(U) MEDIA/DEBT: LES DEPECHES DE BRAZZAVILLE EDITORIALIZES

UNCLAS BRAZZAVILLE 000241 DEPT FOR AF/C, AF/EPS, EEB E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EFIN PREL PGOV PHUM CF SUBJECT: (U) MEDIA/DEBT: LES DEPECHES DE BRAZZAVILLE EDITORIALIZES ON "VULTURE FUNDS" 1.(U) Continuing its campaign against the "vulture funds," the government-sponsored daily Les Depeches de Brazzaville editorialized on the subject in its August 20 edition. COMMENT: There have been at least four similar articles in this newspaper in the past three weeks. It clearly reflects government of Congo placement. In addition to the media campaign reflected by this article, public records in the United States are available documenting the significant expenditures in 207-2008 of the Government of Congo on lobbying activities to support U.S. legislation to curtail the activities of these creditors in the United States. END COMMENT. 2.(U) Our informal translation follows: 3.(U) BEGIN TEXT: How long will this go on? At the same time as work is being done to put in place a mechanism to combat the sinister "vulture funds," those American and British financial businesses that are rapidly looting Africa, the African Development Bank has announced that it is unable to neutralize them. And these predators, powerfully supported in the United States and Great Britain, do not conceal their intention to continue the destructive activities against poor countries. Why, otherwise, would they do so if not authorized to do so, pursuing the "ultra-capitalism" imposed by the Western powers on the rest of the world? And of what value are the lives of millions of men, women, and children faced with the mountain of dollars and pounds sterling demanded by this "business" as profitable as it is immoral? The most surprising aspect of this affair, and also the most shocking, is the collusion that exists between these criminals in three-piece suits and the non-governmental organizations who preach good governance, anti-corruption, and respect for human rights to African countries; these non-transparent NGOs, described recently by the French newsmagazine "Le Point," proving this collusion, that these NGOs "swim in troubled water" and zealously serve the interests of the "vulture funds;" these NGOs who moreover launch attacks against the countries victimized by this looting via journalists as credulous as they are inattentive to the source of the information they repeat. Past masters of the art of manipulation, Transparency International, SHERPA, Survie, to speak only of the NGOs who are at the front of this doubtful war, show absolutely no shame about working hand in hand with the worst that globalization has produced. Do they do it just for the money? Aren't they, as one would suppose, just pawns on the chessboard where the great powers play for control of the part of the world most richly endowed by nature? Or, much worse for the ideals they pretend to defend, are they chess pieces endowed with reason but lacking in conscience who play on the same side as the great powers whence the "vulture funds" come? It is surely impossible to determine how long this scandal will last. But the day will come, certainly, when right will triumph. It will come when men like Barack Obama, with his own origins in the continent that is regularly the object of these predators of international finance, enter the arena to put an end to the crimes committed by these businesses with impunity. Perhaps faster than one would think END TEXT. EASTHAM