brick Slave House, where Africans were kept in shackles before being shipped across a perilous sea to a lifetime of servitude.

He then gave an eloquent speech about the horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum, topped by cannon pointing out to the sea.

The cooped-up residents were not impressed.

"It's slavery all over again," fumed one father-of-four, who did not want to give his name. "It's humiliating. The island was deserted."

White House officials said the decision to remove the locals was taken by Senegalese authorities. But there was no doubt who the residents blamed.

"We never want to see him come here again," said N'diaye, hiking her loose gown onto her shoulders with a frown.

As the sun rose over Goree before Bush's arrival, the only people to be seen on the main beach were U.S. officials and secret service agents. Frogmen swam through the shallows and hoisted themselves up to peer into brightly painted pirogues.

Normally, the island teems with tourists, Senegal's ubiquitous traders, hawkers of cheap African art, photographers offering to take pictures and all the expected trappings of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world's poorest countries.

On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes were closed and the narrow pier deserted, apart from security agents manning a metal detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship patrolled offshore.

"We understand that you have to have security measures, since September 11, but to dump us in another place...? We had to leave at 6 a.m. I didn't have time to bathe, and the bread did not arrive," the father-of-four said.

"We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou.

Many residents compared Bush's hour-long visit unfavorably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

"When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

As the Bush roadtrip moved on, Goree was returning to normal with children once again diving into the shallows and clambering over the now inoffensive pirogues.

[Ron]

"We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou.

No, Mamadou. You were shut up like slaves. That's the irony, you idiot.

"When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

Yes . . . the wine flowed. Women danced bare-breasted in the town square. When Clinton was in town.

[Grant]

What the fuck????

[Rspaight]

But wait, that's not all...

http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/dire ... -0,00.html

Homes bulldozed to clear way for Bush

ABUJA - Armed police backed by bulldozers tore down illegally built homes and shops in the Nigerian capital Abuja today ahead of a visit by US President George W Bush.

The operation began yesterday after an order from President Olusegun Obasanjo to clean up the city ahead of his American counterpart's arrival, officials said.

In one residential quarter of the city reporter saw around 60 buildings - ranging from brick-built structures to makeshift wooden shanties - ploughed down as hundreds of residents looked on in despair.

"They didn't give us any warning," wailed tailor John Emeka, who saved his sewing machine but lost much of his stock when a joint taskforce of police and environmental protection agents pulled down his business.

Nearby a stock of computers lay mangled in the wreckage of an electronic goods store, and the ownwer of a grilled meat stand argued with officers attempting to condemn his barbecue.

The police came armed with assault rifles and tear gas, but there was no violence as the bulldozers rolled in.

A senior local official, Babangida Aliyu, told reporters that Obasanjo had personally ordered the destruction on a visit last week to the Federal Capital Territory's lawmakers.

"Obasanjo gave specific instructions when he visited, and we have no qualms in carrying them out," he said.

More than 2,000 Nigerian police and intelligence officers have been deployed around Abuja to provide security for Bush's visit, the last stage in a whirlwind five-nation tour of Africa.

The US leader is due in Abuja late today after a stopover in Uganda and is to return to Washington on Saturday.

His trip has so far taken him to Senegal, South Africa and Botswana.

[Ron]

What the fuck????

You see, in this tale of woe Bush symbolizes the oppressor--the unrepentant ex-slave trader who returns to the scene of past crimes perhaps to ask for forgiveness, perhaps to merely assuage his conscience. But whatever "good" may have been intended by this visit, he only inflicts more pain and hardship on the decedents of those whose lives he was responsible for breaking many years past. Herding the townsfolk to the other end of the island so as to accommodate a photo-op is all too reminiscent of their forefathers "herded" onto ships and later sold as slaves.

In stark contrast to the Bush figure, Clinton represents the great liberator for whom the wine flows, so to speak. I believe the "women dancing bare-breasted" alludes to his spotted past as a politician of great promise only to be toppled by his own inability to control his sexual desires.

Hope this helps clear up any confusion.

[mikenycLI]

This guy is giving new meaning to the Imperial Presidency.