Togo footballers shot in ambush

[Jake]

not to put a downer on this terrible event. i really feel for the players who were shot, and also the ones who had to cower in the bus for half an hour, dodging bullets whilst their team mates bled.

HOWEVER. The region they were travelling through, Cabinda, is a haven for seperatist militia. These terrorist factions have been battling for independence from the main part of Angola for decades, with skirmishes and terrorist attacks occuring on a regualr basis, this is a well known fact. Combine this with the outrageous decision to drive a bunch of very rich footballers through such a region on a bus, in direct contradiction of the rules of the CAF (confederation of african football) which state that teams must fly to African tournaments, not drive:

(taken from bbc news)

CAF spokesman Souleymane Habuba offered sympathy for the Togo team but questioned why they had travelled by road rather than flying to Angola.
"CAF's regulations are clear: teams are required to fly rather than travel by bus," he said.

I point a firm finger of blame at the muppets in charge of the Togolese Football Association. Why risk something like this by transporting your team on a bus?

 

[CJACKO11]

things like this make you sit back and realise there is much more to life then football. a man doing his job driving has been killed because their are infortunatly people that you couldnt explain as humans they are monsters not worth the air they breethe. cancel the tournement peoples safety should be parramount.

 

[Jake]

things like this make you sit back and realise there is much more to life then football. a man doing his job driving has been killed because their are infortunatly people that you couldnt explain as humans they are monsters not worth the air they breethe. cancel the tournement peoples safety should be parramount.

i agree. i cant believe theyve chosen to host some of the games in this totally unsafe region!!! more attacks are a serious possibility

obviously the bbc being what they are, they havent chosen to blame at anyone directly. but reading between the lines, its clear to see that driving through such an area was always going to end badly

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8450283.stm

---------- Post added at 01:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 AM ----------

whats with all the arguing about african debts btw? there is terrorism and hatred all over the world, regardless of wealth. look at nothern ireland, israel, parts of asia (bali new year bombings) mumbai (india is a rapidly growing economy, certainly not in debt like afrcia) etc

the people who shot the togolese bus did so because they knew the worlds media was watching. they want independance, the govt refuses their wish and also restricts media reporting on the 'normal' attacks they carry out every day.

in their warped mind, any publicity is good publicity for their campaign for independence from angola. they dont care if africa is debt free or not.

 

[Point/Counterpoint]

This has got to do with terrorism, this is more bandits trying to get cash. They were probably paid to shoot at Togo.



Or it may teach them to rely on themselves. i'm more for the trade, not aid approach. Problem is their rotten and corrupt; read a myriad of articles on them where governments go back on deals and take western companies' holdings.



But they're unable to pay them back and they're pretty much mired in debt.



Helping them build a solid government? How? Like we do in Afghanistan, which is now the worst hellhole on Earth; you're most likely to be killed, kidnapped, robbed etc there. And it's almost 9 years since we invaded.



But what would wiping out their debt do? Would they learn anything? What would stop them from doing it all again? And there's not many terrorists in Africa; the Somalis, even the islamist ones, say they'll turn Osama over for the cash. And Britain needs to see to its own debt before wiping other countries' debts. i must disagree on your conception that terrorism will always exist; it's only the last few years that modern terrorism has blossomed. But yeah, it's a stupid place to hold the African cup of Nations.

Personally, the old colonies would do much better under British/Spanish/French/Portugese etc rule, thought it is not universal. When they were colonies there was corruption, but look at most countries when they were freed and left to their own. Civil war; india vs Pakistan, Sri Lankan civil war, Africa in general, crazy *** South American snowstorm governments etc. When the colonial powers left the countries degenerated into chaos and corruption, from which many developed a culture for it. One example is that we're not inventing any more antibiotics as we all know the indians, Brazilians and Chinese will just make cheaper copies, nevermind copyright law.
But i also realise that most people don't like being ruled by somebody else;p

Oh, I get it, this is about "teaching them a lesson". Even though we're considerably to blame for the position some African countries find themselves in - not forgetting the large parts of Africa were under British rule in the past. One example that sticks out like a sore thumb is just look who put Robert Mugabe in power - the British. And now there's uproar about how he's treating his own people. For which, we are then somewhat largely to blame - Mugabe is a British ****, why would we jeopardise the benefits of his reign in oil and diplomacy in order to uphold the citizen's human rights?

I fail to see how the second bolded part counters my argument. You refute my notion that terrorism will always exist and then attempt to dispel my statement by saying "only in recent years has terrorism blossomed". Although, it still existed before "recent"years. You can go back to the Soviet Union or we can go back to the Crusades, or we can go right to the bible and mention Sodom and Gomorrah (if you believe that what happened in the bible took place).

You can't expect a people to have rulers one day and then when those rulers relinquish control for there not to be wars and chaos. Arguably, chaos and war exists even when a country has a suitable rule/government. A power struggle is inevitable in that kind of situation. What's more important, is that it is more or less our fault that this process has been delayed. After all, this kind of thing has occurred at the start of almost every nation in history - it's how a nation becomes ruled. Africa is only a little less out of luck in the sense that they have had a colonial power suppress her right to govern themselves long after other prosperous nations.

---------- Post added at 08:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:20 PM ----------

This is a computer game discussion forum, not a United Nations Summit

Get the **** out of this thread then.