Sources
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88

 
TAZARA ... a journey by rail through world-history © KJS / 2009
On the tracks of Cecil John Rhodes Rovos-Zug / NDR-TV & www.nytimes.com
CHAPTER 64



— tazara — tazara — tazara ...

Am I this one?
Which one?
This one!
Or — even this one? …

— tazara — tazara — tazara ...

This „gentle Kofi Annan — this saviour face“? An „Uncle Tom“ again? Or finally the man without blinkers? …

„You know, in the first weeks of my tenure as UN-Secretary General I insisted on a public event that would address the young generation all over the world. A live-TV show connected me with hundreds of young people in many countries. I had a lively discourse with them …
That’s why I was so happy to have, after the end of my tenure, an occasion to meet again young people in this German school along an African railway-platform. They were not shy to even investigate my private life. However, before I was able to explain whether, in my political acting, I would have decided myself for Europe and against Africa, the train had left them.
These pupils can claim an answer from me — these people, not anonymous voices from this train’s public address system!
Why was I called into this saloon-car?
Why not into the cattle-cars that we pull behind us?
Because you still believe that I have been an „Uncle Tom“?
A negro as servant of a white master?
Then it is time that you learn:
In Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s novel ‚Uncle Tom‘s Cabin‘, some one hundred and fifty years ago, ‚Uncle Tom‘ had not been someone who trembled when the struggle to free the slaves in the southern states needed support. The brutal white owner of a plantation tortured him to death because ‚Uncle Tom‘ stood by his convictions!“

2 The most dangerous teaching: How we can be forced to suppress the truth in order to help the truth to succeed. If this is made our task in the role that fate gave us to play — how straight then must be our course so that we would not go down.

„Yes, Mr. Hammarskjöld, even this I have internalized as a precondition for the office we both had to run!
As a result, I was seen — even by my black brother Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe — as such an ‚Uncle Tom‘, even worse: as the handyman of a neo-colonial conspiracy whose goals he suspected but never understood.“

„That is correct, Mr. Annan, in my times it was easier to grasp the meaning; because it was always about ownership and exploitation of foreign territories ...“

— tazara — tazaaaaaara — tazaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... stoppp

„We must find new lands …”

Why did we stop, Herr Dunkler?

„A train is waiting for us at a siding, and a man from there wants to join us.“

Where did this train come from, Herr Dunkler?

„From Cape Town, I think. Once a year a train from there is crossing half the continent, the two-week-journey ends in Dar-es-Salaam. On the South African leg, a steam engine is pulling the train, later, in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, it will be diesel engines. They pull luxury carriages from olden times — leather, mahogany, crystal — black people with white gloves serve wealthy railway-nostalgic, mostly white and from all over the world
But, strangely, there came only one. It seems, the whole train travelled only because of him.“

Only one, Herr Dunkler? And what did he say?

„He said … hold on for the replay:”

„We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.”


„... And, Mr. Annan, it had been easier for the colonized to understand what it was all about. As a veteran of the anti-colonial Liberation War in Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe is used to think along that line: The imperialists want our land, and they still want it although we have liberated it. Therefore, we have to continue to defend it, even if the povo has to suffer. That’s what it does in a liberation war anyway, the povo, doesn’t it?
What Mugabe never understood: Today, foreign territories are for the real powers of the world not anymore areas for which they would need ‚Protection Letters‘ by their governments and, if necessary, the attachment of colonial armies.
If it is useful to their interests they stage a local conflict, then they either get the UN’s Security Council to act in the name of ‚democracy and freedom‘ or they finance from their pocket-money soldiers of fortune and weapon dealers.
But, and this is not yet understood widely, to protect their influence and their profit they have developed, in the meantime, a complete different instrument that is operating most sufficiently in collaboration with post-colonial elites within African societies. Those claim for themselves what is claimed in post-Soviet societies … can we hear this again?“

CONTROL! REPLAY, PLEASE!

At the moment, there is no serious demand for genuine freedom — but there is a big demand for the freedom to earn much money.

„As local potentates in Africa once unscrupulously delivered their own people to Arab and European slave-traders so is today a corrupted class of privileged black elite prepared to deliver the black povo into the catching net of multinational concerns.
You must have noticed how the traps were set up, Mr. Annan, because UN-agencies do play a collaborating role.“

We have an example ready, Dag ...

CONTROL! PLEASE CONNECT TO INTERNET!


In 2002, about half of Zimbabwe’s 12.5 million people faced famine, due to a combination of political manipulation, drought and floods. But when the government of Zimbabwe did not waive its requirement that entering commodities must be certified as entirely of non-GMO, not of genetically modified origin, the maize was reallocated to Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, the U.S. Embassy in Harare said in a statement May 30.
In testimony before the House International Relations Committee, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios said the agency was seeking to persuade Zimbabwe to accept genetically modified corn. „USAID’s Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance believes that unless the government of Zimbabwe will waive its restrictions on the import of U.S. corn, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. government to respond to the extensive food requirements that have been identified,“ said Natsios, who had just returned from the World Food Summit in Rome.
In Bolivia, the citizens group Forum on Environment and Development found genetically engineered StarLink corn, which is prohibited for human consumption in the United States, in a bag of USAID corn soy flour. In cooperation with Friends of the Earth, the group commissioned DNA tests on a USAID supplied maize soy flour mixture that was distributed to El Alto, Bolivia through the City Department of La Paz. The group acquired a sample of the corn soy blend in February 2002 and obtained DNA test results in early June indicating the presence of StarLink. The tests also showed two varieties of corn that are not approved for human consumption in the European Union — Roundup Ready and Monsanto’s BTExtra. The samples were analyzed at Genetic ID, an independent laboratory located in Iowa.
The San Francisco based watchdog group Pesticide Action Network said this is the first time that StarLink had been found in food aid, and the first time it had been found outside the U.S., Japan and Korea since originally detected in the United States in August 2000.
The manufacturer of StarLink corn, Aventis, was not able to prove to the satisfaction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the pesticidal protein Cry9C in StarLink is not an allergen, and the company was forced to take tons of its product off the market in September 2000.
The Pesticide Action Network reported Thursday that tests commissioned by a Guatemalan citizens group, Colectivo Madre Selva, found three varieties of engineered corn not approved in the European Union — Liberty Link produced by Aventis and Monsanto’s BtXtra and RoundUp Ready — in seed sent as food aid.
Victor Campos from the Humboldt Center, a Nicaraguan environmental group affiliated with Friends of the Earth International, and Ana Quiroz from Nicaragua’s Center for Health Information and Advisory Service, oppose sending food to Nicaragua that people in other parts of the world avoid.
Campos said, „It is unacceptable that the children of Nicaragua are consuming genetically modified products that come masked as food aid for our country. It is well known that baby food companies in the U.S. and Europe do not use genetically modified products. Nevertheless, our highly vulnerable condition has been used as an opportunity to send products that children in developed countries do not consume.“
The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) maintains that there is no need to separate genetically modified crops from traditional crops at harvest because genetically modified crops are perfectly safe.
At the World Food Summit in Rome, U.S. officials promoted biotechnology as a solution for world hunger. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a Collaborative Agricultural Biotechnology Initiative at the summit that, it says, will help developing countries access and manage biotechnology to reduce poverty and hunger.


„Well, we already learned about this philanthropic enterprise that needs in Africa a black leading horse, Mr. Annan, one with its blinkers on!
We already learned about a project in Kenya, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and experimenting with genetically manipulated sweet potatoes.
We already learned that the new ‚Green Revolution‘ in Africa was initiated by Gordon Conway, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. …“

Mei Foo!

„Beg your pardon?”

Good Luck — but we had this already!

OIL FOR THE LAMPS IN CHINA!

That‘s it! The father of this Mr. Rockefeller here had invented the principle: first to give something away for free in order to make profit later with the sale of supply needed to operate the gift … His idea was to distribute oil-lamps for free or for very small money. And he earned, of course, with the continuous sale of the oil!
The same principle here: mini-packs of seed, of fertilizer, of insecticides — given away free or for very small money, and then earning through the sale of patent-protected supply.
Ingenious!
And even more clever: at his time, Rockefeller had to finance the production and the transport of the lamps. These days, UN-agencies pay for the initial distribution, the mini-packs come as emergency aid or for demo-projects that are supported for alleged self-help

Pure philanthropy is very well in its way but philanthropy plus five percent is a good deal better.

… says our visitor from the nostalgic train on the neighbouring railway siding; meaning: philanthropy opens the way to profit, or, as it is also called, clears the way for the philanthropic-industrial complex.

„Well, I always relied on people who claimed to be pious, kind, graceful, caring, fatherly, you name it … on missionaries who helped us very much to set foot in the world of coloured people, for example in Matabeleland, later called Rhodesia …
Take as an example the Moffat-family …“

Excuse us … You arrived on this nostalgic train, says our Herr Dunkler? … Where are the other tourists?

„O, that is a misunderstanding. This one, out there, that is not the Rovos-Safari-Train which, once a year, rolls from Cape Town to Dar-es-Salaam.
However, my train came from Cape Town as well, it left there one hundred and five years ago, on 3rd April 1902, at 17:00 hours — on the dot, but have a look yourself ...“

Two steam engines, the leading engine carries in front of its bogie a small flagstaff, with the Union Jack hoisted … half-mast high? The entire train hung with purple and black draperies?

„The first car is mine; well, it belongs to DeBeers, but I founded that company — you know: ‚DIAMONDS FOREVER‘!
The troops stood with their arms reversed, and the sounds of the military music became gradually more and more plain till the strains of Handel’s ‚Dead March‘ were audible to those assembled on the platform. My car itself had been converted into a travelling mortuary chamber, my coffin resting upon a bier of teakwood, covered with purple cloth. At the head of the coffin a small altar had been erected, upon which reposed a cross, with two lighted candles. That’s how I rolled towards my final destination in the North:
20°25'?S, 28°28'?E
‚World’s View’, Matopos Hills near Bulawayo, Rhodesia — I think, today they call it Zimbabwe.
Of course, in 1902, the train would not have been able to roll further. Only two years later, the tracks would reach from Bulawayo the mighty Zambezi River. And it took another year to cross the gorge at Victoria Falls.
One thousand five hundred and forty tons of steel, the bow of the bridge one thousand and two hundred-fifty metres wide, that did cost us a fortune, at that time one hundred and forty thousand dollar.
I think, I have earned myself this test-drive … allow me to introduce myself: Cecil John Rhodes. I am told someone is travelling on your train who is dreaming my dream!”

… in the darkness of an African night … two ghostly trains on two neighbouring tracks. Who made this possible?

„Not WHO — WHAT made it possible, you should ask, my dear. I’m sure it was the appropriate inscription over the entrance from the Grand Parade to the Railway Station, through which my funeral procession passed on its way to the DeBeers car: ‚To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die’ … Or, perhaps the Hymn 140, sung in the Cathedral of Cape Town ... ‚Jesus lives! No longer now Can thy terrors, death, appal us’ ... I mean, this is an Easter-Hymn, isn’t it, and it was the time of resurrection.”



Am I this one?
Which one?
This one!
Or — even this one? …



I am not a dreamer! Would, please, somebody tell him. I am the one who is going to complete the job that was left uncompleted when he undertook his last journey by train …

You are referring to an illusion. In his case, it was a railway-line on paper, in your case — strange enough — it was a tiny train on a cake that had the form of Africa … and this cake was on a table in a living room in Germany?

Alright, that was a consuming pastry prepared for my birthday, but this present had not so much to do with the fact that I turned fifty-two then but with the idea that had cropped up in this particular living-room; and this idea was to lay four thousand and one hundred kilometres of railway-tracks in Africa, to be more precise: in Southern Sudan. In this living room, the future of this region, after twenty-one years of civil war, has been planned with ink instead of sugar and on paper instead on cake. This railway-line is going to connect this region with East Africa to transport its resources to the sea — and I‘ll be the planner and the executor.
And you know, everything started with rotten piping in my mansion in Northern Germany. Whilst repairing, the local plumber talked about a Sudanese who had studied in Germany and who was visiting a neighbour close by — this African would be very much interested in railways, he said.
Of course, I invited him and learned that he, Costello Garang Ring, was only two years younger than I was. Born into a powerful tribe as the king’s son, he told me, in the evening of that fateful day in early 2003 about the two million dead who fell victim to that civil war, about the hopes raised by the possibility to achieve an independent New Sudan..
You know, until then I wasn’t much interested to read news about this country. But shortly after that evening, I heard it on radio: Garang Ring had been appointed as South Sudan’s future Minister of international cooperation and development — my Ringelnatz.
I booked a flight next day and was on my way to Africa … My plan is to built a railway line that would connect South Sudan with Uganda and Kenya and would end at the port of Mombassa at the Indian Ocean to unload there all the oil, the gold, the teakwood. Not only would the economy be developed but the whole country.
At the beginning, it was about a lot of money only; now, I am involved in the construction of a whole country!

A new railway line for the Sudan? …
Wasn’t there already one? A British train, equipped with Maxim-machine guns …
What is appearing on our monitor?


July 2006:
GERMAN SOLDIERS IN AFRICA!

Preparation for an UN-mission in Darfur have led to new a dispute about German military activities in Africa. Whilst Germany’s Minister of Defence, Jung, envisaged an intervention by the German Bundeswehr in Western Sudan, German army-circles claim one could „not be present everywhere“.
These military sources are warning to over-extend German capacities because of possible reinforcements necessary in Afghanistan and in Congo. Apart from that, the Bundeswehr had to be prepared to participate in the „NATO Response Force“ and in the „EU-Battle Groups“, both training for missions in Africa as well …


… training for missions in Africa as well? Dag, didn’t we just hear from you that:

CONTROL! REPLAY, PLEASE!

Foreign territories are for the real powers of the world today not anymore areas for which they would need ‚Protection Letters‘ by their governments and, if necessary, the attachment of colonial armies.

But, of course, they are talking about something different.
They are talking about a humanitarian catastrophe.
They are talking about the duty of the world to use force in order to save people …


2 „Respecting the word“ — first demand of that discipline which allows people to become mature — intellectually, emotionally and ethically.
„Respecting the word“ — its use with strictest care, incorruptible, with inner love of truth — this is, at the same time, precondition for the growth of community and of mankind. — To misuse the word means to despise humans. It undermines bridges and poisons wells. It is leading us backwards on the long way of becoming human.


Well, our controller will like it, Dag — „Respecting the word“! …




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