Obscene wealth stems from obscene injustice.
When Hillary was appointed secretary of state, she brought in a group of advisers to shape American policy toward Africa. But two individuals largely responsible for forming it didn't have a direct portfolio at State.
Husband Bill was considered to be Hillary's closest Africa adviser. He had good contacts with several African presidents and traveled there regularly. The other key unofficial adviser was former ambassador Joe Wilson, regarded as Hillary's "grey eminence for Africa."
Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson.
The link is here.
Wilson had served as ambassador to several countries in Africa. In 1997 he was appointed special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for African affairs in the White House. Wilson had the responsibility to "plan and execute" then president Bill Clinton's first trip to Africa, which supposedly raised his consciousness concerning the continent.
Wilson is perhaps most famous for the role he played in a controversy involving his wife, Valerie Plame, a former CIA agent who had been outed by officials in the Bush administration. Wilson charged that this was an intentional act of retaliation against him for debunking the administration's claims about Saddam Hussein's seeking yellowcake uranium in Africa.
It later turned out that the leak of Plame's identity came from the State Department, not the White House. Nevertheless, husband and wife made something of a career out of the episode: Plame published a book about her experience, which in turn became a movie starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.
Naomi Watts and Sean Penn
Wilson's claims about the yellowcake uranium were later debunked by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Wilson was close to the Clintons. “He was very active with the Hillary Clinton [presidential] campaign," his wife noted.
Wilson penned articles declaring that in contrast with then senator Obama, Hillary had real-world diplomatic experience. On the campaign trail in Portland, Oregon, in April 2008, he said that Hillary was "easily the better candidate."
Joe Wilson also traveled with Bill Clinton to Africa as part of a Clinton Foundation delegation. Once Hillary was nominated for secretary of state, many believed she wanted to appoint Wilson to a senior State Department post for African affairs. But the reality of facing a difficult Senate confirmation deterred her. Many Republicans strongly disliked him.
The spin overwhelms the substance. That’s very clearly what happened.
Still, Wilson was a strong presence at the State Department despite his lack of an official post. "Wilson's presence in the wings is still strongly felt and the future incumbent in this post will constantly have him under their feet," noted one African business publication.
In January 2007 Wilson became vice chairman of a New York-based investment firm called Jarch Capital. A holding company focused on natural resources like oil, uranium, and gold, it specialized in cutting deals in countries where it expected "sovereignty changes."
That's a nice way of saying countries that are at war. "Ambassador Wilson will be instrumental in the growth of Jarch as it expands in Africa, sometimes in politically sensitive areas," noted the company in a press release.
In other words, like Adolph Lundin did in Congo, Jarch would be striking deals with warlords fighting local governments, hoping to cash in when power changed hands. (As Jarch founder Philippe Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker, explained his strategy of cutting deals with warlords, "You have to go to the guns, this is Africa.")
Philippe Heilberg
The venture was clearly off the grid as far as the Bush State Department was concerned. As Harper's quoted a knowledgeable observer in 2007, “The State Department isn't supportive of Jarch's involvement because it knows that once Americans go after oil in the south any hope of a national unity government collapses."
But Jarch Capital pressed on anyway. Wilson was of particular help because he had dealt with Sudanese warlords while he had served in the Clinton administration. He knew the region, and was a master negotiator.
This is a partisan book but the patterns are congruent with organized crime patterns we see elsewhere.
These skills proved extremely valuable to Jarch. Jarch was close to several warlords operating in the Sudan. In 2009, shortly after Hillary was appointed secretary of state, Jarch took out a fifty-year lease on 400,000 hectares (or one million acres-about the size of Vermont) in Unity State, South Sudan.
In addition to the rights to farm the land, it procured oil and uranium rights as well. As the Financial Times put it, the deal had "a decidedly 19th century flavor to it." Sudan was in the middle of a civil war and the United States had placed restrictions on US companies wanting to do business in the country.
Another analysis about these allegations. The link is here.
So Jarch set up a subsidiary, Jarch Management, which was registered outside of the United States, “making it easier to circumvent such restrictions." Jarch acquired the land by striking a bargain with Gabriel Matip, the eldest son of General Paulino Matip Nhial, who was deputy commander in chief of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and former head of the South Sudan Defense Force (SSDF).
General Paulino Matip Nhial
The general was also put on the Jarch advisory board. SSDF bragged, "This company is set to become the largest producer of oil and gas in South Sudan."