The CIA and the Niger Delta
 WHAT convinced the security authorities that the four American documentary makers arrested in the Niger Delta two weeks ago were courteous
cinematographers and not sinister spies? Was the federal government frightened into ordering their release by the babbling of a few members of the American Congress?
Shooting documentaries provides a good cover for spying. The spy has unrestricted access to many places, at least in the developing world. He is not suspected because the mental picture many people have of a spy is a person in a dark cape skulking in shadows. But a good spy does not stay out in the gloomy cold. He seeks the warmth of friendship, which enables him to worm out secrets.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recruits people like documentary makers to spy for it. It once had more than 400 journalists working for it, according to a book published in the United States in 1977. A former director of the CIA, William Colby, reportedly told an interviewer: ‘Let’s not pick on some reporters. Let’s go to the managements. They were witting.’
The managements that collaborated with the CIA included those of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and Newsweek. Some of their foreign correspondents were undoubtedly in the pay of the CIA. Journalism is a conventional cover used by many spies. Richard Sorge, the great Soviet spy, worked as a journalist in Japan during the Second World War. That foreign journalist visiting the Niger Delta may actually be a spy.
It was revealed in 1967 that the CIA had purchased the creativity and consciences of many well-known writers and professors. One of them was a Nobel Prize Winner. The CIA was flush with funds. Said a former CIA agent: ‘We couldn’t spend it [money] all. There were no limits, and nobody had to account for it. It was amazing.’
Some of the journalists, writers and professors that worked for the CIA said they were mere dupes after they were exposed. But these were educated men and women, participants in intellectual salons, and not unwashed cowboys downing drinks in the O.K. Saloon.
The CIA established publications in many countries. Funding was funnelled through the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The CIA covertly funded newspapers in the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, France, Germany and some other places. Encounter, the jewel in the CIA’s crown, was published in London.
I can testify that Encounter was a literary magazine of sublime sophistication. Its contributors were the leading men of letters of the time. There was gravitas but no groaning, graceless prose. Encounter’s hallmark was profundity without ponderosity.
The magazine lost contributors and readers after it was revealed that it was funded by the CIA to fight communism. Perhaps fittingly, the magazine died a year after the Berlin Wall was breached.
The CIA may not need to establish a publication in Nigeria. Some Nigerian newspapers publish foreign news agencies’ stories about the country in the exact form they were sent. Many of the stories are inaccurate, some of them hasty and hostile and others crude concoctions.
Some of the country’s newspapers violently criticised the government after an American who was married to a Nigerian and some foreigners were arrested in the Niger Delta on suspicion of spying.
The Nigerian newspapers declared that she was not a spy, that she was a valuable friend of the people of the Niger Delta. But the so-called militants in the region do not believe in the geographical unity of the country.
The United States government haughtily demanded the release of the lady, who was no longer an American but a Nigerian, according to the newspapers. The lady had apparently become a Nigerian citizen a few months before her arrest.
The Nigerian government said it had documents that would destroy her claim of innocence in court. It filed charges of spying against her. The court remanded her in prison, but she was soon released and the charges dropped.
I have no doubt that the lady truly loves her new country, her home for more than 30 years. Chi Mak is a different naturalised citizen. Born a Chinese, he became an American citizen. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison in March for passing sensitive submarine secrets to China. His work as an engineer in a defence company gave him access to top technological secrets. Chi is 67 years old. Another Chinese-born American, Dongfan Chung, 72, was arrested earlier this year for allegedly giving American space shuttle secrets to China. Dongfan was a Boeing engineer until his retirement six years ago.
The CIA once secretly funded as many as 170 foundations, which it used to promote its conservative, often cruel, causes. The agency also used reputable organisations like the Ford Foundation to advance American interests and harm those of its rivals.
Some of the CIA foundations sponsored art exhibitions and concerts. American archeologists digging in foreign lands may actually be more interested in the present than in the distant past. They dig for information in the city after digging in the cave for artefacts.
The CIA has toppled governments around the world. Even more than the Marines, its agents are America’s storm troopers. It has spies in many parts of the world. Some of them are American embassy staff members, like Douglas Seymour Mackiernan, who was shot dead by Chinese communist troops while attempting to cross into Tibet in 1950. Other are traitors, people who sell their countries’ secrets to the CIA.
America invaded Iraq not because it believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but to control the country’s enormous petroleum resources. America needs Nigeria’s oil and the oil is in the Niger Delta.
Philip Agee, who was a CIA agent for 11 years and published a book, Inside the Company, about the agency, told an interviewer: ‘American multinational corporations have built up colossal interests all over the world, and you can bet your ass that wherever you find US interests, you find the CIA.’
CIA agents sometimes pose as decent documentary makers who take three years to shoot a documentary in the Niger Delta.
Your view
Nigeria’s problem is its leaders. They are too egocentric. Obasanjo operates one of the best private farms in the world yet throughout his eight years in power, he could not turn around Nigeria’s agricultural sector for abundant food production. What an irony.
Dayo Mustafa, Ifetedo, Osun State
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Nigeria has no coherent agric policy, you wrote in ‘Hunger on the horizon.’ But what of fadama 1, fadama 2 and the coming fadama 3? A World Bank/Federal Government initiative with state and local government counterpart funding like NEEDS, NAPEB and so on. We have been fooled to the fullest. We have been turned into farmers on the pages of newspapers with bank loans in dollars. ‘We ain’t seen nothing yet.’ Let someone say the Lord’s Prayer.
Dr. Daodu, Ibadan
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The government should stop unnecessary exportation and encourage genuine investment in agriculture. Food security is the basis for a virile democracy.
Wale Yusuf, 08057740656
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You painted a picture of a famished pauper. Prices do not affect food, but lack of vision, planning and foresight do. Our leaders are probably immune to forces in the food market and so may not feel the bite the food crisis is having on the masses. Like they squandered oil boom, so are they doing to the food surplus in their phantom barns.
Dayo Oladeji, Saki, Oyo State
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When uncaring people are in power, the masses live in abject poverty.
Taiwo Julius Sangotikun, Iseyin |
