WHY WOULD FOREIGNERS CARE ABOUT YOU WHEN YOUR GOVERNMENT DOESN’T GIVE A HOOT!
Someone asked Africastallestman why the foreign media always gives inaccurate figures whenever there is a disaster in the so-called developing world?
The answers are simple:
1. Foreign media depend on local media for news from the developing world. Statistics from the developing world are notoriously unreliable. There are no exact casualty figures after major natural or man-made disasters. Estimates vary from one newspaper to another, from one agency to another and from one eyewitness to another. Most developing countries use population estimates for planning. If your population is an estimate, what is the “big deal” in giving precise casualty figures. The casualty report for an earthquake two weeks after the event may run thus: “An estimated 20 out of an estimated population of 4700 died in the earthquake at Naguna in the Republic of Katongo.” If the government of Katongo is clueless about the number of victims of the earthquake two weeks after the event, the foreign media is justified in using its own estimates.
2. Developing, undeveloped, and retrodeveloping African, Asian, and South American countries are headed by leaders who kill their own citizens, overlook the killing of their citizens by other countries, and never request that the bodies of citizens killed overseas be returned to their home countries for proper burial. If you are not going to give your citizens a decent funeral, there is no need in ascertaining the number of your dead citizens. Mass graves are still fashionable in developing countries
3. America is still retrieving the bodies of its dead soldiers from Korea and Vietnam. After proper identification, that may take months, these deceased soldiers are given a full military burial. If you incarcerate an American anywhere in the world, expect a call from the American Ambassador or Charge D’Affaire. No American corpse is buried oversea unless in times of war or at the request of the deceased or family of the deceased. The same applies to the other developed Western and Eastern countries.
4. Human life is as disposable as the life of a chicken in the developing, undeveloped, and retrodeveloping countries. In some African countries, bloated decomposing human bodies could decorate the streets for days before being carted off. These bodies are buried without identification. No attempt is made to find the criminals who perpetrated the murder. Human beings are killed for fetish and superstitious purposes. Killing of albinos in Tanzania and Malawi for ritualistic purposes continues unabated. Those promulgating decrees or passing legislation against such practices may have committed those atrocities before assuming their high positions.
5. Consequently, the laws have no teeth, not to think of a bite. Criminals caught in the act of commission of these heinous crimes are lynched in the name of criminal injustice. Killing the perpetrators shield the real criminals in high positions that sponsor them.
6. In December 2015 many Shites were killed for obstructing the motorcade of the Sunni Nigerian Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai. If Buratai is Shia, he would not have permitted such carnage by his lieutenants. The local authorities controlled by the Sunni majority estimated the death toll as low as 50, whereas eyewitnesses and Amnesty International give a death toll of 347.
7. If the Nigerian authorities cannot give an accurate figure of its citizens killed in cold blood, why would CNN, BBC, TASS, AFP, AP, UPI, HKN, XNA, DE, SKY NEWS bother to get the figures right. Ten victims of terrorism in London garners more publicity than the killing of 100 people by Boko Haram in Nigeria. While the British would devote a lot of resources to apprehend the killers, the Nigerian authorities would ascribe the killings to God’s will, offer no compensation to the victim’s family, and may blame the victims for being in the path of the suicide bomber or IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
When those countries collectively called the developing world starts caring for its citizens, the developed world and foreign news media would join in accurately reporting casualty figures in those countries.