Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Featured on Press TV World News: 'NATO Seeks to Capitalize on CAR Minerals'

NATO seeks to capitalize on CAR mineral riches: Expert

Interview with Abayomi Azikiwe
Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:5PM GMT

To watch this Press TV Top Five interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, just click on the website below:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/17/351105/nato-is-capitalizing-on-car-crisis/

Press TV has conducted an interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan African News Wire, about the deployment of a thousand of EU troops to the Central African Republic, which begins next month.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: More troops on the ground. What do you think of that?

Azikiwe: I don’t think it’s a solution to the crisis inside the Central African Republic. There are already several thousand combined forces of African Union member states as well as France. The United States is helping with the airlifting of troops and military equipment inside the country.

I don’t believe that the deployment of an additional 1,000 European Union troops as well as an additional 400 French troops is going to do anything to solve the internal political crisis inside the Central African Republic.

There has to be a political solution to the crisis and this can only come when the various principals involved in the struggle there are able to sit down and resolve their differences.

The government there under a new leader Catherine Samba-Panza has to be given some semblance of direction and authority in order for her to get control of the security forces inside the country.

Many of the problems are coming as a result of a huge power vacuum that exists inside the mineral rich Central African Republic.

Press TV: Speaking of this power vacuum there are many that are saying the foreign troops that are being sent into the Central African Republic have an ulterior motive – it has nothing to do with bringing about peace and stability in the country and it has more to do with capitalizing on this power vacuum and making away with the resources. Do you see it that way too?

Azikiwe: Yes I do. In fact the ongoing violence against the Muslim community inside the Central African Republic could have been halted weeks ago. There are French troops there on the ground; there are troops there from Rwanda, from the Republic of Congo,...from Chad – and of course they have done little, next to nothing, to resolve the internal crisis that exists inside the country.

If they wanted to they could have stopped the violence against the Islamic community inside the Central African Republic. The Muslims only constitute 15 percent of the overall number of people who are inside the Central African Republic.

People have lived together in peace and relative tranquility for decades together there. It has only been over the last several months that we’ve had this shocking sectarian violence between the ...communities inside the Central African Republic.

If they can make it appear that the internal situation is totally out of control, this of course will open the way to even a larger military occupation inside the country.

The country has uranium they have gold they have diamonds, they have other strategic minerals that are indispensable to the overall world economic system. And the US of course with their allies in NATO wants to control those resources in alliance with their partners on the African continent.

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