Africa

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:58 pm

South Africa: A Place of Hope in a Time of Spiraling Crisis
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 10, 2022
Nigel C Gibson

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Illustrator: Anastasya Eliseeva

The eKhenana occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, is a significant site in the struggle for a South Africa that respects the humanity of all.


South Africa has many moments in its long history of struggle that are recognised internationally as turning points. These include the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the Soweto uprising in 1976 and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.

Sharpeville marked the turn to armed struggle and the beginning of a new period of repression with the banning of the PAC and ANC. Soweto opened a new period of struggle as Black consciousness in action that would resonate throughout the country and across townships and schools in boycotts, strikes and daily discussions. Steve Biko recognised it philosophically, arguing at the time that the “boldness, dedication, sense of purpose and the clarity of analysis of the situation … are definitely a result of Black consciousness ideas among the young generation in Soweto and elsewhere”.

Events are not automatically recognised at the time they take place. Today, what we call the “Durban moment” – a term coined by educationalist Tony Morphet in 1990 – describes not only the massive and seemingly spontaneous strikes across Durban in 1973, but also the political-philosophical discussions between and around Biko and Richard Turner, who was active in organising workers and promoting rank-and-file democracy, education and resistance in the nascent union movement.

It was this notion of recognising a “moment” that was reflected in the subtitle to my book Fanonian Practices in South Africa from Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. To include Abahlali in a sequence of politics that began with Biko seemed audacious to some in 2011. My point was that the action, thinking and self-organisation of the shack dwellers in the face of brutal ANC hegemony articulated with Frantz Fanon’s critique of former national liberation leaders as a huckstering caste, and the emergence of new forms of struggle, rooted in humanism, from below in The Wretched of the Earth.

Now, over 16 years after its formation, Abahlali, with a paid-up membership of over 100 000 in five provinces and considerable political weight, is not so easily dismissed as it was by an often contemptuous middle-class Left in those early days. And yet the “commune” at eKhenana in Durban, which has received some mainstream media attention, has not gained recognition as a philosophical-political “event”.

Philosophical events

South Africa is in a crisis in which, as Antonio Gramsci puts it, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”. Subjected to the morbid symptoms on a daily basis – the attempted coup of July 2021 is one expression alongside the daily reality of mass unemployment, xenophobia and violence – we have perhaps focused too much on the normalising morbid symptoms and not enough on intimations of the new that are trying to be born. As Karl Marx wrote in his doctoral thesis in 1841, “necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity. Everywhere the paths to freedom are open.”

To speak of the new is also to be wary of proclamation: we should remember that Marx was wary of an uprising in Paris in late 1870 with the enemy at the gate. And yet once that uprising began, he not only supported it but emphasised the creative elements of imagining a new society as “its own working existence”.

He decided to revise Capital, referencing the idea of freely associated labour as the concrete element that could strip away the fetishistic character of commodities. The Paris Commune was of course world historical, the shattering of state power and its replacement by a really democratic state, as Friedrich Engels put it, “the Kingdom of God, on earth … the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realised”.

eKhenana is Zulu for Canaan, the promised land of milk and honey where God would deliver the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. By invoking the Paris Commune I am not, of course, putting eKhenana on the same level. The point is to view it through a similar lens, through its own working existence, which has emerged out of the basic need for shelter, food and also the need for community, establishing some important practices that address the question of the decommodification of land, communal organisation, production of food, development of a school for political education, cultural projects such as poetry and theatre, and international solidarity.

Survival is based on the necessities such as shelter, warmth, food and security. We need them for life, but they do not exhaust what it means to be alive. Abahlali’s struggle, and its insistence on thinking in the shack settlements, has always emphasised the importance of ideas. The Frantz Fanon School, a place for community discussions and classes in eKhenana, is a concrete expression of continuing “living learning”, as Abahlali has termed it, just as the theatre of the oppressed is an expression of cultural praxis, aware of how the culture and history of resistance and struggle to, in a phrase often used by Abahlali president S’bu Zikode, “humanise the world” is essential to building the movement.

Revolutionary theatre

Solidarity and collectivity have always highlighted the principle of humanising the world. Under continued repression, solidarity across South Africa and also internationally has importantly come to its defence. Seeds to start the programme of urban farming on occupied land in eKhenana were donated by the MST, the landless workers’ movement in Brazil.

The theatre work there, which has included the collective development and performance of a large-cast play on the assassination of Abahlali leader Thuli Ndlovu in her home in KwaNdengezi in 2014, has inspired similar projects in occupations in other parts of the country. A play titled Theatre of the Oppressed was recently performed in Zikode Village, an occupation in Tembisa named after Abahlali’s president. Written by Musa Nonkwelo, an 18-year-old resident of the , it was purposefully titled and included residents as performers in a play about the story of occupying the land.

Theatre of the Oppressed reaches back to the Black consciousness theatre of the 1970s – represented by groups such as Mhiliti, the People’s Experimental Theatre and Theatre Council of Natal – that was influenced by the work of Paulo Freire and later by Augusto Boal and his concept of theatre as praxis, where the audience takes an active role in analysing and changing reality. As Boal puts it, “perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself; but have no doubt, it is a rehearsal of revolution” because the dramatic action “throws light upon real action” encouraging the spectator to think and act for themselves.

In his preface to the French edition of Capital, Marx applauded the idea that it would come out in instalments, making it “more accessible to the working class”. Similarly, Fanon had hoped that the English translation of The Wretched of the Earth would find new readers across Anglophone Africa. But what could be a more appropriate place to read Marx and Fanon than a school built and run by organised shack dwellers?

Abahlali has organised and supported land occupations for many years. In 2018, the eKhenana Land Occupation was set up in Cato Manor (Mkhumbane in isiZulu). The residents later joined Abahlali and a branch was established in April 2019. Like other occupations, it has been subject to repeated illegal and violent eviction and destruction by the police and private security companies as well as the repeated arrest and imprisonment of its leaders on trumped-up charges. Both the resistance and repression at Mkhumbane have a long history stretching back over 100 years and continuing into the post-1994 period. This is where the movement suffered its first assassination on 26 June 2013 when Nkuleko Gwala was assassinated at a new occupation named Marikana (after the police massacre of striking miners there in 2012).

The decommodification of land

These occupations from below were taking place as the Jacob Zuma ANC was speaking of expropriating land without compensation and pushing for an amendment. Zuma’s politics focused on large areas of farmland. And while the later hearings in South Africa on the amendment of the Constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation was framed in terms of addressing “historic wrongs of land dispossession, ensure fair access to land and empower the majority of South Africans”, landholding in rural areas remained the issue. The pressing problem of access to land in urban areas to build accommodation was almost completely left out. In the government’s estimation the housing backlog in South Africa, if numbers remained the same, would take 30 years to eradicate. And year by year this estimate grows.

While on the face of it there seemed to be agreement, in reality there were two realities and two visions: the ANC’s idea of land as a commodity, tied to the idea of ownership of property “to resolve historic wrongs”, and Abahlali’s idea of the decommodification of land.

In February 2020, Abahlali organised a march of thousands of people through central Durban in support of what it termed the “total decommodification of land”. In March that year, I had a chance to talk about this with Abahlali in Durban. Mqapheli Bonono, who would go on to spend two weeks in prison for his support for the eKhenana commune, said that “we agree on appropriation of land without compensation, [but] we are not following what the ANC and EFF are saying. They understand this to mean take the land from the whites and give it to the Black elite.” Nhlakaniphi Mdiyastha added: “Land must not be sold, must not be put up for rent … it must be owned … communally.”

If land is a commodity it will end up owned by banks, Bonono added, which is why it needs to be decommodified. The dividing line of decommodification was sharply drawn by Abahlali youth member Lindokule Mnguni, a leading figure in the development of the eKhenana commune, who would go on to spend six months in prison after being arrested on trumped-up charges, asked an important question: “How are we going to engage in society without decommodification? Today we don’t even have jobs.” The majority of the residents in eKhenana are unemployed, reflecting a country in which over half the population is under 29 years old and the youth unemployment rate for the youth is over 77.4%. No nation is viable for long under these conditions.

Zikode often repeats Fanon’s statement that “each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”. “In the face of all kinds of threat,” Zikode says, “humanity has to rise. No matter what the consequences are. Abahlali has … risen to live [and] … has discovered its mission. We are in a process to fulfil it or betray it.”

Necessity, as Marx puts the basis for freedom, to think past the constraints of the present and imagine the world anew, the work on the commune is part of that reimagining. And it is the Abahlali youth as revolutionary who are taking up this mission. The theatre of the oppressed and the eKhenana commune are its seeds.

eKhenana’s commune is a working existence toward decommodification, decolonising and solidarity. It should be understood as an event with philosophical consequences in a time of deepening social and political crisis

This article was first published by New Frame.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... ng-crisis/

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“Conflict between president and PM is a conflict between the Somali people and imperialist forces”

Parliamentary elections in Somalia are set to be concluded by February 25 amid tensions between the president and the prime minister. Mohamed Hassan, historian and former diplomat, explains the political situation, the role of foreign powers, especially the UAE, and the truth behind Shabaab

January 10, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

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President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, aka Farmaajo (left) and prime minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.

The repeatedly delayed election for Somalia’s lower house of parliament, the House of People, will be concluded by February 25. The agreement on the date was reached on Sunday, January 9, after a week of meetings of the National Consultative Council (NCC), chaired by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and attended by the leaders of Somalia’s regional States.

This election will not be held on the basis of one-person-one-vote, for which a landmark law was signed by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, aka Farmaajo, in February 2020. The prospect of holding an election on the basis of universal suffrage for the first time since 1969 has been derailed. Once again, delegates chosen by clan leaders will vote to elect members to the parliament, who will in turn elect the president.

“It is not really an election. It is a nomination by an aristocratic class. Those with money can buy the vote of the delegates in the name of their clans without even consulting the majority of the clan members. It is the easy way of ruling Somalia and looting its resources,” Mohamed Hassan, historian and former diplomat, told Peoples Dispatch in an interview hours before the election date was agreed upon.

This controversial election will be held amid an escalating conflict between President Farmaajo and PM Roble, which resulted in a tense stand-off in Mogadishu between the soldiers loyal to them.

Radio Dalsan reported that the “NCC also agreed to deploy AMISOM [African Union Mission in Somalia] to the most fortified presidential palace so as to quell tension in the area where rival forces supporting both President Farmaajo and PM Roble continue to occupy rival positions in the rooftops of Villa Somalia.”

“The imperialist forces,” who “felt threatened” by the law for one-person-one-vote President Farmaajo signed, see him “as an obstacle because he is a popular leader.. So they are using the prime minister as a Trojan horse against Farmaajo,” said Hassan, who is also an advisor to the president of Ethiopia’s Somali regional State, on the border with Somalia.

Earlier, on January 7, Roble also sought to normalize diplomatic relations with UAE, which was severed by President Farmaajo in 2018 on allegations that it was trying to destabilize Somalia. “That is his purpose – to bring the UAE back into Somalia,” Hassan said, claiming that it is the UAE which has been sponsoring the bombings in Mogadishu and labeling the militant group Al Shabaab as responsible.

The threat of Al Shabaab is often stated in the international media as the reason why Somalia is not ripe for an election on the basis of one-person-one-vote. However, Hassan argues, its mass base, which was formed as a result of Ethiopia’s invasion in 2006 “at the insistence of the US,” has eroded.

Al Shabaab has now “become a ghost invoked by external forces to prevent the Somali people from exercising their democratic rights. All these so-called experts from the International Crisis Group are magnifying Al Shabaab as the greatest threat to the region. But it is not true anymore,” he said.

Read an abridged version of the phone interview below:

Peoples Dispatch: The election in Somalia has been repeatedly delayed. Amid this delay, there is an escalating row between President Farmaajo and Prime Minister Roble. It appears that the US and its allies have taken the PM’s side and are blaming the president for the delay. But it was Farmaajo who had campaigned for one-person-one-vote and signed it into a law in February 2020.

However, the prospect of holding an election on the basis of universal suffrage for the first time since 1969, has been derailed. The election Farmaajo’s opponents and the international community are pressuring him to go along with is once again in accordance with the previous practice where delegates of clans elect the representatives to the lower house, who in turn elect the president. What representative value does such an election hold?

Mohamed Hassan: It is not really an election. It is a nomination by an aristocratic class. Those with money can buy the vote of the delegates in the name of their clans, without even consulting the majority of the clan members. It is the easy way of ruling Somalia and looting its resources. The one-person-one-vote is a landmark law against this.

The warlords who control the clans are losing their hegemony in their own clans because Somali society, particularly over the last 20 years, has changed dramatically. Urbanization has increased the exposure and consciousness of the population. It is very difficult to control them on the basis of this false consciousness of the clan. So the president proposed that the election must be on the basis of one-person-one-vote. The majority of the population supported this proposal.

Elements who in the past have always used the clan as a base to hold power felt threatened. And, of course, the imperialist forces felt threatened. They want to maintain the status quo. They don’t want a popular patriotic sentiment to grow in Somalia. The western countries want to preserve the feudal clan-based system because clans are the only basis on which you can divide the Somali people. You cannot divide them on religion or culture or language, because they are a mono-nation. There is no country in Africa like Somalia where all the population speak the same language from north to south and east to west.

The current conflict between the president and the PM is essentially a conflict between the Somali people and the imperialist forces. The imperialist forces see President Farmaajo as an obstacle because he is a popular leader. You must also note that Farmaajo had signed the tripartite agreement for peace and cooperation with Ethiopia and Eritrea to establish what is called the New Horn of Africa. This was not appreciated by the US and Europe.

So they are using the prime minister as a Trojan horse against Farmaajo. Roble has no vision of nation-building. He is a very corrupt individual. The forces opposed to Farmaajo, including the UAE which the president had chased out of Somalia two-and-a-half years ago, are with him. But they have not been able to stop the emergence of Somali national consciousness.

Gradually, the embryo of a nation-state is taking shape. A national army, which had been absent since the 90s, has been established once again under Farmaajo with support from Turkey. This transcends the clan divisions and lays the pillars for Somali unification. The experiences and exposure of the diaspora are also playing an important role in the cultivation of a national consciousness. There is now a huge gap between the masses, especially the younger generation, and the politicians who want to preserve the status quo. People have refused to live like before, and the ruling class cannot continue to rule like before. I think in the end, the contradicting forces may come to some terms in the middle – that remains to be seen. But the social conditions have changed and they cannot be reversed like before.

PD: One-person-one-vote was a central promise in President Farmaajo’s campaign during the 2017 election. In Feb 2020, he did pass a federal law making way for universal adult suffrage. Can you briefly comment on why it took three years for Farmaajo to pass this law?

MH: Three years was not a very long time given the obstacles President Farmaajo had to surmount to advance democratization – to advance the concept that all citizens have the right to vote and have a say in the future of the country. The UAE and other regional allies of imperialist powers are spending a lot of money to provoke a civil war and create contradictions among the Somali people. They don’t want a new start for Somalia. In fact, they even encourage and subsidize bombings in Mogadishu and blame it on Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab became a tool of the UAE to destabilize the country. Kenya, on the other hand, is supporting warlords in the southern part of the country. But the possibility of triggering a civil war in Somalia is over because the warlords have been decisively defeated a long time ago. The fundamentals for a civil war are not there anymore. The population is much more politicized.

PD: In the international media narrative, Al Shabaab has become synonymous with Somalia. In Feb 2020, when the law for universal adult suffrage was passed, analysts were quoted in international media as saying that amid the war with Al Shabaab, Somalia cannot afford an election on one-person-one-vote basis. Now, the analysts appear to be saying that by not going along with the clan-based election, President Farmaajo is jeopardizing the war against Al Shabaab. How significant a threat is Al Shabaab?

MH: Al Shabaab has become a ghost invoked by external forces to prevent the Somali people from exercising their democratic rights. All these so-called experts from the International Crisis Group are magnifying Al Shabaab as the greatest threat to the region. It is not true anymore.

Al Shabaab, which translates as ‘The Youth,’ used to be a relatively small organization in alliance with the Islamist Council which in 2006 managed to kick out the warlords and take control over most parts of Somalia. Then, when at the insistence of the US, Ethiopia’s then ruler from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Meles Zenawi, invaded Somalia, Al Shabaab splintered from this council. Youth at the time flocked to this group mainly to resist the invasion. It then joined Al-Qaeda and became a threat. However, over time, with the rise of a national civil consciousness across the country, its base has completely eroded. Even if it controls pockets in the country, it can be recaptured by the Somali National Armed Forces anytime it decides to. Al Shabaab’s capabilities have seriously diminished today.

Al Shabaab today is only a pretext to keep Somalia as it is and to prevent the emergence of a democratic state on the basis of one-person-one-vote.

PD: Even after the law for one-person-one-vote was passed in February 2020, opposition to it continued. Eventually, in September 2020 – two months before the end of parliament’s term in November, and five months before the end of president’s term in February 2021 – Farmaajo reached an agreement with the heads of the regional States to abandon election on the basis of universal suffrage and return to clan-based elections. Why did he concede?

MH: This is because the regional State leaders refused to participate in the elections. They were told by their imperialist masters to not let it happen. At the time the one-person-one-vote was signed into law, opponents who had eventually come to agree to it had not understood all its implications. Then, after the law was passed, their imperialist masters said, “No, no, this is dangerous for you and for us. You have to push back to return to the old system.”

It is not even their own decision to refuse cooperation. It is the decision of the external forces. You have to understand that the fight in Somalia is essentially between Farmaajo and the external forces. We have to leave out these others. They are only subsidiaries funded and fed by external forces who have been continuously trying to incite civil war and bring Somalia into warlordism again. But they didn’t succeed. Not because of the president’s strength but because the conscious people rejected this line. I am confident that even though these forces have managed to delay the [realization] of one-person-one-vote, they cannot stop it.

PD: On the same day that this September agreement to delay the vote on universal adult suffrage basis and to have an election on the clan-based system was reached, Farmaajo appointed Roble as the new PM. At the time, what was Roble’s political standing? What, in your opinion, was Farmaajo’s reasoning behind his appointment?

MH: It was probably one of the mistakes Farmaajo made. He thought the man is not politically conscious, but he will be a Prime Minister that can be worked with. But Farmaajo misunderstood. Roble, a small businessman living in Kenya, was interested only in money. The moment he was appointed as the PM, the UAE and Kenya bought him. They put him in their pocket by showing him millions of dollars. The man is not interested in politics, but only in the money involved in it.

As soon as Roble became the PM, he visited the UAE and the imperialist forces became happy that they found the man to weaken Farmaajo. But Farmaajo has been able to hold out because he has the support of the masses.

PD: When Roble was appointed as the PM in September 2020, the main responsibility he was tasked with was to facilitate the elections before the terms expired. But this failed and the term of the parliament as well as the president’s government expired before the election could be held. In April 2021, when the lower house voted to extend the president’s term for up to two years until an election could be held, a huge controversy ensued. Somalia’s regional State heads objected. The US, UK and the EU threatened to cut off aid and even impose sanctions. Tension between the president and the PM has been escalating ever since, and eventually resulted in December in a standoff in Mogadishu between the soldiers loyal to the president and those loyal to the PM. How did things escalate so far?

MH: A lot of money was pumped into the country for this escalation, mainly to derail the prospects of a democratic election. The western powers don’t want the Somali people to exert their independent will because of their experience with Somalia in the past. You should remember that in the 1960s, when Somalia became independent, it was the first African country to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Somali ships and flags were confiscated while supplying weapons from the Soviet Union to Vietnam to resist American invasion. Inside the African continent also, Somalia’s role was very progressive. It had supported all the anti-colonial movements including that of Samora Machel in Mozambique. US imperialism keeps records of this behavior of the Somali state when it was independent. Once Somalia re-establishes its independence, I am sure it will join China’s Belt Road Initiative, like Eritrea and other African countries. The western powers want to thwart this.

Particularly because of its geo-strategic position along the Indian Ocean, they want to control its coastline. So all this pressure the US, UK and EU are exerting on Farmaajo, purportedly to bring about an election, is merely a pretext to intervene in order to exert control over Somalia and prevent the emergence of an independent democratic nation state. Roble is merely a pawn in their hands.

PD: Throughout this week, the Roble has been chairing the National Consultative Council (NCC) meeting with the regional State heads to forge a way forward towards the election. Opposition leaders and even foreign diplomats are also in attendance, but not the president. Why is this so?

MH: There is nothing national about this council. It is in fact a council subsidized by the UAE and the western countries to demobilize the national consciousness of the Somali people. Its purpose is to legitimize Roble, who is merely their stooge with no support from the masses. The president, of course, is not a part of this. He is the enemy they want to overthrow.

PD: Amid these meetings, Roble maneuvered to re-established diplomatic relations with the UAE.

MH: That is his purpose – to bring the UAE back into Somalia. The UAE destroyed Yemen. They supported Islamists and jihadists in Syria and in Libya. It has participated in the destruction of Somalia. Since Farmaajo chased them out of Somalia in 2018, they are angry and they want to come back. Roble’s move is a hijack by the UAE’s agents in Somalia. But they will not succeed. The people of Somalia are hostile to the UAE. This move will only increase the hostility and will of the people to resist external forces.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/10/ ... st-forces/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 15, 2022 2:23 pm

The Socialist Movement of Ghana: a revolutionary experiment in communication
01/15/2022
An organization that built a huge apparatus for the dissemination of socialist thought

From the editor. We present a translation of an article about the Congress of the Socialist Forum of Ghana, published on the website of the Movement of the Landless Peasants of Brazil (MST). The material tells about the experience of organizing workers, spreading the ideas of Marxism among the population and counteracting the bourgeois media.

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Congress of the Socialist Forum of Ghana, which supported the transformation of the Forum into the Socialist Movement of Ghana. Photo: Facebook
SDG/ Philippe Miquel (Member of the Internationalist Brigade named after Samora Machel in Africa), Website of the Movement of Landless Peasants

The Congress of the Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG), a West African country in the Gulf of Guinea, met in Ghana from 31 July to 1 August. It unanimously decided to transform the SFG into the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SDM), this transition marked an important milestone in the struggle and organization of the workers of Ghana.

The history of SFG began in 1993 . Initially - a Marxist circle of four people, today - more than 300 thousand members in 25 Collectives throughout the country. Comrade Kwesi Pratt Jr. , General Secretary of the SDH, believes that the transition from the Forum to the Movement is an important development in the advancement of the working class towards the prospect of a radical change in society:
“... It is important to understand that in the beginning, when there were four of us, our ambitions were very limited, but now our ambitions are great, we see ourselves as a group to mobilize the working class in order to transform society, destroy capitalism and build socialism.”
The participants of the Congress were the Communist Party of Cuba, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers' Party of South Africa, the Simón Bolivar Institute of Venezuela, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the information platform Pan-Africanism Today and the DBC, among others.

For Comrade Fabio André , representative of the DBC at the Congress, the transformation of the Socialist Forum of Ghana into a Movement was a strategic offensive in the struggle for the organization of the masses, since “the movement is an organization of a higher level of autonomy (…) All militancy of the Movement is determined strategically, and tactical actions also contribute to this ( …) Secondly, the Movement consciously chooses to be closer to the base — the people of Ghana — and in this sense, it builds relationships based on cooperation with people from the periphery, with people rejected by the power of the state. Thus, the decision to transform into a movement is also an obligation to work closely close to the base.

Theory in Motion: Centralization in the Ideological Struggle

Over the 29 years of its existence, the SDG has managed to build an excellent base in Africa for the political education of citizens through the study of Marxism and the discussion of social issues important to Ghana

The understanding that the organization of the working class through discussion inevitably penetrates into the hearts and minds of the workers is a maxim of Marxist thought. The application of this principle on the African continent is necessary to meet the challenges.

According to the Marxist intellectual Amilcar Cabral , the main leader of the struggle for the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde , the main task of the struggle against colonialism is the "reconstruction of the historical personality" of the peoples of Africa:
“The ideological insufficiency, if not the complete absence of ideology, within national liberation movements can be explained by a reluctance to change. This is one of the biggest, perhaps even the biggest, weaknesses in our struggle against imperialism.”
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The SDG managed to establish active communication with the masses and build an apparatus for the dissemination of socialist thought. For the development of culture and organization of society, the Freedom Center was established, located at the headquarters of the SDG in Accra, the capital of the country. There is also a library in which the works of the classics of Marxism and Pan-Africanism are presented.

The SDG has created an excellent landmark in Africa in the political formation and ideological debate of Ghanaian society as the center of revolutionary strategy. Members of the Congress of the Socialist Forum of Ghana. Photo: Facebook SMG
The SDG has created an excellent landmark in Africa in the political formation and ideological debate of Ghanaian society as the center of revolutionary strategy. Members of the Congress of the Socialist Forum of Ghana. Photo: Facebook SMG
The SDG has a bookstore "Freedom", which is involved in the dissemination of the ideas of the classics of Pan-Africanism, books and brochures of its activists. Leading organizations in West Africa and other parts of the world are also now included, such as the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

The Legacy Project is an attempt by the SDH to publish and distribute the complete works of Kwame Nkrumah , the main pan-African and Marxist leader of Ghana's independence. This project covered public schools, universities and various government agencies, as well as the Armed Forces and the judiciary.

An educational institution is also actively involved in the education of the masses - the school of Amilkar Kablar , whose activities are focused on "providing modern tools for a Marxist analysis of public life, spreading the ideas of pan-Africanism and strengthening the interaction of progressive activists in Africa and other countries." More than 500 people from different parts of the world have been trained in it . ( SDG, National Congress of Delegates, final report )

SDH also provides technical, editorial and managerial assistance to Insight newspaper and Pan African Television. Comrade Pratt notes that all the efforts of the SDG in building an apparatus for communication and promotion of culture are necessary in order to fight the hegemony of the bourgeois media:
“Working with the media is very important for the revolution, because in the modern world the revolutionary, leftist, pan-African forces cannot be heard, they cannot compete with the media of the imperialists, the colonialists.”
Pan African Television: mass communication as a weapon for organizing the masses

Pan African Television (PAT) is an open radio and TV platform from Ghana, also available on Youtube and Facebook. Based in Accra, PAT broadcasts daily news, interviews, music and entertainment. According to Pratt, today PAT is the largest platform in Ghana, but this is still not enough to compete with the bourgeois media.

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Anchor of the Pan-African News of Ghana. Photo: Pan-African Television/Twitter and Facebook SDG
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Behind the scenes. Photo: Pan-African Television/Twitter and Facebook SDG

PAT is able to enter every home in any region of the country, is the voice of the SDG, makes it possible to appeal to the entire population of Ghana and compete with the capitalist media.
“People must believe that a new society is possible, they must have confidence in this. In today's world, many messages can only be conveyed through the media. Such as news platforms, video platforms,” says Kwesi Pratt.
The SDH aims to make PAT a medium of communication for the Ghanaian working class, capable of offering the viewer broad coverage of the facts and discussion of the problems of society with a Marxist approach, spreading the legacy of the people's struggle against colonialism.

The Socialist Movement of Ghana believes that communication with the people is the key to organizing the working class. One glance at the workers who make PAT exist is enough to see that they are predominantly young and have a large representation of women.

The SDG puts a lot of effort into organizing communication, and this work is directly related to the initiative from below. The SDG organizes Collectives among representatives of four social groups: teachers, doctors, unemployed workers and women. They represent educational associations for the study of social issues, institutions in West Africa and the world, which helps to better understand local problems.
“The collectives also participate in international solidarity actions with the inhabitants of Palestine who are fighting against the Israeli occupation, with the Polisario against the colonial occupation ... We also support Cuba and Venezuela in their resistance to imperialism . Our operations are local, national and international,” Pratt concludes.
After the Congress, meetings were organized with all the Collectives of the country to discuss the issue of a new type of organization. All Collectives selected individuals from their community groups to participate in the Amilcar Cabral Grassroots Initiative political literacy training.

The Socialist Movement of Ghana continues to strengthen the people's power, succeeding in the struggle of ideas, relying on coherence and grassroots initiative. For the peoples of West Africa, the SDG is a point of support and hope in building a new world. As the heir to Kwame Nkrumah , the organization staunchly defends pan-African unity, a strategy to fight against imperialism.

https://www.rotfront.su/sotsialistiches ... gany-revo/

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:12 pm

Patricio Lumumba: Assassinated for defending the freedom of the Congo

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The National Hero of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was assassinated for promoting a political and ideological struggle against the colonial yoke. | Photo: daily-october.com

Published January 17, 2022 (4 hours 36 minutes ago)

In November 2001, the Belgian parliament recognized the responsibility of its State in the murder of Lumumba and the US also confessed its involvement in the events.

61 years ago, the lands of Africa collected the blood of the Congolese leader Patricio Lumumba, one of the most fervent fighters against the colonization of the Congo and the first head of government of his country after achieving independence from Belgium.

his murder had to do with his confrontation with Western powers that, for years, seized the natural resources of the Congo and plunged its population into extreme poverty and inequality.

"No brutal mistreatment or torture has broken me because I prefer to die with my head held high, with unshakable faith and deep trust in the future of my country, than to live subjugated and trampling on sacred principles," Lumumba wrote to his wife and children days before his death.

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Anti-colonial leader

Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925 in Onalua, Katakokombe, Congo. He was an anti-colonial leader and the first to serve as Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between June and September 1960. His education was self-taught, as a result of being expelled from several mission schools.

The African hero founded the Congolese National Movement in 1958, in favor of creating an independent and secular State, whose unitary political structures would help to exacerbate national sentiment, which made him the winner of the post of Prime Minister in the first free elections, in 1960.

However, the departure of the Belgians from the territory caused more instability in the territory, as a political conflict was generated with military uprisings, attacks on the white population and widespread riots.

Likewise, the mining region of Katanga declared itself independent under the leadership of Tschombé, a profitable situation for its former metropolis, which had interests in the mining company that exploited the deposits, for which it also deployed military troops.


Freedom betrayed

Despite the fact that Lumumba claimed before the United Nations Organization (UN) the rights of sovereignty and inviolability of his territory and demanded the immediate expulsion of the Belgian troops, his voice was not heard, so to save the situation he sought allies in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

In a context of the Cold War, this action involved a direct confrontation with the United States (USA), which is why it activated its troops from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to eliminate it from the African panorama.

At the same time, it should be noted that, within the conditions of independence for the Congo, Belgium left an indebted country and withdrew all its troops in the health, education and administration sectors, among others, without giving time to its replacement. This abandonment colluded against Lumumba and he was betrayed.


First, a coup d'état in September 1960 overthrew him along with his entire cabinet, and a second stab in the back by military officer Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who was following the instructions of the US and Belgian intelligence agencies, led to his death. arrest and kidnapping.

Although there are different versions of his assassination, which led to the establishment of a dictatorship of more than three decades, the truth is that the now National Hero of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was cowardly assassinated for promoting a political and ideological struggle against de colonial yokes and North American imperialism.

In November 2001, the Belgian parliament recognized the responsibility of its State in the murder of Lumumba and the US also confessed its involvement in the events.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/asesinat ... -0032.html

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Libya: “Do We Let the Election Obstructionists Reap the Fruits of Their Victory?”

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 16, 2022
Dr. Muhammad Jibril Al-Arfi

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There was a crime of conspiracy against the will of the Libyan people. 2.8 million had the right to vote. 2.5 of them registered and withdrew their cards. 80% of those who had the right to vote showed their keenness on the elections and a million voters recommended candidates for the presidency and representatives. They chose their president and deputy who would serve on their behalf. A crime was committed against all of them, and against the country in general.

Criminology says: In order to discover the criminal, look for the beneficiary. It is clear who the criminals are. They are the ones who seize power in Sharqistan and Westernistan. They lead by bribery and forgery, formed by the coalition of militias, the Brotherhood and the mafias,to loot public money. Some members of the House of Representatives contributed to the crime because they have an interest in the continuation of their own privileges and advantages.

We saw the student expelled from the College of Engineering bragging that he was a bribery broker working in tmedia controlled by the mafia terrorist gangs. He dared to announce this publicly without fear of possible punishment or shame from a utterly shameful situation.

It must be admitted that the gang of bribery and fraud has won and succeeded in aborting the elections and that victory was achieved through many instruments, including that the outside world feared that the Libyan people would restore their sovereignty, that they would choose a national president and a national parliament. The the national system they thought they had brought down is still feared by them.

Also, the commission did not guard against suspicion, even when proving that it was afraid and not treacherous.

Piety was used as a cloak deliberately concealing affiliations with the criminal group, and it highlighted the force majeure card that lead to the abortion of the elections. This brings to mind the force that what is important is not to enable this lobby to reap the fruits of their victory.

This requires first: knowing their intentions represented In their eagerness not to elect a president from among the people, to choose instead a de facto president. They seek to achieve this goal in the following way:

To have the parliamentary elections precede the presidential election, because they believe they can easily control the will of 200 parliamentarians by seduction, intimidation, and thus their control of power will continue. Unfortunately, this trick may deceive many, as we have heard voices calling for parliamentary election – the election of a parliament that separates the rest of the stage on the mood of those who control it in the absence of the people.

To restrict the people with a booby-trapped constitution by making formal amendments to the Constitution (Turapura) to enter into a spiral of conflict over the drafting of its articles, and the third way is to extend the transitional phase, and this is expected because it is impossible to agree on a constitution during a state of turmoil. And before and after all of that, the extension of the power of bribery and forgery.

These scenarios began with the formation of committees, and with bilateral meetings between the beneficiaries of the situation from different regions, and the mafias that control the central bank enabled the leader of the family mafia to mobilize more out of greed, need or ignorance. They control Tripoli, which will impede the armed forces efforts to disarm the militias, and thus ensure the continued impossibility of holding elections.

Even if elections do take place, they cannot be free, transparent and fair, because they will be under the bayonets of guns. The most effective way is to organize the national forces to take the reins and seize them from the hands of these criminals.This may he require igniting a popular revolution protected by the armed forces and security services, to play the role of liberation forces to rid the country of this nightmare that has been asphyxiating us for more than a decade, and to create alliances with partners in destiny at home and neighboring countries, to build strategic relations based on scientific foundations, not on media statements.

Egypt has an interest in the stability of Libya, especially as it began to rise very quickly. Egypt will soon become an oil and industrial country and will achieve a scientific renaissance. Egypt, in the coming years, will be an attractive environment for Turkish, Libyan and Kuwaiti employment, and the economy will complete the third side of the triangle of power in Egypt. Libya is a vital area for Egypt, and Egypt’s constant goal is that a hostile regime does not set up next to it. This goal is consistent with the orientations of the national forces, because the Brotherhood and bin Laden’s followers are historical enemies of the Arab people. Egypt has ended the era of submissiveness, negligence, labor, poverty and beggary. while on the other hand, Libya is a playground for the struggle of foreign powers.

On the other hand, Libya is a playground for the conflict of foreign powers. It is not possible to separate what is happening in Libya from what is happening in Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, America or China – armaments, gas, immigration, terrorism – and the Russian mobilization on the borders of Ukraine, but imperialism’s advisors in Libya suffer from a political disability.

Libya is historically forward-looking, so whoever wants the best for Libya and the Arabs, let him unite with the (unique) June revolution.

Translation by Internationalist 360°

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... r-victory/

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Resistance against military coup in Sudan continues despite crackdown

Despite increasing violence by the security forces, the US and its regional and Western allies as well as the UN have been calling for a dialogue. However, “No Negotiation, No Compromise, No Power-sharing” remains the slogan on the streets

January 17, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

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(Photo: Herculesami/Twitter)

The crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Sudan continued on Saturday, January 15, as security forces detained more anti-coup protesters. The protesters had been injured during the January 13 demonstrations and were leaving the Royal Care Hospital in Burri in eastern Khartoum when they were arrested.

The injured protesters, along with their companions, were reportedly seized outside the hospital by men in civilian clothes and taken away in vehicles with no number plates to unknown locations.

Among those arrested is 17-year-old Mohamed Adam, aka Tupac, who was being treated in the hospital for two gunshot injuries. He is reportedly being charged for the alleged murder of a police brigadier general who, according to the police, was stabbed to death by a protester on January 13.

Many observers have raised suspicions of foul play in the case, pointing out that on January 13, the police had already claimed to have arrested and extracted a confession from a protester they had originally accused of stabbing the police officer.

Shot in the abdomen that day, 21-year-old El Rayeh Mohamed became the 64th protester confirmed to have been killed by the security forces since the military coup on October 25. Several dozen others were wounded by live bullets, tear gas canisters and stun-grenades that the security forces were known to have fired directly at the bodies of protesters.

Majority of the injuries were reported from the three cities of Khartoum State. In the capital Khartoum city, rallies starting out from several neighborhoods broke through the heavy security cordons and reached the Presidential Palace, the seat of army chief and coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Here, the protesters were surrounded by army vehicles and dispersed with force.

To prevent protesters from neighboring Khartoum North and Omdurman from reaching this venue, the army opened fire. The army had blocked the bridges connecting the three cities divided by the Nile.

Resistance Committees in Khartoum North claimed that several protesters were detained and beaten and stabbed with knives before being released. Shootings were also reported from Wad Madani, the capital of El Gezira State in Sudan’s east-central region.

Radio Dabanga reported that mass demonstrations were also witnessed in cities in several other States across the country, including in Kassala, Blue Nile, While Nile, Sennar, River Nile and also the restive State of South Kordofan and the Darfur region.

The States of Red Sea, North Kordofan and North Darfur had witnessed demonstrations a day earlier, on January 12, when this round of ‘March of Millions’, which has become a regular resistance exercise since the coup, was originally scheduled.

“Resistance Committees showed the security forces who controls the streets”

“However, just one hour before the protests were set to begin, the Resistance Committees announced that the protest was postponed to January 13. And the thousands who had already set out immediately responded by retreating from the streets while others stayed home,” said one protester who regularly attends Resistance Committee meetings in a neighborhood in Khartoum.

What then followed was an embarrassment for the police, the army and the militia. The forces were stationed along all the main roads with bridges blocked and communications cut, only to find that the protest was postponed and no one was going to turn up. There are two important conclusions to be drawn from this, he argued.

“Firstly,” he said, “the Resistance Committees showed the security forces who controls the streets. This showed that the streets are not in chaos, they are highly organized and have a very effective leadership. Secondly, it shows the poor intelligence the state has about the protest movement. Security forces have totally failed to infiltrate it. Many of us knew one day in advance that the protest would be postponed at the last moment. And yet, it seemed that security forces had no clue. They are simply reading statements on Facebook.”

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets across Sudan on the time and dates decided by the Resistance Committees. On January 12, the Resistance Committees showed that even an hour before a scheduled protest, their organization can ensure that a mobilized security force finds nothing but empty streets to confront.

A series of arrests since have reportedly targeted members of the Resistance Committees. However, the killings, maiming and arrests by the security forces have not fazed the protest movement, which is currently mobilizing for another ‘March of Millions’ on Monday, January 17.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) has announced that doctors and medics will also be holding vigils, reiterating the protest movement’s call for overthrowing the military generals who led the coup. The vigils are also to condemn the attacks on hospitals and medical staff on duty during the previous protests.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) is following with great concern the escalating crisis in Sudan, including 15 reported attacks on health care workers and health facilities since November 2021… 11 of which have been confirmed,” Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement on January 11.

“Most of these attacks were committed against health care workers in the form of physical assault, obstruction, violent searches, and related psychological threats and intimidation. Also reported were 2 incidents involving raiding and military incursion of health care facilities.”

This is a sharp increase in the number of attacks on medics as only one attack was reported in 2020. Even in 2019, when the December Revolution which began at the end of 2018 overthrew dictator Omar al Bashir, only seven instances of attacks on medics were recorded, the statement added.

It is amidst this escalation of violence by the security forces on medics, patients, old and the young alike, that the US and its regional and Western allies as well as the UN have been calling for a dialogue.

The centrist and right wing political parties – which had earlier entered into a power sharing agreement with the military, making way for the joint civilian-military transitional government which was dissolved after the coup on October 25 – have once again agreed to negotiate.

However, the Resistance Committees, the trade union coalition called the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) and the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), which appear to command the majority of the protesters on the streets, have firmly rejected this call. They have reiterated that only the complete overthrow of the military junta can make way for a democratic transition.

And so the slogan “No Negotiation, No Compromise, No Power-sharing” with generals will once again be chanted in demonstrations across Sudan on Monday, January 17, amid the sounds of live bullets, stun grenades and tear gas.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/17/ ... crackdown/
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:34 pm

Is Ethiopia Moving Towards Peace?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 17, 2022
Nation Nyoka

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Uncertainty persists as the strife-torn East African country stumbles towards a fragile accord between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the north and the federal government.

Ethiopians are hopeful that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali’s moves to reconcile the war-torn country will bring about peace. But many feel uncertain about his post-conflict stance, which seems to have come about too quickly.

It has been a difficult 15 months for Ethiopia after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked the northern command of the Ethiopian National Defence Force in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, in November 2020. The country’s defence force retaliated, but what was meant to be a short operation devolved into a continuing conflict between the TPLF and the defence force.

In an attempt to stop the conflict that is causing untold misery, Abiy recently released a number of prominent political prisoners, including TPLF officials. But opposition parties say that while the TPLF are still attacking pockets of the country it is too early to begin the work of reconciliation. One of these parties, the National Movement of Amhara, said Abiy’s post-conflict stance was a “historical mistake” that devalued the sacrifices made by Ethiopians.

Established in 1975, the TPLF led a political coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which fought and overthrew the Derg regime in 1991. Under this coalition, the TPLF held power for decades, often allocating power based on ethnic lines. When Abiy came into power in 2018, he accused officials of corruption and human rights abuses and removed many from key positions. He also unified the coalition, forming the Prosperity Party, a merger in which the TPLF did not participate. When the federal government postponed elections because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tigray region held its own vote, which the government declared illegal.

When it was formed, the TPLF’s initial political aspiration was to attain independence for landlocked Tigray in the north. Now the region seeks secession once again, and hundreds have been killed since fighting began. Atrocities have been committed on both sides. Recent airstrikes carried out by the Ethiopian government have killed and injured several people since the beginning of the new year, and Tigrayans as well as those in neighbouring regions have all been suffering.

In December, the TPLF withdrew its forces from Afar and Amhara, which it had occupied since July. The chairperson of the party, Debretsion Gebremichael, said in a CNN interview in early January that the TPLF had to consider political understanding and not only military advancements. He said it was looking for a negotiated settlement of all political issues, adding that the independence of the Tigrayans from Ethiopia will not come immediately.

What was needed from outside facilitators, Gebremichael said, was humanitarian help and aid in lifting the “siege” on banking, telecommunications, transport and electricity. The Tigray region has effectively been under a communications and humanitarian blockade for months.

Fleeing violence

Though things seem hopeful, for some Ethiopians in the diaspora, peace is not synonymous with the TPLF, which the Ethiopian federal government declared a terrorist group in May 2021. John Tesfaye*, 35, says that in the TPLF’s almost three decades in power many Ethiopians fled the country.

Tesfaye was 19 when he, along with many others, left Ethiopia after protesting against the outcome of the 2005 elections, which many still believe were rigged. Born in Hosaena in southern Ethiopia, Tesfaye was raised in Addis Ababa and is now self-employed in South Africa.

After the elections, Tesfaye says, “they started killing us. So many of my friends are dead. I ran away first to Kenya then to South Africa to survive,” he says, adding that he lost family back home as well.

Tesfaye maintains that he does not want the TPLF to return to power because the party was oppressive during its rule. There was widespread theft, bribery, corruption and killings. According to a Global Financial Integrity Report, between 2000 and 2009 Ethiopia lost $11.7 billion to corruption, a figure estimated in 2017 to have gone up to $30 billion.

Tesfaye says he does not want a return to ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, and he supports the prime minister’s efforts. “He wants unity of Africa and Ethiopians because those people [the TPLF] divide us by ethnics. We are fighting each other. A brother fighting his brother because they [the TPLF] want their power to stay long?” he asks, incredulous.

Teddy Wakjira* is from the Amhara region and has been in South Africa for 20 years. He owns several spaza shops. He believes the TPLF gets help from outside forces that want to replace Ethiopia’s democratically elected leader for their own agenda.

“[The United States] must support the people, not the terrorists. We are united. We are Ethiopians. We don’t want to die. We want our freedom. The people of Ethiopia don’t want the TPLF. America, stop supporting terrorists. If you are supporting the TPLF, you are supporting Isis, you are supporting Al-Shabaab. America must respect the will of Ethiopians,” says Wakjira.

He is referring to a rumour that the US, along with Egypt, are supplying the TPLF with satellite intelligence. This supposedly has to do with the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a hydroelectric power plant project under construction on the border with Sudan.

Tesfaye says African independence should not be traded for aid. “We cannot sell our freedom for bread. Africa is an independent and proud people. [America] disrespects our sovereignty … they support rebels at the cost of the people, innocent lives taken.”

Nebiyu Ejeta*, who is originally from the Hosaena region, moved to South Africa 10 years ago. He says the TPLF forces children as young as five to fight a war they know nothing about. Many Tigrayans in South Africa are afraid to speak, even anonymously. Most of them fled home to avoid involuntary recruitment to the TPLF. Their families back home suffered the consequences. “They are not scared of other Ethiopians. They are scared of their own people. They attack their own people back home,” says Ejeta, claiming that the majority of Tigrayans do not support the TPLF.

Tesfaye agrees, stressing that the TPLF does not represent all Tigrayans. “It’s a few politicians that are destroying our country,” he says.

In solidarity

As of this month, Ethiopia has been removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, curtailing its ability to trade duty-free with the US. Unilateral sanctions have had limited success in bringing about stability and peace and often had dire consequences for the economies and lives of those affected, yet they have been used against Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea. The TPLF has yet to have any sanctions placed against it.

As the seat of the African Union and holding strategic importance for the stability of the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has a lot of power in the region. It is also a vital part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government. Countries such as the US have a national security interest in fighting “terrorism” in the Horn of Africa, specifically in neighbouring Somalia where it sees Al-Shabaab as a threat. There is also much interest in the Red Sea corridor.

The Ethiopian Media Authority issued a warning against a number of international media for how they were characterising the conflict, including reporting the government’s law enforcement operations in the north as genocide and accusing it of using rape and famine as weapons. Numerous demonstrations have taken place globally against the purported media bias.

In South Africa, demonstrations have been held in solidarity with the Ethiopian government, while Ethiopians at home and throughout the diaspora wait to see if this fragile peace holds.

*Names have been changed.

This article was first published by New Frame.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... rds-peace/


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Mali vs. Ecowas: Bamako Can Count on International Support
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 17, 2022
Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov

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In the current tug of war between Mali and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Malian authorities are unlikely to relent, as they can count on a number of African and international supporters. But also on domestic popular support and broad sympathies from pan-African civil society.

Many observers have noted that the sanctions imposed by Ecowas on the Malian authorities are only the logical consequence of the pressure and intimidation exerted by Paris on Bamako following Mali’s strategic rapprochement with Russia. At the same time, the domino effect of the fall of influence of the neo-colonial Franco-African system continues.

Many Africans even speak of a simple proxy work of this same Ecowas in favor of the interests of the Elysée. One thing is certain: for months now, Paris has been using its main auxiliaries in the region to increase the pressure on Mali in its strategic choices, even if in doing so the regimes concerned go against the resentments of a large part of their own citizens, as was observed in Niger, where demonstrations against the French military presence took place, with civilian victims among the protesters.

This thesis is further confirmed by the fact that almost immediately after ECOWAS announced the imposition of sanctions on Mali, French diplomacy tried to have the UN adopt a text supporting these sanctions. In vain – Russia and China as permanent members of the UN Security Council blocked the said text, confirming once again their mutual solidarity at the international level and not allowing the Elysee maneuvers at the UN to achieve their desired objective.

Despite this obvious failure, the French and more generally Western media are trying to maintain, along with the political establishment concerned, the idea that Mali is supposedly isolated in the international community, although this now appears to be a ridiculous posture. In addition to having the support of Moscow and Beijing, two of the world’s three main powers, Bamako can also count on the support, more or less, of several African countries, particularly in the region.

Among these countries is Algeria, which maintains cordial relations with the Malian authorities. Guinea, also a neighbor of Mali, has shown solidarity with Bamako and has announced that “land, air and sea borders will remain open to Mali”, following the sanctions announced by ECOWAS. It would certainly be fair to mention Mauritania – also on good terms with Bamako. And let’s not forget Morocco, which, although it has close relations with Paris and Washington, has a strong economic presence on Malian soil – Mali being the third largest destination for the kingdom’s investments in Africa, as Maroc Diplomatique reminds us.

More generally, all the countries concerned, in addition to their respective interests, would only benefit if the security situation in the Sahel were to improve. Hence the importance of supporting the efforts of the Malian authorities.

But beyond regional and international support, the key point is that the Malian authorities can continue to count on mass popular support – from a large part of the Malian population, as well as from many citizens of other African countries. Including those whose heads of state remain in a subcontracting mode for the interests of Paris. And this, even the main pro-Western voices are now forced to recognize.

Jeune Afrique – one of the main media torchbearers of Franco-African interests – even speaks of an “exacerbated anti-French sentiment” after the ECOWAS sanctions, confirming a reality that we have already dealt with on several occasions.

In terms of perspectives, it should be said that the domino effect of the failures of the Elysian and Western establishment will most certainly continue beyond Mali. The arrogance and total inability to adapt intelligently to the international rules of the multipolar era will only exacerbate the hostile feelings of many people, especially Africans, towards the Western establishment.

One thing is also certain: the courage of the authorities and the people of Mali is undeniable. Patriotic and sovereignist determination is overcoming neo-colonial arrogance, becoming an additional source of inspiration for other nations. As for Russia and China, they will have demonstrated once again that beyond their firm solidarity in world affairs, the notion of international community is anything but the one promoted and repeated all day long by the political-media establishment of the West.

Translation by Internationalist 360°

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... l-support/

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Protesters Killed During Sudan Anti-Coup Rallies

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Several were killed during the marches demanding a return to civilian rule. Jan. 17, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@

Published 17 January 2022 (15 hours 59 minutes ago)

According to medics and activists statements, security forces killed several protesters as thousands demonstrated against the military coup.


During the rallies against last year’s military coup, Sudanese security forces killed at least three protesters, stated medics and an activist, before a visit by U.S. diplomats seeking to revive a transition to civilian rule.

Nazim Sirag, an activist, showed three protesters killed Monday by security forces; as they opened fire to stop a march held in Khartoum. He added that the gunshots injured civilians. Three protesters "were killed by live bullets," reads a statement on Facebook posted by the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD)

A Reuters witness said that a thousand protesters marched against military rule towards the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum. The security forces answered with volleys of tear gas. Since the military coup last October 25, many protesters have taken to the streets, demanding a return to civilian rule.

Monday's killings raised the death toll to 67 protesters killed since the October coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Last October military takeover sparked international condemnation and diverted the fragile transition to civilian rule after al-Bashir's removal.


The United States envoy to the Horn of Africa David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee expected in the capital this week are the detonate of the rallies in Khartoum and Wad Madani to the south.

According to Hiba Morgan, Al Jazeera reporter from the capital, the protesters are trying to keep up the momentum "by turning out in the thousands on the streets to show the military that they want whatever initiative that is going to result in a pure, civilian government."

"They say that is what they have been demanding and despite the 'brutal and excessive use of force,' as the United Nations termed it, they will continue protesting. They have scheduled more protests in the coming days," Morgan stated.


Sudanese authorities said on Thursday that the protesters stabbed to death a police general, the first casualty for security forces.

Sudan's authorities repeatedly denied using live ammunition during the confrontation with protesters, highlighting that dozens of security personnel have been wounded during protests that have often "deviated from peacefulness."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Pro ... -0013.html
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:23 pm

Libya: Thousands of Detainees are Held in Inhuman Conditions in Militia-Run Prisons
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 18, 2022

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The United Nations documents in a report submitted to the Security Council that there are more than 12,000 detainees in Libya, and that refugees and migrants have been subjected to rape, sexual harassment and human trafficking.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres revealed that there are more than 12,000 official detainees in 27 prisons and detention facilities in Libya, while thousands are also being held illegally in “inhumane conditions” inside facilities controlled by armed groups, or inside “secret” facilities. He called for the need to withdraw mercenaries and foreign forces and to expedite the holding of the Libyan elections.

In his report to the Security Council and published by the Associated Press, Guterres indicated that the United Nations political mission in Libya continues to document cases of arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, and other violations of international law in facilities run by the government and other groups.

He stated that thousands of detainees who do not appear in the official statistics provided by the Libyan authorities, which show more than 12,000 detainees, are unable to challenge the legal grounds for their detention.

Guterres expressed his concern for the conditions of refugees and migrants, both female and male, due to the risks of being subjected to rape, sexual harassment and human trafficking.

“Migrants and refugees, both female and male, continue to face increased risks of rape, sexual harassment, and human trafficking at the hands of armed groups, as well as officials of the Libyan Anti-Illegal Migration Authority, which is under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior,” Guterres said in the report.

The Secretary-General confirmed that the United Nations Support Mission in Libya documented cases in Mitiga prison and several detention centers run by the Anti-Illegal Migration Authority in Zawiya, and in and around the capital, Tripoli.

“The mission received reliable information about human trafficking and sexual abuse of about 30 Nigerian women and children,” he added.

Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after the overthrow of late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and has emerged as a major transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

Smugglers took advantage of this chaos, as they smuggle migrants in rickety rubber or wooden boats that make their way across the Mediterranean to Europe, on perilous journeys.

In the same report he submitted to the Security Council, Guterres called on the Libyan parties to “work together” to hold “inclusive and credible elections as soon as possible,” stressing the need for the “complete withdrawal” of mercenaries and foreign forces.

“The 2.8 million Libyans who have registered to vote must be commended and their wishes must be respected,” Antonio Guterres wrote in the as-yet-unpublished report.

“It is imperative that all Libyan stakeholders unequivocally commit and remain focused on holding free, fair, inclusive and credible presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible,” the UN official added.

The presidential and legislative elections were postponed indefinitely due to differences between official institutions, as the title of these disputes was declared “The Election Law and the Role of the Judiciary in the Merit.”

Guterres stressed that “the competent Libyan authorities and institutions must work together now to solve the basic problems that led to the postponement of the elections … and create the necessary political and security conditions for holding the presidential and parliamentary elections without further delay.”

“I call on them to work together, in accordance with the laws in force and the rules and procedures in force in their institutions,” in order to hold elections “in a safe and peaceful environment, with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and youth,” he added.

In his report, Guterres also called for “the continuation of the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, with a complete withdrawal of mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces” deployed in Libya, and the United Nations estimates their total number at more than 20,000.

Guterres noted in his document that “the competition between armed groups for control of territory, has continued to affect security in Tripoli and in the cities of the northwest” in recent months. He also pointed out that “the presence of mercenaries continues to play a destabilizing role in the south.”

This UN demand comes as the Libyan House of Representatives continues its second consecutive session to hear the briefing of the Road Map Committee and take its decision regarding the government.

The session takes place amid the increasing popular voices calling for the dismissal of the caretaker government for several reasons, including “corruption issues involving officials and ministers”, in addition to the recent army salary crisis, and setting a new date for elections in the country.

The United Nations is leading serious efforts undertaken by the Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Libya, Stephanie Williams, passing through Tunisia, Algeria and Turkey, where her last stop was Cairo, before leaving for Moscow.

During those meetings, the UN envoy reiterated that the solution in Libya cannot be through another transitional government, but rather by holding elections, in reference to the attempt of some members of the House of Representatives to exclude the current government, and to form another alternative, to manage the next phase until the constitutional entitlement.

She called on the Libyan parliament to deal with force majeure announced by the Electoral Commission, noting that the road map is still valid, and that elections can be held before next June. She stressed that Libya has been going through a transitional phase since 2011, and it needs permanent, democratically elected institutions.

Al Arab

Translation by Internationalist 360°

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... n-prisons/

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Sudanese revolutionaries call for civil disobedience and strikes after regime massacre

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People march at a protest in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, January 17, 2022

SUDANESE revolutionaries called for more protests and civil disobedience today in response to the massacre of at least seven demonstrators by security forces on Monday.

Police fired on huge rallies against the generals behind October’s military coup in Khartoum, bringing the total killed since the junta seized power to at least 71 (some organisations claim 75). Over 100 more people were wounded in Monday’s crackdown, according to the Sudan Doctors Committee, while police said 77 were arrested.

A US-negotiated power-sharing agreement between the army and the civilian transitional government, which was rejected by the democracy movement, is collapsing following the resignation of prime minister Abdalla Hamdok at the start of the month.

Coup leader Abdel-Fattah Burhan has announced a fact-finding probe into the latest killings, but the Communist Party of Sudan said mass demonstrations and a campaign of civil disobedience should continue until “democratic civilian rule is won.”

It called for political strikes and for mass organisations to develop a more coherent political programme in the face of regional and UN pressure for a compromise with the military, which it said was engaged in “a hostile conspiracy against the December revolution” which began in 2018 against dictator Omar al-Bashir. Mr Bashir was overthrown by the army following mass protests early in 2019, but generals have since obstructed any transition to democratic government, culminating in their October 25 seizure of power.

The Sudanese Journalists Network said the junta could not evade responsibility for the deaths, pointing out that security forces have immunity under an emergency decree issued by generals and that peaceful protests are routinely attacked, including with military-grade weaponry including rocket launchers and Kalashnikov assault rifles.

It listed violations including what appear to be the deliberate killing of protesters by snipers through shots to the “head, chest and abdomen,” Sudan Doctors Committee reports indicating use of munitions that explode inside the body, and post-protest raids on hospitals in which the injured are abducted from their beds and nurses and doctors beaten up if they try to intervene.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the regime’s attacks on democracy protesters today, saying appeals to coup leaders to refrain from deadly violence had fallen on deaf ears.

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/art ... e-massacre

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Seven more killed and over a hundred wounded as anti-coup protests continue in Sudan
Mass strike and civil disobedience campaigns are underway in Sudan in rejection of the coup despite violent repression by security forces

January 19, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

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A funeral procession for a protester killed on January 17 was broken up by security forces on January 18. Photo: Mohanad Hamid

Seven more pro-democracy protesters were shot dead in Khartoum city by the security forces on Monday, January 17. Tens of thousands took to streets in cities across Sudan in rejection of the de facto rule of military generals since the military coup on October 25, 2021. Most of the deaths were caused by bullets fired to the chest, abdomen, and pelvis.

More than a hundred others have been injured by bullets as well as by tear gas canisters and stun grenades fired directly at the bodies of the protesters in the three cities of Khartoum state – the capital Khartoum city, Khartoum North, and Omdurman.

At least six of the over 70 injured protesters who are receiving treatment in El Jawda hospital are in a critical condition. Tear gas was fired in front of this hospital while the injured protesters were being transferred, Radio Dabanga reported. “Witnesses (also) reported an attack by military forces on an ambulance in Mak Nimir bridge… medical staff and a driver were brutally beaten with sticks and rifle butts.”

“Yesterday was probably the most violent repression since the coup, with the exception of November 17. It seems the security forces have turned a new page in repression,” one protester from Omdurman told Peoples Dispatch, speculating “I think all demonstrations will be met with an increased violence from now.”

At least 71 people have already been killed by the security forces since the coup and over 2,000 have been injured. Over 250 are still undergoing treatment, according to data compiled by Hadreen Organization as of January 18. As many as 24 protesters have lost limbs or other organs and seven are paralyzed.

“This is not our army and these are our enemies, and it is our duty to resist them until we win or until they rule an empty country after they kill us all. This is our pledge to the martyrs,” the Khartoum State Resistance Committees Coordination (KSRCC) said in a statement after the crackdown on January 17.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) announced the “Complete withdrawal from the army, police and security hospitals” in a statement on January 18, signed by the Sudan Central Committee of Physicians, Sudan Medical Syndicate, Committee of Consultants and Specialists, and a dentists’ association.

The statement added that its members will go on a “strike for cold cases on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with full commitment to cover emergency, intensive and cardiac care, incubators, isolation wards, dialysis and… tumors.”

Calling on “all the revolutionaries to completely close Khartoum and erect barricades everywhere,” the KSRCC’s statement said, “Our barricades terrify them and remind them that we are the strongest and largest army in this country.”

It also called on “all professionals, employees and workers everywhere to establish their committees in the workplace, and to coordinate well between them and the resistance committees in preparation for the mass strike and the implementation of civil disobedience on the 18th and 19th.”

Mobilizations are underway for the next round of “March of Millions” on January 24. “We cannot retreat, the price of this journey was and still is our lives,” KSRCC said.

“To the revolutionaries of the world, know that we are still steadfast.. we are still confident that we will win our battle and revolution against the rotten bloody regime.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/19/ ... -in-sudan/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 22, 2022 3:37 pm

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place of hope in a time of spiralling crisis
Originally published: Janata Weekly by Nigel Gibson (January 16, 2022 ) | - Posted Jan 21, 2022

South Africa has many moments in its long history of struggle that are recognised internationally as turning points. These include the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the Soweto uprising in 1976 and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.

Sharpeville marked the turn to armed struggle and the beginning of a new period of repression with the banning of the PAC and ANC. Soweto opened a new period of struggle as Black consciousness in action that would resonate throughout the country and across townships and schools in boycotts, strikes and daily discussions. Steve Biko recognised it philosophically, arguing at the time that the “boldness, dedication, sense of purpose and the clarity of analysis of the situation … are definitely a result of Black consciousness ideas among the young generation in Soweto and elsewhere”.

Events are not automatically recognised at the time they take place. Today, what we call the “Durban moment” – a term coined by educationalist Tony Morphet in 1990 – describes not only the massive and seemingly spontaneous strikes across Durban in 1973, but also the political-philosophical discussions between and around Biko and Richard Turner, who was active in organising workers and promoting rank-and-file democracy, education and resistance in the nascent union movement.

It was this notion of recognising a “moment” that was reflected in the subtitle to my book Fanonian Practices in South Africa from Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. To include Abahlali in a sequence of politics that began with Biko seemed audacious to some in 2011. My point was that the action, thinking and self-organisation of the shack dwellers in the face of brutal ANC hegemony articulated with Frantz Fanon’s critique of former national liberation leaders as a huckstering caste, and the emergence of new forms of struggle, rooted in humanism, from below in The Wretched of the Earth.

Now, over 16 years after its formation, Abahlali, with a paid-up membership of over 100 000 in five provinces and considerable political weight, is not so easily dismissed as it was by an often contemptuous middle-class Left in those early days. And yet the “commune” at eKhenana in Durban, which has received some mainstream media attention, has not gained recognition as a philosophical-political “event”.

Philosophical events

South Africa is in a crisis in which, as Antonio Gramsci puts it, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”. Subjected to the morbid symptoms on a daily basis – the attempted coup of July 2021 is one expression alongside the daily reality of mass unemployment, xenophobia and violence – we have perhaps focused too much on the normalising morbid symptoms and not enough on intimations of the new that are trying to be born. As Karl Marx wrote in his doctoral thesis in 1841, “necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity. Everywhere the paths to freedom are open.”

To speak of the new is also to be wary of proclamation: we should remember that Marx was wary of an uprising in Paris in late 1870 with the enemy at the gate. And yet once that uprising began, he not only supported it but emphasised the creative elements of imagining a new society as “its own working existence”.

He decided to revise Capital, referencing the idea of freely associated labour as the concrete element that could strip away the fetishistic character of commodities. The Paris Commune was of course world historical, the shattering of state power and its replacement by a really democratic state, as Friedrich Engels put it, “the Kingdom of God, on earth … the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realised”.

eKhenana is Zulu for Canaan, the promised land of milk and honey where God would deliver the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. By invoking the Paris Commune I am not, of course, putting eKhenana on the same level. The point is to view it through a similar lens, through its own working existence, which has emerged out of the basic need for shelter, food and also the need for community, establishing some important practices that address the question of the decommodification of land, communal organisation, production of food, development of a school for political education, cultural projects such as poetry and theatre, and international solidarity.

Survival is based on the necessities such as shelter, warmth, food and security. We need them for life, but they do not exhaust what it means to be alive. Abahlali’s struggle, and its insistence on thinking in the shack settlements, has always emphasised the importance of ideas. The Frantz Fanon School, a place for community discussions and classes in eKhenana, is a concrete expression of continuing “living learning”, as Abahlali has termed it, just as the theatre of the oppressed is an expression of cultural praxis, aware of how the culture and history of resistance and struggle to, in a phrase often used by Abahlali president S’bu Zikode, “humanise the world” is essential to building the movement.

Revolutionary theatre

Solidarity and collectivity have always highlighted the principle of humanising the world. Under continued repression, solidarity across South Africa and also internationally has importantly come to its defence. Seeds to start the programme of urban farming on occupied land in eKhenana were donated by the MST, the landless workers’ movement in Brazil.

The theatre work there, which has included the collective development and performance of a large-cast play on the assassination of Abahlali leader Thuli Ndlovu in her home in KwaNdengezi in 2014, has inspired similar projects in occupations in other parts of the country. A play titled Theatre of the Oppressed was recently performed in Zikode Village, an occupation in Tembisa named after Abahlali’s president. Written by Musa Nonkwelo, an 18-year-old resident of the occupation, it was purposefully titled and included residents as performers in a play about the story of occupying the land.

Theatre of the Oppressed reaches back to the Black consciousness theatre of the 1970s – represented by groups such as Mhiliti, the People’s Experimental Theatre and Theatre Council of Natal – that was influenced by the work of Paulo Freire and later by Augusto Boal and his concept of theatre as praxis, where the audience takes an active role in analysing and changing reality. As Boal puts it, “perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself; but have no doubt, it is a rehearsal of revolution” because the dramatic action “throws light upon real action” encouraging the spectator to think and act for themselves.

In his preface to the French edition of Capital, Marx applauded the idea that it would come out in instalments, making it “more accessible to the working class”. Similarly, Fanon had hoped that the English translation of The Wretched of the Earth would find new readers across Anglophone Africa. But what could be a more appropriate place to read Marx and Fanon than a school built and run by organised shack dwellers?

Abahlali has organised and supported land occupations for many years. In 2018, the eKhenana Land Occupation was set up in Cato Manor (Mkhumbane in isiZulu). The residents later joined Abahlali and a branch was established in April 2019. Like other occupations, it has been subject to repeated illegal and violent eviction and destruction by the police and private security companies as well as the repeated arrest and imprisonment of its leaders on trumped-up charges. Both the resistance and repression at Mkhumbane have a long history stretching back over 100 years and continuing into the post-1994 period. This is where the movement suffered its first assassination on 26 June 2013 when Nkuleko Gwala was assassinated at a new occupation named Marikana (after the police massacre of striking miners there in 2012).

The decommodification of land

These occupations from below were taking place as the Jacob Zuma ANC was speaking of expropriating land without compensation and pushing for an amendment. Zuma’s politics focused on large areas of farmland. And while the later hearings in South Africa on the amendment of the Constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation was framed in terms of addressing “historic wrongs of land dispossession, ensure fair access to land and empower the majority of South Africans”, landholding in rural areas remained the issue. The pressing problem of access to land in urban areas to build accommodation was almost completely left out. In the government’s estimation the housing backlog in South Africa, if numbers remained the same, would take 30 years to eradicate. And year by year this estimate grows.

While on the face of it there seemed to be agreement, in reality there were two realities and two visions: the ANC’s idea of land as a commodity, tied to the idea of ownership of property “to resolve historic wrongs”, and Abahlali’s idea of the decommodification of land.

In February 2020, Abahlali organised a march of thousands of people through central Durban in support of what it termed the “total decommodification of land”. In March that year, I had a chance to talk about this with Abahlali in Durban. Mqapheli Bonono, who would go on to spend two weeks in prison for his support for the eKhenana commune, said that “we agree on appropriation of land without compensation, [but] we are not following what the ANC and EFF are saying. They understand this to mean take the land from the whites and give it to the Black elite.” Nhlakaniphi Mdiyastha added:

Land must not be sold, must not be put up for rent … it must be owned … communally.

If land is a commodity it will end up owned by banks, Bonono added, which is why it needs to be decommodified. The dividing line of decommodification was sharply drawn by Abahlali youth member Lindokule Mnguni, a leading figure in the development of the eKhenana commune, who would go on to spend six months in prison after being arrested on trumped-up charges, asked an important question: “How are we going to engage in society without decommodification? Today we don’t even have jobs.” The majority of the residents in eKhenana are unemployed, reflecting a country in which over half the population is under 29 years old and the youth unemployment rate for the youth is over 77.4%. No nation is viable for long under these conditions.

Zikode often repeats Fanon’s statement that “each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”. “In the face of all kinds of threat,” Zikode says,

humanity has to rise. No matter what the consequences are. Abahlali has … risen to live [and] … has discovered its mission. We are in a process to fulfil it or betray it.

Necessity, as Marx puts the basis for freedom, to think past the constraints of the present and imagine the world anew, the work on the commune is part of that reimagining. And it is the Abahlali youth as revolutionary who are taking up this mission. The theatre of the oppressed and the eKhenana commune are its seeds.

eKhenana’s commune is a working existence toward decommodification, decolonising and solidarity. It should be understood as an event with philosophical consequences in a time of deepening social and political crisis.

https://mronline.org/2022/01/21/a-place ... ng-crisis/
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:41 pm

We Are Human, but in the Dark We Wish for Light: The Third Newsletter (2022)

JANUARY 20, 2022

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Carelle Homsy (Egypt), Liberté Egypte, 2009.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

For over a decade, Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been in and out of Egypt’s prisons, never free of the harassment of the military state apparatus. In 2011, during the high point of the revolution, Alaa emerged as an important voice of his generation and since then has been a steady moral compass despite his country’s attempts to suffocate his voice. On 25 January 2014, to commemorate the third anniversary of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s government, Alaa and the poet Ahmed Douma wrote a moving epistle from their dungeon in Tora Prison, Cairo. This prison, which houses Alaa and other political prisoners, is not far from the beautiful Nile and – depending on Cairo’s traffic – not too far from the Garden City office of Mada Masr, where the epistle was published. In cities such as Cairo, the prisons where political prisoners are tortured are often located in quite ordinary neighbourhoods.

‘Who said we were unequalled? Or that we’re an enchanted generation?’ wrote Douma and Alaa, reflecting on the idea that the 2011 uprising was somehow exceptional. ‘We’re human’, they wrote, ‘but in the dark we wish for light’. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information estimates that there have been 65,000 political prisoners in Egypt since the 2013 takeover of the state by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Alaa is being held on a number of charges, but most of them stem from a frivolous and malicious accusation that he organised a protest that lasted for about fifteen minutes; for those fifteen minutes he has been imprisoned for much of the past decade.

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Khaled Hafez (Egypt), Forward by Day 1, 2013.

How many sensitive people across the world are being held in prisons, charged with ridiculous indictments? The reports that swim across the internet – many of them from human rights groups based in the West – are not completely credible since they ignore or downplay the record of Western governments and pro-Western regimes. The United States government, for example, denies that it holds any political prisoners despite the fact that there are international campaigns to free people such as Alvaro Luna Hernandez (La Raza), the Holy Land Five, Leonard Peltier (American Indian Movement), Marius Manson (Earth Liberation Front), Mumia Abu-Jamal (MOVE), and Mutulu Shakur (Black Liberation Army). ‘These people are held without just cause, often because they peacefully exercised their human rights – like freedom of expression – or defended the rights of others. They may have organised an opposition party. Reported on abuse and corruption. Taken part in a peaceful protest’. These are the words of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from 7 December 2021. In a stroke of irony, his words apply to dissidents inside the United States as well as to dissidents from US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Colombia.

On 20 December 2021, less than two weeks after Blinken made these remarks, Egypt’s State Security Court sentenced Alaa to another five years in prison along with Mohamed al-Baqer and Mohamed ‘Oxygen’ Ibrahim, who were sentenced to four years each. At that time, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in his weekly remarks that the US was ‘disappointed’ by these verdicts. A few weeks later, Ahmed Hafez, spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry responded by saying, ‘It is inappropriate to comment or touch on Egyptian court rulings’. That was the end of that. Each year, the US government provides Egypt with $1.4 billion in aid, most of it for the military; each year, the US makes a big fuss of withholding a little more than $100 million of this money on the grounds of defending human rights, although the money is later released to Egypt on the basis of ‘national security’. There is a lot of huff and puff about ‘human rights’, but no real concern for the throttling of democratic processes within the country. ‘In the dark’, Douma and Alaa write, ‘we wish for light’. But in the dark, arms deals and ‘national security’ set aside considerations of democracy and human rights.

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Slimen El Kamel (Tunisia), Wolves, 2016.

The Arab Spring – whose centre was the stone slab in Tahrir Square – lies in ruins. Tunisia, where the entire process began, struggles with a government that has suspended its democratic institutions in the hope of tackling the social crisis that predates the COVID-19 pandemic but has been exacerbated by it. On 14 January, the anniversary of the overthrow of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, the Workers’ Party of Tunisia led a march from Tunis’ Republic Square to the Central Bank with the slogan ‘No populism, no fundamentalism, no reactionaries’. They opposed the old regime of Ben Ali, the Islamists, and now the ‘populist’ presidency of Kais Saied. The Workers’ Party made the point that the economic crisis, which was exacerbated by the International Monetary Fund and that provoked the 2011 revolution, remains unaddressed. The United Nations has also expressed its concern about the use of internal security forces in Tunisia to crack down on basic political rights.

In Morocco, the situation is dire. The political regime centred around King Mohamed VI is called the Makhzen (a term that means ‘warehouse’, referring to the place where the king’s subordinates would be paid). The king is worth between $2.1 billion and $8 billion in a country where nearly one in five people live below the poverty line and where social distress has increased during the pandemic. In 2015, after the 20 February movement had shaken up society in 2011, I visited the Rabat office of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights and heard a realistic briefing about the lack of basic political freedoms in the country. Like brave human rights advocates in other countries, the Moroccans I met listed the names of people who had been unjustly arrested and laid out a picture of the difficulty of building ‘a state of truth and law’ in the country.

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Mohamed Melehi (Morocco), Pink Flame, 1972.

At the time, I heard about the case of Naâma Asfari, who had been detained in 2010 and was serving a thirty-year sentence for his activism over the occupation of Western Sahara. His case and that of Khatri Dadda, a young Sahrawi journalist arrested in 2019 and sentenced to twenty years, caught the eye of Mary Lawlor, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. In July 2021, Lawlor said, ‘Not only do human rights defenders working on issues related to human rights in Morocco and Western Sahara continue to be wrongfully criminalised for their legitimate activities, they receive disproportionately long prison sentences and whilst imprisoned, they are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and torture’. Pictures of these two men and countless others are often found in the offices of human rights organisations and lawyers who work tirelessly on their behalf. These are people like Alaa and their comrades in similar struggles as far away as Colombia and India.

During the past few years, the Makhzen has tried to strangle Morocco’s main party of the left, the Democratic Way. It has repressed and defamed Democratic Way activists who try to organise in public, and it is preventing the party from using public premises to hold its 5th Congress this year. Despite the obstacles, Democratic Way activists have started the new year by calling for a united struggle of popular forces and has demanded that freedoms and human rights be respected and that political prisoners be released, including members of the Rif Movement, which has mobilised hundreds of thousands of people to demand social rights and justice after a fish vendor was killed by a city trash compactor in 2016. The Democratic Way also opposes the repressive Makhzen and supports the self-determination of the Sahrawi people.

Since 1975, the Moroccan state has annexed Western Sahara, but it has little legal basis for this occupation. In August 2020, the US government inked the Abraham Accords, which meant that Morocco and the United Arab Emirates recognised Israel (and effectively the permanent occupation of Palestine) in exchange for arms deals and US recognition of Morocco’s seizure of Western Sahara. The Polisario Front (the Sahrawi people’s liberation movement) opposed these accords as tensions grew along the Morocco-Algeria border. The Democratic Way also took a courageous stand against the accords that earned it increased repression from the Makhzen.

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Reporters Without Borders ranks Morocco as 136 out of the 180 countries on its 2021 World Press Freedom Index. One of the reasons for this poor measure is the violation of the freedom of expression of Moroccan journalists and writers like Omar Radi, Maati Monjib, Hicham Mansouri, and Abdel-Samad Ait Ayyash. Fatima al-Afriqi wrote powerfully about the threats that she faced: ‘The message received, O guards with your machine guns behind sandbags of memories and dreams of my skull … I understood you who inspect my weaknesses and possible mistakes. I raise the white flag and declare by defeat, and I will withdraw from the battlefield’. She continues her brave vigil.

Omar Radi, like Alaa, sits in his cell in Oukacha Prison in Casablanca. He sends us a message:

‘Tyranny is not destiny; freedom has to be achieved, even if it takes a long time. Besides, if my time has come to pay the price on behalf of this wretched new generation, which was born before the Old and the so-called New Regime, then I am ready to pay it with all courage, and I will go to my fate with a calm, smiling heart with a relaxed conscience’.

Omar, Alaa, Fatima, Ahmed, and other political prisoners around the world will not go to their fate. We will stand up beside them. We are here. As long as we are alive, we will stand.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... prisoners/

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Government of Burkina Faso denies military coup

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The Burkina Faso government spokesman confirmed the shooting at several military barracks in the country. | Photo: noticieros.televisa.com
Published January 23, 2022 (4 hours 36 minutes ago)

The government spokesman called on the population to remain calm after the circulation on social networks that the military forces took power.

The Government of Burkina Faso denied this Sunday that the army had taken power through a coup d'état, after reports of shootings in several barracks in the African country.

Through a statement, the government spokesman, Alkassoum Maiga, confirmed the existence of the shots in some barracks and called on the population to remain calm after the circulation on social networks that the military forces took power.

The sounds of gunshots were heard on Sunday in several barracks in Burkina Faso, including two in the capital, Ouagadougou, military sources and residents told local and international media.


"Since 01:00 in the morning, shots have been heard here in Gounghi from the Sangoule Lamizana camp," said a soldier from this neighborhood, located on the western exit of the capital Ouagadougou.

Shots were also reported at another military camp in Ouagadougou, Baba Sy, on the southern outskirts of the capital, and at the air base near the airport.

In the grounds of the Sangoule Lamizana camp is the prison where General Gilbert Diendéré, former Chief of Staff who in September 2015 led the failed coup against President Michel Kafando, is being held.

On Saturday, Burkina Faso had experienced a new day of demonstrations called by civil society groups to express the great social discontent over the insecurity generated in the country by jihadist violence and the lack of results from the Government in curbing it.

The mobilizations were suppressed by the security forces with tear gas and there were some clashes between agents and demonstrators.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/burkina- ... -0005.html

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:16 pm

The UN is Being Used as a Cover for Criminal Activity in Africa
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 24, 2022
Valery Kulikov

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Founded after the end of the Second World War, the United Nations Organization set itself a primary goal of defending peace and justice in all countries. In furtherance of this goal the UN has sent troops to armed conflicts of all kinds, mounting some 70 peacekeeping missions since 1945. Known as Blue Helmets, some 100,000 military personnel, together with 95,000 civilian staff are currently seeking to maintain law and order in 16 UN operations on four continents. While performing their duties as peacekeeping troops in conflict zones around the world, the Blue Helmets often suffer losses, especially now that they are targeted by terrorists more often. According to UN Secretary General António Guterres, in recent years the greatest losses have been in Mali, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan, all of which are in the throes of savage civil wars.

However, the Blue Helmets and the UN-led peacekeeping operations also frequently pose a threat to the local civilian populations – for example, over the last 30 years UN peacekeeping personnel have frequently been accused of carrying out sexual assaults, involvement in corruptions and failing to perform their duty.

The first reports of such criminal activity by members of the Blue Helmets surfaced in the 1990s. In Bosnia, Guinea, Mozambique, Liberia and Sierra-Leone UN military personnel were found guilty of negligence, rape, involvement in sex trafficking, and selling humanitarian aid or trading it for sexual favors. As UN Secretary General António Guterres has pointed out, in 2015 there were 99 allegations of sexual violence committed by Blue Helmets, while in 2017 there were 145 such allegations. None of the persons accused have been brought to justice.

The UN has even established a special fund to support the victims of illegal acts by peacekeeping forces, which amounted to almost $500,000 in 2016, of which $436,000 were contributed by Japan, Norway, India, Bhutan and Cyprus, and $49,000 by the countries whose soldiers were suspected of committing the crimes.

Legally, each such incident should be carefully investigated, and the military personnel responsible punished. However, there is no international mechanism for bringing participants in peacekeeping missions to justice. Like diplomats, peacekeepers enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution in the country where they serve, and the only action the UN can take is to send the guilty soldiers back to their own country and submit information on the crimes they have committed to the national authorities. Then it is up to the national authorities in the soldiers’ home countries to decide what further action to take.

Unfortunately, experience has shown that immunity leads to a culture of impunity, and, as a result, an increase in illegal activity – violent crimes, economic crimes, and interference in the affairs of sovereign nations.

For example, back in 2013 a group of French peacekeepers were accused of sexually abusing children in the Central African Republic. Moreover, “peacekeepers” on missions in Africa have not shrunk from looting natural resources. For example, as evidence of one of the several recent road accidents involving a UN peacekeeping vehicle in the Central African Republic, witnesses published a photograph taken at the scene of the accident. It shows green sacks containing cobalt – a valuable mineral – which have fallen out of the peacekeepers’ vehicle. The Secretary General’s own compatriots have also done well out of the UN missions: according to a report in The Guardian, a group of Portuguese participants in the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSCA) in the Central African Republic organized the transport of gold, diamonds and illegal drugs from the CAR to Portugal using military transport aircraft.

While their official goal is to protect the civilian population from attacks by terrorists and militants, peacekeepers involved in criminal activities often work with the groups they are supposed to be opposing, even supplying them with arms. For example, in December last year rebels from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) mounted a simulated attack on a MINUSCA convoy in the village of Tagbar, in the CAR, hoping to seize weaponry. The UN peacekeepers did not even put up a fight, but simply handed over their guns and ammunition to the militants. “This is a new strategy used by MINUSCA to supply the radicals with arms: the peacekeepers and militants have found an easy way to transfer weapons – by organizing fake attacks on the UN forces”, states a CAR media report.

Yao Agbetse, an independent expert acting for the UN human rights council has reported that 14,000 peacekeepers have been stationed to the CAR alone, costing the international community about $1 billion a year. But, during the several years of their presence there, they have been completely unable to keep the peace in the country. Despite repeated requests, both from the public and from politicians in the CAR, for the MINUSCA forces to be withdrawn from the country, nothing has changed.

In the last few years the number of complaints about the behavior of the peacekeepers based in Africa has increased. The UN explains that in many cases the peacekeepers come from “developing countries” which are geographically close to the conflict zones – the troops hope to earn extra money by working for the international organization.

The UN is also being used as a cover for a different kind of criminal activity: with ever increasing arrogance western nations are intervening in the affairs of sovereign nations, with support from representatives of various international organizations. A striking recent example of this tendency was the appointment of US citizen Stephanie Williams as the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on Libya.

Using her position as a senior international civil servant, she in effect took control of the looting of natural resources from the country and has been dictating a pro-US policy to the Libyan government. After completing a masters degree in national security from the National War College in 2008, she began to “specialize” in the Middle East’s oil sector. Certain expert observers have even referred to her as the “éminence grise” of the Arab oil industry. She worked in the oil sector in Bahrain, was recruited by the US Department of State in 2010, and then “served” in Jordan and Iraq, before being appointed as the White House’s Chargé d’affaires in Libya in 2018. In Libya she worked closely with the US-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), on issues including organizing a blockade of the country’s oil facilities. And in 2018 US Secretary General António Guterres appointed Stephanie Williams as the deputy head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). As certain media outlets noted at the time, the US had lobbied for this appointment in order to curtail France’s influence in Libya. During her mission in Libya Ms. Williams systematically followed Washington’s policy of bringing the country’s petroleum industry back under the full control of the National Oil Corporation (NOC).

Drawing on revelations in the Libyan media, Russian journalists have compiled a detailed report of the USA’s, and Ms. Williams’, corrupt activities in relation to Libya’s oil sector, and her attempts to establish a US foreign intelligence presence in Libya under the cover of her position as a UN official.

In view of the contents of that report, the Russian Foreign Ministry held a meeting with Ms. Williams in Moscow on January 18, informing her that interference in Libya’s affairs would not be countenanced, and emphasizing the importance of respecting the Libyans’ right to conduct their own political processes in all areas, with the support of the UN and in accordance with the mandate of its Security Council.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... in-africa/

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Ethiopia, from The Development State to The Neoliberal State
Djibo Sobukwe 26 Jan 2022

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The current conflict in Ethiopia must be examined with a deep analysis of that country's history. Neo-colonial and neo-liberal policies have played a large role in shaping conditions there.

Ethiopia after Nigeria is Africa’s second most populous country with a population of about 110 million. Ethiopia has many ethnic groups but there are eight that comprise more than 1% each of the total population. The major ethnic groups are Oromo 34.9%, Amhara (Amara) 27.9%, Tigray (Tigrinya) 7.3%, Sidama 4.1%, Welaita 3%, Gurage 2.8%, Somali (Somalie) 2.7%, Hadiya 2.2%, the rest amount to less than 1% (CIA Fact book 2021) The northern part of the country is home to the Amhara and Tigray groups which have historically been the most dominant. [1]

In 2018 Ethiopia was said to have Africa’s fastest growing economy which sounds great however people do not tend to look at the Human Development Index (HDI). [2] It tells a more realistic story from a human rights perspective because it measures real living standards of poverty, education and infant mortality rates of the masses. Ethiopia in 2018 had an HDI raking of 173. [3] The larger the number the worse the people’s living standard. Just for comparison, the Ethiopian HDI number is larger than at least 10 other sub-Saharan countries; Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Zambia, and South Africa.

Thus, one might ask why this disparity? Although the HDI have shown improvement for most African countries over the past several decades the numbers for Ethiopia demonstrate some curious contradictions that are rooted in neo-colonialism in general and the high level of kleptocracy for 30 years. Starting in 1991 the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power from the previous Derg government. The EPRDF was a an ethnic federalist (when states or regions are determined by ethnicity) political coalition of all ethnic groups although the leadership was dominated and ruled by the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF).

The TPLF/EPRDF established a new constitution in 1994 which declared that Ethiopia was a federal republic and reportedly embraced a principle of self-determination and the right to secede. Although ideologically the leaders like Meles Zenawi , president until 1995 and then Prime Minister, used to be a Marxist-Leninist, but ended up following a form of state capitalism known as the ‘developmental state’ common among some east Asian countries. [4] Not only had the TPLF/EPRDF government ruled for 27 years up until 2018 they apparently loot ed the country as a means of enriching the TPLF/EPRDF’s elite class and at the same time prepared the Tigray region for possible future secession. [5] The TPLF/EPRDF established many state monopoly companies. Examples of big conglomerates are Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO), and the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). According to an article in IPS news the World Bank reported that EFFORT accounts for half of the country’s economy. [6] Ethiopia’s largest company however is the Metals and Engineering Company (METEC ) which is a large military industrial conglomerate that includes ninety-eight (98) companies that manufacture everything from TV’s to military equipment, vehicles, including armaments to turbines for the for the big dam project (which due to corruption it apparently never delivered). [7] All three; EEPCO, EFFORT and METEC were controlled by the TPLF dominated EPRDF and are accountable for the all the corruption that accompanied them.

Note that there is little evidence that this Tigrayan elite cared about the Tigrayan poor and working class either. A quotation by the Ethiopian academic Dr Yohannes Woldemariam is instructive he said [8],…

"What is often overlooked in most analyses of Ethiopian politics is that the majority of ordinary Tigrayans who are blamed by ethnic association with the TPLF kleptocrats live in no better conditions than average Ethiopians. Indeed, many Ethiopians still see Tigreans as beneficiaries of TPLF rule. It is only a minority of well-connected individuals (these include non-Tigrayans), – who benefited greatly from the inflow of money from collaboration with the TPLF." [9]

Like in most of Africa there is intimate interconnection between ethnic and class contradictions which colonialism has historically not hesitated to exploit in various ways towards their strategy of divide and rule. The analytical lens of CLR James (who coincidentally was also one of the members of International African Friends of Ethiopia (IAFE) founded in 1935 in response to the Italian invasion) comes to mind. [10] James wrote in The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution,

"The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental [is] an error only less grave than to make it fundamental." [11]

In Ethiopia as well as in the USA and other countries the racial or the ethnic factor is definitely not incidental but it must always be properly fused with the class analyses. It is interesting to note that Ethiopia while it has a relatively high % of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) it also has the highest per capita rate of ‘brain drain’ (rate of emigration of skilled workers and intellectuals) among African countries. It is not uncommon to hear for example that there are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Addis. [12]

Research shows that the ruling TPLF/ EPRDF elite comprador class in addition to developing the Tigray region at the expense of the rest of the country, during a sample span from 2004 to 2013 stole $26 billion. [13] These were deposited in foreign banks outside of Africa. Although IFFs are definitely not an uncommon problem in neocolonial Africa, however the ruling TPLF/ EPRDF seems to have outdone many other comprador elites in other countries in their greed and lust for looting at the expense of the Ethiopian people regardless of ethnicity. Research shows that starting in 2005 Ethiopia’s IFF’s gradually increased to as high as 11% of the country’s GDP and by 2010 exceeding the average of all sub-Saharan countries at 5% of their GDP. When neocolonial crooks loot their countries they don’t put the money in the African Development Bank for example, rather they make sure it goes to banks outside of the continent further impoverishing the continent. It also brings to mind one of Africa’s infamous neocolonial kleptocrats, Mobutu Sese Seko who was said to have amassed an estimated personal fortune of $4 billion over 32 years of Zaire’s (DRC’s) money in foreign bank accounts when he was deposed. [14] Capital flight from Zaire at the time amounted to $12 billion. In 1991 it was said that Mobutu had established a neocolonial kleptocracy to end all kleptocracies and set a new standard by which all future international thieves will have to be measured. To be precise we should say neocolonial kleptocrats because we can never forget that the biggest pillagers of world humanity are the imperialist and colonialist. Although at first glance it does appear that the TPLF/ EPRDF late leader Meles Zenawi did not quite surpass the Mobutu scale of theft since apparently his net fortune was only three billion but when one accounts for the fact that he was in a leadership position ten years less than Mobutu it may be about equal. [15] We also must be reminded that thievery on this scale is not possible in the global south unless it is sanctioned and enabled by imperialism. Both Mobutu and Zenawi TPLF/EPRDF operated with the consent and enabled by US imperialism and international finance capital. We will leave to African economist who will have the task of further comparing the capital flight (IFFs) under stewardship of Ethiopian governments TPLF/EPRDF and the current government up to 2020 to see if the IFFs are comparable or exceed the kleptocracy that was supposed to end all kleptocracies in Africa.

Meles Zenawi, as reported in the article by Farid Abdulhamid, publicly [16] condemned neoliberalism as a failed project when he hosted the 2012 World Economic Forum on Africa. His form of state capitalism known as the ‘developmental state’ became policy in 2006. Under this policy major businesses and public services were controlled by the state albeit with a combination of public and private sector investment as the best path of development. The alleged benefit of this model is that it put some limits on privatization and allows for the possibility of more internal national ownership and control of resources and the means of production. Of course the success of this assumes there is no kleptocratic elite. US imperialism usually takes offense when any country of the global South that does not want to open its markets to private corporate multinationals. In this case the US apparently was willing to ignore rejection of neoliberal policy in exchange for Ethiopia’s EPDRF government agreeing to serve as US proxy enforcer in the so called “war on terror” by invading its African neighbor Somalia in 2006 to overthrow the moderate Islamic Courts government. [17]

As a result of TPLF/EPRDF imposed poverty and ethno-chauvinism, Oromo and Amhara and other groups felt excluded and started mass demonstrations. Abiy Ahmed was the third chairman of the EPRDF and elected prime minister of Ethiopia on April 2, 2018 (and the first of the Oromo ethnic group). A few important highlights in the last short 3 years Abiy has been in office were; first, release of thousands of political prisoners , secondly a Joint Peace declaration with Eritrea signed after only three months in office for which he received a Nobel Peace prize. Third was the founding of The prosperity party which included representation of all of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups who were formerly in the EPDRF although the TPLF (though not representing all Tigrayans) disagreed with its formation and refused to join. [18] This disagreement ultimately led to the current conflict. The fourth highlight is the political pivot towards neoliberal politics by Abiy Ahmed which included liberalizing the economy, opening its state-run telecoms and state-owned Ethiopian Airlines to private foreign investment while also seeking backing of the US and Apartheid Israel alike. [19] This shift also meant a shift away from China which had been Ethiopia’s largest trading partner and investor. It didn’t take the IMF/WB long to jump at the opportunity as they disbursed $2.9 billion in 2020. [20] Ethiopia has remained a constant partner of AFRICOM and a key ‘partner’ in the so called war on terror throughout both of the last governments. [21]

While the US continues to be selectively concerned about ‘human rights’ and thus recently sanctioned the Ethiopian government by disqualifying Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act AGOA , because of alleged human rights abuses. US hypocrisy continues to be demonstrated by its continuing support for the criminal war in Yemen.[22] [23]

Although there are definitely some problems and contradictions in the Abiy government, his positive efforts at unifying the population across ethnic lines by way of the Prosperity Party in general and the peace declaration with Eritrea in particular should be celebrated. The primary contradiction at this time is the US backed TPLF aggression that threatens to tear the country apart which could result in its balkanization and must be opposed by all anti-imperialist and Pan Africanists.

As Revolutionary Pan-African internationalist and anti-imperialist we condemn all oppression and exploitation be it based on class, ethnicity/race, gender or sexual orientation. We agree with Farid Abdulhamid of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa when he says …

"The only system that can work for Ethiopia and Africa at large is the establishment of a revolutionary, Pan-African, socialist state that can not only forge national unity and Pan-African identity, but end centuries-old imperialist driven, conflict-prone, socio-economic inequalities." [24]

Djibo Sobukwe is on the Research and Political Education Team of the Black Alliance for Peace. He is also a former Central Committee member of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party who worked with Kwame Ture on the political Education Committee. He can be contacted at djibo1@gmail.com




End notes:

[1] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ ... nd-society

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/05/ ... g-economy/

[3] http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/38606

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meles_Zenawi

[5] https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/c ... ontext=jil

[6] http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/examinin ... orruption/

[7] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKCN1NJ2C2

[8] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/201 ... -ethiopia/

[9] https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2 ... 346b3e29d0

[10] https://www.blackagendareport.com/edito ... nuary-1937

[11] James,CLR.(1963) XII The bourgeoisie prepares to restore slavery, The Black Jacobins Toussaint L’ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (p 283) New York, NY

[12]https://www.academia.edu/41038869/Ethni ... nd_Nigeria

[13] https://addisstandard.com/rush-for-the- ... elerating/

[14]https://peri.umass.edu/images/Congo_s_Odious_Debts.pdf

[15] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/riche ... net-worth/

[16] https://canadiandimension.com/articles/ ... f-ethiopia

[17] https://fpif.org/wikileaks_reveals_us_t ... e_somalia/

[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_Party

[19] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKCN1J12JJ

[20] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/0 ... ion-110766

[21] https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/32 ... ry-leaders

[22] https://www.voanews.com/a/why-the-us-su ... 02446.html

[23] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... -on-yemen/

[24] https://canadiandimension.com/articles/ ... f-ethiopia

https://www.blackagendareport.com/ethio ... eral-state

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How WHO Chief Tedros Violated UN Rules to Advance TPLF Interests in Ethiopia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 26, 2022
ANN GARRISON AND SIMON TESFAMARIAM

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In leaked audio, UN staffers accuse World Health Organization Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of violating UN code to further the objectives of his political allies in Ethiopia’s conflict

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General and overseer of the UN’s global coronavirus response, has established a shadow relief operation that sidesteps the authority of Ethiopia’s sovereign government and directly coordinates with his political allies in the country’s civil war.

The alleged actions by Tedros, which have come to light through leaked audio conversations of UN workers, constitute a violation of UN code, which stipulates staff maintain neutrality and refrain from intervening in the affairs of member states. A participant in the leaked discussion also states that Tedros tried to replace the UN’s top coordinator in Ethiopia with someone willing to advance his political objectives.

“They want a direct line from Tigray to the [UN] headquarters,” UN Country Team-Ethiopia staffer Maureen Achieng said in a conversation with her colleague, Dennia Gayle, and Canadian Journalist Jeff Pearce, referring to Tedros and his allies.

Pearce recorded the discussion in Addis Ababa in August of 2021. His digital audio recorder was stolen in the Addis airport as he was returning to Canada, and audio fragments of the conversation were leaked anonymously later that month.

The contents of the discussion reveal that Tedros has levied his power as WHO Secretary-General to advance the interests of his sectarian allies, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), within the United Nations. His actions constitute a direct attempt at undermining the authority of Ethiopia’s sovereign government, which has been ensnared in a brutal civil war with the TPLF since November of 2020.

In June 2021, UN officials arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and headed straight to the TPLF-controlled Tigray Regional State without making contact with UN staff already on the ground, including the Resident Coordinator, Catherine Sozi. Their goal was to establish a shadow aid network, directly linked with the TPLF, which operated beyond the authority of Ethiopia’s government.

In the leaked audio, which is embedded at the end of this article, Achieng and Gayle allege that Tedros even agitated for the UN to replace Sozi, who oversees the organization’s operations in Ethiopia, “with somebody who will dance to their tune,” rather than follow the official protocol of coordinating with Ethiopia’s elected government.

Tedros answers to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, but Guterres appears to have looked the other way as Tedros violated multiple UN Codes of Conduct, including the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, World Health Organization.

The latter states, in Section 3.1, Article 12 that “WHO staff members are required to always act with impartiality and professionalism and to ensure that the expression of personal views and convictions do not compromise the performance of their official duties or the interests of WHO.”

Tedros not only violated these principles by allegedly using his influence to establish direct communication between the TPLF and United Nations in secret, but by repeatedly voicing opinions about Ethiopia’s civil war in public. Following President Joseph Biden’s unexpected January 10 phone call with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, Tedros unleashed a series of condemnations of Abiy’s government, accusing it of “an insult to humanity” for supposedly preventing aid from entering the Tigray region.

‘Hell’ created by Tigray blockade, ‘insult’ to humanity’ https://t.co/Afd5REgjXJ

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 12, 2022


Addis Ababa responded by alleging Tedros has exploited his perch at the UN to advance an ulterior sectarian agenda in explicit “violation of his professional and legal responsibility.”

“He has been interfering in the internal affairs of Ethiopia, including Ethiopia’s relations with the state of Eritrea,” the Foreign Ministry of Ethiopia stated in a formal complaint to the WHO.

But as the audio leaks demonstrate, Tedros has been engaged in a behind the scenes campaign at the United Nations to legitimize the TPLF – the party that represents his ethnicity in the conflict with Ethiopia – since well before his latest torrent of partisan invective.

Tedros’ conduct at the UN reveals a serious conflict of interest

Tedros is a Tigrayan Ethiopian who rose to prominence within the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an ethnic minority party with a paper-thin democratic facade that ruled and plundered Ethiopia for 27 years, beginning in 1991. Having presided over a series of corruption scandals and wars, the TPLF was finally overthrown by popular uprisings in 2018.

Tedros was 29 when the TPLF seized power under cover of a multi-ethnic coalition in 1991. In time, he became not only its Health Minister, but also its Foreign Minister, making him the TPLF’s third in command before he took over at the WHO in July of 2017.

In November 2020, while Tedros was still serving the second of a five-year term as WHO’s Director-General, Ethiopian troops loyal to the TPLF attacked their fellow soldiers at the army’s Northern Command in Mek’ele, the capital of the country’s Tigray Region, launching the ongoing civil war. The US appears to have favored the TPLF in its fight against Ethiopia’s government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali.

The TPLF never accepted losing power in Addis Ababa and the US clearly regrets losing its puppet in East Africa. As the TPLF moved to restore itself to power through force, its most prominent representative on the world stage applied his influence to help them advance their shared agenda.

In a leaked conversation with journalist Jeff Pearce, UN staffers Maureen Achieng and Dennia Gayle explained that in early 2021, as Ethiopia’s civil war intensified, Dr. Tedros and his allies dispatched a “surge” of UN staff to create a direct line between UN headquarters and Ethiopia’s Tigray Regional State, where the TPLF were in control.

Maureen Achieng was the International Office of Migration (IOM)’s Chief of Mission in Ethiopia and its Representative to the African Union (AU); the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA); and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for an 8-member African trade bloc. Dennia Gayle was the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Representative in Ethiopia. In other words, they were part of the UN team working in Addis that Tedros sidestepped when he created direct links with the TPLF.

According to these former officials, “Emergency Directors” at UN headquarters in New York, Geneva, and Rome sent “Senior Emergency Coordinators” to Ethiopia when the war broke out. The Senior Emergency Coordinators flew into the capital, Addis Ababa, and headed straight to Tigray, where the TPLF were in control. They then returned to UN headquarters in the US and Europe to report back and “engage with donors.”

Under the influence and direction of Dr. Tedros, the coordinators bypassed the UN Country Team (UNCT) already on the ground in Addis Ababa because it was still working with the Ethiopian government.

“They all descended on Addis against the advice of the Resident Coordinator, and the heads of agencies, and the Government of Ethiopia,” complained Achieng.

As part of the new protocol, Gayle explained that, “the Emergency Coordinators in the region [reported] directly to the Emergency Directors in [UN] headquarters, rather than to us.”

“In [UN] headquarters,” Achieng emphasized. “Instead of to us. So they want a direct line from Tigray to the [UN] headquarters.” According to Achieng, the UNTC workers already in Addis were “sidelined” because they were “working with the federal government.”

According to Achieng, Tedros’s goal was to paint the UNTC workers in Addis as “compromised,” so that his fellow Under-Secretary Generals in New York, Geneva, and Rome would similarly establish direct links with the TPLF.

Regardless of what was transmitted back and forth on this direct line of communication between TPLF-controlled Tigray and UN headquarters — and it would be interesting to know — its existence clearly violated UN codes of conduct mandating independence from conflict of interest or undue influence.

Section 5.8, Article 93 of the WHO’s code of conduct states:

“While staff members are expected to maintain courteous relations with the governments of WHO Member States, they should not interfere with the internal affairs of these governments. In order to maintain the impartiality required of international civil servants, staff members must remain independent of any authority outside of the organization and their conduct must reflect that independence.”

Who was speaking to whom, and what were they planning to do with the direct line of communication between Tigray, Tedros, and friends at UN headquarters? Most importantly, how has the TPLF been resupplied with munitions, food and medicines, as the militia continues to fight despite its bitter complaints about a blockade?

That issue has been the elephant in the room, and there are only three conceivable answers: First, smuggling from Sudan; second, smuggling through aid convoys or flights, and finally, smuggling through insecure Ethiopian air space.

One way or the other, any smuggling would have required some planning with the TPLF. The direct line between Tigray and Tedros at UN headquarters is evidence of master planning.

Neither Achieng nor Gayle are in Ethiopia now. The East African, Reuters, and other outlets reported that the officials were suspended from the UN when the audio leaks began circulating in October 2021. Anonymous sources said that the UN would likely have directed them not to speak to the media, which explains the difficulty in reaching them or anyone who could provide more information on their status.

That the UN has kept Achieng and Gayle in limbo for so long suggests that the two women have caused considerable alarm in the top tiers of UN officialdom, including Tedros. A UN advisor who preferred to remain unnamed said, “This damaged what they care about most — their reputation, not their performance.”

Tedros exploits global platform to promote TPLF interests

As the de facto coordinator of the global response to coronavirus and the world’s best-known Tigrayan, Tedros has had a global platform to promote TPLF interests on both an ideological and material basis.

Despite his claims of neutrality, the WHO director has not hesitated to use his position to agitate for his ethnic sect. His Twitter feed, including a collection of his Tweets archived for this report, remarks he has made to the press about the war, and the leaked conversation between UN staffers in Ethiopia included here, are evidence of the WHO director’s abuse of his platform.

A prime example of Tedros’ open partisanship arrived on New Year’s Day, 2022, when he tweeted an article citing USAID blaming Addis Ababa for the “worsening humanitarian situation in Tigray with continued blockade and forced eviction in Western Tigray.”

USAID warns worsening humanitarian situation in Tigray with continued blockade and forced eviction in Western Tigray – Globe News Net https://t.co/LHaJd3AVRr

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 1, 2022


There is no doubt great suffering has taken place in what Tedros calls “Western Tigray.” What he does not say, however, is that the anguish is the consequence of a long running land dispute between people of the Amhara ethnicity and his own, the Tigrayans. Whichever side one might take, it’s not the simple story Tedros tells.

With regard to “the blockade,” he has failed to mention that the joint investigation of the UN Human Rights and Ethiopian Human Rights Commissions concluded that it “could not confirm deliberate or willful denial of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in Tigray or the use of starvation as a weapon of war.”

Among many headlines Tedros has chosen not to tweet was the Human Rights Watch report published on December 9, 2021 and titled, Ethiopia: Tigray Forces Summarily Execute Civilians.

US hawks go to bat for the TPLF

US policymakers have delivered generous political, diplomatic, and military support to the TPLF throughout its 27-year rule in exchange for use of the Ethiopian army, the seventh largest in Africa, as a proxy force on the continent. In 2006, for example, the U.S. persuaded the TPLF to invade Somalia and topple the country’s Islamic Courts government. The intervention opened the floodgates of violence, chaos, and U.S. drone bombing that has continued to this day.

US national security elites are not happy about losing such an amenable partner, and are eager for an opportunity to arrange their return to power. With USAID Administrator and humanitarian hawk Samantha Power leading the charge, Washington has accused Prime Minister Abiy and the Ethiopian army of starving, raping, and even committing genocide against the people of Tigray, a minority of seven million in a population of 115 million. In a February 2021 YouTube interview, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a longstanding US and TPLF ally, advocated foreign intervention behind a digital #TigrayGenocide banner.

On Nov. 11 Bloomberg published an op-ed by retired Admiral James Stavridis, a former US Supreme Allied Commander with close ties to the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment, entitled, “Ethiopia’s Civil War Is a Problem That U.S. Troops Can Help Solve.” Citing his experience leading various military interventions, Stavridis argued that sending international peacekeepers to Ethiopia “may be the only way to stop the conflict.”

Days later, President Joe Biden announced the deployment of 1000 National Guard Troops to Camp Lemonnier, the US military base in Djibouti. Located on Ethiopia’s eastern border, the base has served as a key point for US power projection in the region.

“They go directly to Tigray, come back from Tigray, engage directly with donors…”

In the leaked audio files, former UN official Maureen Achieng says she complained to UN Resident Coordinator Catherine Sozi about the emergency coordinators heading directly to Tigray after arriving from New York. Sozi officially oversees all UN operations in Ethiopia.

Commenting on the UN’s unusual deployment, Achieng quoted Sozi as saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this. They go directly to Tigray, come back from Tigray, engage directly with donors, and then, you know, write a report.”

Given that Western governments are the primary donors to most UN rights and relief operations, the “United Nations” in front of agency names is deceptive. It implies that they are fully funded in the UN’s general budget and therefore politically neutral. In fact, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Women, UN Population Fund, UNICEF, and others are largely dependent on donors among the EU and other Western nations. These Western entities exploit aid to advance their own interests and those of the US.

The WHO, for example, is 20% funded by assessments of the UN’s 193 member nations—all nations except Vatican City and Palestine—as a percentage of their GDPs. According to WHO’s website, “the remainder of WHO’s financing is in the form of voluntary contributions (VC), largely from Member States as well as from other United Nations organizations, intergovernmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, the private sector, and other sources.”

The vast majority of these voluntary contributions are from the West; in 2018-2019, the top five contributors were the US ($853 million), the UK ($464 million), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($455 million), the Gates-run GAVI Alliance ($389 million), and Germany ($359 million). “Specified voluntary contributions represent 90.1% of all voluntary contributions,” the WHO notes. “They are tightly earmarked to specific programmatic areas and/or geographical locations and must be spent within a specified timeframe.”

As Tedros’ predecessor at the WHO, Margaret Chan, told filmmaker Lilian Franck, “only 30% of my budget is predictable funds. The other 70%, I have to take a hat and go around the world to beg for money. And when they give us the money, [it] is highly linked to their preferences, what they like.”

In other words, Western institutions pay for what they please at the WHO. And the West has favored the TPLF since it attacked Ethiopian soldiers at a federal army base during the night of November 3 and 4, 2020 in the opening shot of the secessionist war. Indeed, the West has taken the side of the TPLF in an array of official statements and multiple UN Security Council meetings where Western nations voted to censure or punish the Ethiopian government.

“This comes from Dr. Tedros, of that level, wanting her out…”

“The UN is organized in every country to have one leader that speaks for the entire UN system in a country,” Maureen Achieng remarked in one of her several conversations with journalist Jeff Pearce and her colleague, Dennia Gayle. In Ethiopia, that person was Resident Coordinator Catherine Sozi.

Achieng and Gayle said that Tedros and top-tier officials allied with him in UN headquarters wanted Sozi fired: “This comes from Dr. Tedros, of that level, wanting her out to replace her with somebody who will dance to their tune.”

On December 24, 2021, Tedros tweeted an incendiary Guardian editorial claiming that genocide was on the horizon in Ethiopia:

The warning signs are there for genocide in Ethiopia – the world must act to prevent it | Helen Clark, Michael Lapsley and David Alton | The Guardian https://t.co/aBik3qZkbK

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 24, 2021


Achieng and Gayle commented on what they believed was a war brewing inside the UN about Ethiopia and how UN staff in Ethiopia should do their jobs. So far, UN Resident Coordinator Catherine Sozi has survived the conflict.

“The push to oust her was tremendous,” said Achieng. “She has survived it, because several key people have said, ‘over our dead bodies,’ including senior people in New York. Very, very senior people who have said, ‘Stop this nonsense.’”

Brought to you by Europe, the WHO’s first African leader

Catherine Sozi has survived, but so has Tedros. He was serving the second year of his five-year term as WHO Director General when mass uprisings ousted the TPLF and enabled Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali to obtain power. During his third year at the WHO, troops loyal to his TPLF sect launched the ongoing civil war.

Tedros had already begun campaigning for a second term in July 2021 — eight months into the war — when Prime Minister Abiy was elected in a landslide, with his Prosperity Party winning 410 of 436 contested seats in the federal parliament.

Candidates for WHO Director-General are customarily nominated by their home country, as Tedros was in 2016. However, with the TPLF out of power, Ethiopia refused to nominate him for another five-year term. Indeed, Ethiopian army chief Berhanu Jula, in a televised statement, accused him of seeking to secure weapons and diplomatic support for the TPLF.

On January 14, the Ethiopian government asked the WHO to investigate Tedros for spreading misinformation about the country, interfering in its internal affairs, and failing to live up to “the integrity and professional expectations required from his office.”

Germany and France nominated Tedros instead, taking a backhanded stand on the side of the TPLF in the war. According to The Lancet, 17 of 28 nations who then supported his nomination were European. The only three African nations that supported him were Kenya, Botswana, and Rwanda, despite his distinction as the first African to head the WHO.

With nominations now closed, Tedros is running unopposed. He will be re-elected pro forma, at the May 2022 World Health Assembly, for another 5-year term, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Concerning his role in the Ethiopian conflict, Tedros has insisted that he “is on the side of peace.”

A full transcript of the leaked conversation between Jeff Pearce, Maureen Achieng, and Dennia Gayle is below:
Maureen Achieng: The UN is organized in every country to have one leader that speaks for the entire UN system in a country.

Jeff Pearce: OK.

Maureen Achieng: So the person we’re making reference to is this person, who is the Resident Coordinator.

Jeff Pearce: OK. And she knows, and she is a person that could . . . but she’s under a great deal of pressure? OK.

Maureen Achieng: [They wanted her] fired.

Dennia Gayle: [They wanted her] fired. [CROSSTALK]

Maureen Achieng: They wanted her out. [CROSSTALK]

Dennia Gayle: [They wanted her] fired.

Maureen Achieng: And this comes from . . .

Jeff Pearce: Still? Or . . .

[CROSSTALK]

Maureen Achieng: This comes from . . . still, but . . .

[CROSSTALK]

Maureen Achieng: Still, and this comes from Dr. Tedros, of that level, wanting her out to replace her with somebody who will dance to their tune.

Dennia Gayle: Exactly. And you know what they did, they managed to convince that all the Emergency Coordinators from the different agencies that came in to work in Tigray, they wanted them to report—not to report to us. So, sideline the UN here, because we were not singing to the tune of what they wanted.

Jeff Pearce: How could they even. . . ? Say that again. I want to wrap my head around this. Say that again exactly.

Dennia Gayle: You know that because of the scale-up of the humanitarian interventions in the north, many of the agencies had to bring in additional support. We call them “surge,” which is additional technical expertise to be posted in that region. And many had to appoint what we call Senior Emergency Coordinators. Well, they have . . .

Maureen Achieng: All our headquarters have Emergency Directors. So they, they all descended on Addis against the advice of the Resident Coordinator…

Dennia Gayle: And the head of . . .

Maureen Achieng: And the heads of agencies. And the Government of Ethiopia.

Jeff Pearce: OK, we’re not naming names here, so I take it I can still use this now. This is, this—I can still use this in terms of them trying to sideline the UN and make them report? Yes, no? You guys are trading eyes.

[INAUDIBLE sounds like: We have to think. ]

Dennia Gayle: Was it not part of the scale-up protocols?

Maureen Achieng: Yeah. Yeah.

Dennia Gayle: It was part of the scale-up protocol that says that the Emergency Coordinators in the region report directly to the Emergency Directors, rather than to us, in [UN] headquarters.

Maureen Achieng: In [UN] headquarters instead of to us. So they want a direct line from Tigray to the [UN] headquarters. Addis, the reps in Addis, should be sidelined because we’re working with the federal government. We’re more sympathetic.

Jeff Pearce: You got to let me use that. You got to let me use that. That’s a huge, that’s a huge—you want people to understand this, let me use that. Are we agreed?

Maureen Achieng: I’m OK with that.

Dennia Gayle: Yeah.

Jeff Pearce: OK, good. Tell me . . .

Maureen Achieng: Because again, it’s the . . . it’s what they want in [UN] headquarters, and it’s what Dr. Tedros and others like him have succeeded in getting his fellow Under Secretaries General to agree to, that the UN in Addis is compromised. Let’s have Senior Coordinators in Tigray who report directly to New York and Geneva and Rome.

Jeff Pearce: What this tells me in context is, there is a power struggle going on within the UN. This explains why we ran into sources in Mek’ele, who told us about UN senior officials interfering with national exams and coordinating with the TPLF. So this is part of that puzzle. There’s a power struggle going on with the UN in terms of how you guys can get—do your jobs. Is that fair?

Maureen Achieng: That is absolutely correct. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jeff Pearce: OK. You guys are in big trouble. Wow. Paperwork, again, can somebody supply paperwork to back this up? There must have been memos. There’re always memos in a bureaucracy. Somebody had to write this down to say “we should be doing this instead of this,” and they would have sent it to multiple people. There’s got to be a paper trail.

Maureen Achieng: On the discussion to marginalize representatives in Addis, I don’t think there’s paperwork.

Jeff Pearce: How is that possible?

Maureen Achieng: Or if there is paperwork, it hasn’t got to our level. It’s been discussed by . . .

Dennia Gayle: At that level.

Maureen Achieng: Our . . .

Jeff Pearce: Were you part of these discussions?

Maureen Achieng and Dennia Gayle: No. That’s the whole idea to. . . They didn’t even invite us.

Jeff Pearce: So how do you even know that this is true?

Maureen Achieng: Because it’s coming from the Resident Coordinator, and she is saying, “I have never seen anything like this—that Emergency Directors come from New York, and they don’t even engage with their representatives on the ground. They go directly to Tigray, come back from Tigray, engage directly with donors, and then, you know, write a report.”

Jeff Pearce: All right.

Maureen Achieng: There’s been a strident push for senior representatives in Mek’ele and that they should be given sufficient latitude for action. There should not be interference from Addis, meaning us. Because if it’s coming from us, we’re going to be sympathetic with the federal government and we will perhaps try and steer it in another direction.

Jeff Pearce: What you’re talking about, though, amounts to a conspiracy within the UN.

Maureen Achieng: Of course it is.

Dennia Gayle: Yes, yes. To sideline us.

Maureen Achieng: So the only . . . the safest place to be right now is on Kwesi’s side. If you’re a Kwesi and you’re bashing the government, you’re safe. If you’re Maureen or Dennia, or these other friends who are not here, we can’t talk at meetings anymore. We go to meetings, we keep quiet. Especially now, because of the pandemic, we are in this virtual format of meetings. We don’t know who’s listening.

Jeff Pearce: What is this—why would this guy—this guy’s not Ethiopian.

Maureen Achieng: No.

Jeff Pearce: So I mean what is his interest here? Why even go to bat for them?

Maureen Achieng: If you are, and I believe you are, Jeff, familiar with how the TPLF works—they recruit people, they have their networks within the UN system. Whether Kwesi is being paid additional money by the TPLF, I have no idea, but he’s pretty emotional where TPLF is concerned.

Jeff Pearce: Is it possible he’s just a true believer. Maybe he’s just not paid off, but a true believer in their cause. What’s your take? What do you think?

Maureen Achieng: But he also has a friend from that region.

Dennia Gayle: I don’t know how true it is, [CROSSTALK] but they said [CROSSTALK].

Maureen Achieng: He’s got an Ethiopian girlfriend and rumor is that she’s from there, but I don’t think that’s what motivates him.

Jeff Pearce: Yeah, let’s not go there. I don’t like doing that to people. God, we need . . . and all right, second question is . . . you guys, you just gave me a peach of a quote, but second hand. You said your superior official said she’s never seen anything like this.

I would love to run with that, but the thing is also, we’ve got to find a way to protect her. You gotta go talk to your friend. In actual fact, the best way to protect her is to talk about her. I do believe that. If I actually use her name but talk about her in the third person that could actually insulate her, because she could legitimately point and say, “I didn’t talk to this guy. They’re talking about me, they’re not talking to me.” Which would take the pressure off.

Maureen Achieng: I would recommend that you go to the UN Ethiopia Twitter handle and look at things she has posted and draw from that.

Jeff Pearce: Well, if she’s putting out stuff on Twitter, that’s not very a wise course of action to do, if she’s putting out controversial things on Twitter.

Maureen Achieng: No, she’s not putting out controversial things. There’s been a few recent statements. There’s one on the perception of the UN in Ethiopia having taken a hit and you know.

Jeff Pearce: What’s her Twitter handle? Do you know?

Maureen Achieng: UN, it’s UN Ethiopia.

Dennia Gayle: UN Ethiopia, I think.

Jeff Pearce: OK. Would you please talk to your friend and talk to her about what we’re doing and at the very least give the woman a heads up so she knows this is coming, or do you want to go that far?

Maureen Achieng: I’m not sure.

Jeff Pearce: Does she trust you?

Maureen Achieng: Oh yeah. But . . .

Maureen Achieng and Dennia Gayle: But she’s under a lot of . . . she’s under serious [CROSSTALK].

Dennia Gayle: A lot of it. A lot of it.

Maureen Achieng: I don’t . . . I’m not sure she would want to be a part of something like this.

Dennia Gayle: Yes, yes. She’s under. There’s a tremendous force being orchestrated to figure out how to get her out of here and it’s…

Maureen Achieng: And they have failed so far because. . . I met with a senior government representative who said, “We are not going to watch her get kicked out of here. We know they want her out because she’s an African.”

Jeff Pearce: I am telling you straight up, the most honest thing, the most best thing you could do for her is:

(a) tell her you’re talking to me,

(b) tell her that the best way I could protect her and actually help you is actually talk about the campaign to oust her and name her. And then watch the fur fly, because then they’ll go, “Holy shit, Pearce knows what’s going on. How the hell does he know what’s going on?”

And that will make them back off her for awhile.I can’t promise it would be indefinite, but I can tell you that she would be safe for a limited period of time because the shit will hit the fan that . . . Once you, once you drag them into the light and say, this is what they’re trying to do, that actually . . . because I told you in our phone conversation, I’ve been a whistleblower. They put my name in it and they didn’t touch me because they went, “Well, why would his name be in it if he actually spoke to the sources?”

That’s the best way to protect your friend and your colleague. And, frankly, if there’s a concerted effort to oust her, I say, go public with it, but that’s got to be her. That’s got to be . . . I don’t want to hurt this person. I don’t know this person. You should coordinate with her to say, “Be a part of this and because it could help you.” And I mean that sincerely.

If you need me to talk to her, I’ll talk to her. I’ll deal with her the same way. If she wants to talk to me, anything that she says to me can be as an unnamed source, same rules. But it would be good to get her permission . . . to say, “Can we use your name because you’re obviously being targeted here.”

Maureen Achieng: OK, two things, Jeff. One, the push to oust her was tremendous. She has survived it, because several key people have said, “over our dead bodies,” including senior people in New York. Very, very senior people who have said, “Stop this nonsense.” So it’s a certain group of donors and . . .

Jeff Pearce: They’re waiting. They’re waiting. They’re waiting. They’ll be back. They’ll be back.

Maureen Achieng: So that is, one, I think she has survived it. But, second, we all have different thresholds for, you know, discomfort.

Jeff Pearce: Of course.

Maureen Achieng: If I was in that situation, I would be looking for Jeff Pearce. I don’t know that that is her case. So my proposal . . .

Jeff Pearce: I perfectly understand. I’m saying put the proposal . . .

Maureen Achieng: My proposal would be, her contact information is public. If you go to the UN Ethiopia website, her number is there. Call her or email her and say, “I’m hearing A, B and C about what’s happening in Ethiopia. Would you be willing to speak with me off the record or on the record?”

Jeff Pearce: She has no reason to trust me, and I wouldn’t blame her. Given the way that the other media have treated her, unless she’s familiar with what I do.

Maureen Achieng: She is very familiar with you. She follows you and she shares your tweets with me. I share your tweets with her. She knows you very well.

Jeff Pearce: Because given how . . . let me double-check the recording on the . . .

END OF AUDIO
(Riva Enteen provided assistance in editing this report.)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/01/ ... -ethiopia/
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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Conversations on the Sudan Coup
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 28, 2022
Kribsoo Diallo

Image

This interview was originally published on Toward Freedom. It’s part of a 2 of a two-part series on the Sudan coup. The first part can be read here. Certain interviewees chose to use their first name or initials because of security risks. https://towardfreedom.org/story/archive ... udan-coup/

Muzan Alneel, Marxist Political Activist and Blogger​_​_​_

*************************************************************************

Krisboo Diallo: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?

Muzan Alneel: A change that leads to further concentration of power at the hands of the military was expected. To go with a plain and simple military coup, using pickup trucks and DShKs [Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokaliberny, a Soviet heavy machine gun] was just a bit too silly and weird. Nevertheless, it was not a surprise. Not to me. And as I saw, not to the Sudanese public, who on October 25 looked relieved more than anything, and many using the phrase “delayed battle” to refer to the coming post-coup struggles and fights with the military.

I was surprised by the way in which the November agreement was announced. The prime minister and the military have put so little effort in manufacturing popular support for the agreement and then took a great risk by announcing it as a pre-planned large-scale demonstration [that] was taking place. They created a space for the public to instantaneously debate the agreement, share their thoughts on it and eventually rejected with chants that spread across cities on the same day.

This tells me that Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok read the output of the last two years very wrong. It seems he thought his unpopular policies that people often warned him [against] implementing were accepted due to a personal carte blanche he has from the Sudanese people and that it will work for the agreement, too. And that is not true. In reality, the public had clear enemies (the previous regime), but was not clear in their definition of allies, due to lack of clarity in the definition of demands and policies necessary to deliver them. This stance against the previous regime was translated [as] support for the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC, civilian group). Then and as the FFC started compromising more than the public can justify support, moved only to SPA (Sudanese Professionals Association) with clear rejection of the FFC, and in the same manner from the SPA to the civilian cabinet, and finally to just Hamdok. A better reading of the situation would have told him that his action will lead to a divorce between street action and the classic elite and bourgeois political club. Fortunately for Sudan, he miscalculated, leading to a level of radicalization in the streets that would have taken great effort and organizing to reach, if not for that.

KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?

MA: No, it isn’t. The policy decisions taken by the partnership government over the past two years and the efforts that the civilian component spent on passing these policies (e.g., economic liberalization policies [neoliberal policies]) are counter-revolutionary policies that, by definition, do not express the [demands] of the revolutionary masses.

The support for the cabinet was coming from the idea that there’s a common enemy, i.e., the NCP regime (National Congress Party). Even at the time when they implemented counter revolutionary policies and decisions, the majority said criticizing the cabinet will lead to strengthening the pro-NCP or pro-military arguments.

After the coup, and as a more radical position was adopted by the majority of those in the streets, the members of the civilian components—whether those not detained or those detained and later released—were still putting out their reformist statements. Even their supporters, who once justified their actions as wise, realistic and clever in handling the military, rejected them. Some of them who made the mistake of joining the demonstrations and trying to share their reformist speeches in the streets were rejected and ridiculed by the masses.

KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?

MA: Strikes and civil disobedience (in all their possible and new forms) are the only unarmed path to bring down the coup.

The Sudanese people have watched armed resistance trying to take a shot at the NCP regime for decades with little success and extremely high risk to their communities and the overall population.

It had been our experience that armed resistance was used by the NCP to justify extreme violence and the NCP often dealt with it by creating and arming pro-government militias across ethnic lines, creating ethnic divisions and a decay in the relationship between the state and citizens that we will be dealing with for a very long time. Probably much longer than after we deal with all the militias (armed forces and RSF “Rapid Support Forces” included).

KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?

MA: International powers are following their usual path prioritizing and supporting a dictatorial form of stability over all other possible paths. It fits with their interests, so that is no surprise. Regional powers have taken a few steps back this time, it seems, in comparison with 2019. The messages from the United States asking Egypt and the Gulf states to step back might be the reason.

I believe it is also becoming clearer to the agents of international powers in Sudan that their “contacts” in the political club are no longer able to control the masses, or even reflect or predict their actual position. We can see them in Khartoum now, reaching out to create new “contacts” in spaces previously too radical for them to acknowledge, whether officially by meeting invitations or the usual tricks of closed meetings, support and “workshops.”

These actions must be watched carefully. The recent meeting invitation to resistance committees from the UN SRSG (UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General) Volker Perthes brought up a debate regarding how to deal with the international community. The UN Secretary-General [António Gutteres]’s latest statement about how the Sudanese should accept the deal pushed more people to reject the UN, or at least see it in a negative light. All committees rejected the first invitation for the first meeting. In the second meeting, some rejected [while] some joined, and asked for them to live-broadcast it and stated their rejection of the UN’s approach.

Those international mediators are a threat to the resistance committees and are working very hard to co-opt it. This, in my opinion, is the main issue we should focus on and fight in terms of international interventions. The rest—statements, sanctions, etc.—are just official blah blah blah.

KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?

MA: It was clear over the past two years that the international community and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushed for different schemes of privatization to deal with military investments. This reflected their priority to remove an armed player from the market. Other forms of army intervention in politics (e.g., oppression of the masses) are of no importance to the international community. It seems from what we saw in the past two years the international community would prefer dealing with a neoliberal civilian government, but can tolerate the military staying in the market (or even dominating it, as is the case in Egypt) for “stability.”

Maysoon Elnigoumi, Radical Writer

KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?

Maysoon Elnigoumi: I guess we have always anticipated a coup since the signing of the partnership between the military and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC). For the past year, we were all watching what could only be described as an escalation in the relationship between the military components in the government against their civilian partners. The language was very aggressive and provocative. On the other hand, the civilian partners kept speaking about a “harmonious relationship.” Despite this, the coup was still a surprise for me. I guess it was this desperate need to believe in our political parties and political elite, that they know what they’re doing, something like the adults in the room. But the coup has freed me from this delusion, I think.

KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?

ME: Right after the election of the FFC, you could see them moving away from some of the revolutionary slogans they have been repeating, and adopting the discourse of officials in the time of the Omar al-Bashir dictatorship. For example, about how subsidies benefit the rich or how the bread queues have disappeared, as well as the clouded statements concerning the “peace agreement” and “transitional justice,” which nobody still knows what they mean by it.

KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?

ME: I think the strikes, the protests and the grassroots local movements are about reimagining the political scene Sudan inherited since colonialism and post-independence, in which a minority of tribal leaders, political elites and army generals set the political agenda of the state. This current movement is shifting from trying to exert pressure on a new kind of political agreement, in which the army is kept out of politics and the country is run by the traditional civilian political elite, because the statements by party leaders [indicate] they cannot envision a political establishment that does not include the army. You can see the statements by neighborhood committees now focusing on politics on the local grassroots level.

KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?

ME: From the very beginning, there was reluctant support [for] the revolution by certain regional powers. It was not until [they] had seen the same military leaders in power after the signing of the agreement that [they] shifted [their] position. Having General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council and [General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo] Himedti as deputy vice president of the council [guaranteed] continuing business as usual during the times of the ousted Bashir regime, whether continuing to providing manpower for the Yemen war, or land grabbing in Sudan, or curbing Iran’s influence in the region. The civilian component was unable—or perhaps unwilling—to change anything from the previous regime agenda.

KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?

ME: One of the victories touted by the civilian led government of Prime Minister Hamdok is the “return” of Sudan to the embrace of the “international community,” after 30 years of estrangement from international politics. However, it’s the clichéd narrative: Sudan frees itself from the shackles of despotism into the arms of unhinged structural adjustment programs, with plenty of sweet promises and bonuses from the international community, and becomes the new poster child for the IMF and proponents of the free market and the “smart” limited role of government and public institutions.

The international community wants a government that does not disrupt the narrative of current world affairs. However, it wants [the government] to continue in that role without the embarrassment of supporting a military government that targets peaceful civilians and commits crimes. That is why it is very active in the intermediary efforts of selling a power-sharing agreement to the world and to the Sudanese people, using the same condescending language of colonialism: That the people of Sudan should accept the current power-sharing agreement, as it is “best for them,” and marketing it as a rational choice, gaslighting the current revolution as irrational and unreasonable.

Nabila, Union Activist

KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?

Nabila: These last events were expected as there were indicators that pointed that there was an imminent coup, just by analyzing the escalating events. I was not surprised, but I had my doubts at the beginning that the military would actually execute a coup. But the bickering and the confrontation within the Sudanese Sovereignty Council and between the ministers confirmed my doubts.

KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?

Nabila: I don’t expect that the demonstrations, nor the grassroots movements nor civilian disobedience, may defeat the coup. On the contrary, after the previous strike it seemed the authorities worked hard to dismantle the unions. But because the grassroots movement is widening its base and more people are joining, it might lead to gradually limiting the regime’s powers and influence. Perhaps this grassroots movement may reach the military institution itself and the lower ranks might self organize. The combination of civil disobedience, grassroots organizing and demonstrations may change the nature of the alternative oppressive regime, a regime which allows for a wider margin of freedoms that may allow us to organize, perhaps one that maintains one’s right to life. I am not concerned anymore with defeating the coup, but rather with how far this grassroots movement can go and what it can achieve. I believe instability of civilian rule since independence has not allowed for the building of a strong grassroots movement (meaning unions). Then it was followed by the 30 years of [Islamist] Ingaz rule, which completely dismantled the unionist movement. However, now the concept of grassroots organization has expanded to include neighborhood resistance committees and the talk for the need of local councils and local representation. Perhaps if this grassroots movement is able to maintain a balance of powers, which includes the military on one hand, and the political parties and the powerful elite on the other, perhaps we may reach some form of democratic rule, in which all parties are in a win-win situation. However, it’s hard to say what the military really wants or to what extent this balance of powers may compromise or handle. I guess this is a question we all need to think about.

KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?

Nabila: The regional powers are only concerned with serving their own agenda that benefits them. Nothing new here. But what should change is how we could regain sovereignty and limit their influence.

KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?

Nabila: The international community won’t have a problem with supporting any regime as long as it fulfills their wishes. Had this regime been able to gain a wider popular base, it would have been supported by the international community. I mean, why are we even presuming this? Look at [President Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi in Egypt. He has the support of the international community.

Tametti, Member of a Neighborhood Resistance Committee

KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?

Tametti: All the crimes that resulted from the coup, the murders, the detentions, the torture, the stifling of freedoms—not only in Khartoum, but also in Kordofan, Obein, Kirending and Jebel Moon—these are not separate events. But it only demonstrates that the revolution has failed in creating a system that provides people with safety and protection and public freedoms, and true peace and justice for all victims. This coup was not a sudden thing. It was preplanned and meant to ensure that no real change happens, and that the interim peace does not work on dismantling the previous regime and its beneficiaries. It’s all linked with regional powers who are in conflict with the Sudanese people. Therefore, for me, the coup was not a sudden thing, it was pre-organized and pre-planned and it is a very dangerous thing that threatens the livelihoods of the Sudanese people. We never trusted the military and the janjaweed (militia group). We never considered them partners. We’ve always viewed them as an extension of Bashir’s security council. All these crimes are a result of our great distrust for the military and the Janjaweed. Actually, the night before the coup, I was telling a group of friends that I expect the military is going to announce a coup anytime soon. This was my own analysis: The weak performance of the FFC allowed the military to strengthen their lines. Also, the escalation of events in eastern Sudan, the economic situation in which the army presides on most of the economic institutions, the negligence from the side of the army in providing protection to the civilians. Even that last coup in the army, I felt it was a way to measure how the people would react to news about a coup. Not to mention the Presidential Palace sit-in. So I was not surprised. I don’t even think the previous regime has fallen. I mean, the military leadership were the ones in control. They were the ones appointing the top people in government, like the attorney general, the head of the Judiciary. Even how they were leading the process agreement in Juba (capital of South Sudan).

KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?

Tametti: So everything was already in their hands, the economy, the peace process, the government. For us, in the street we never even believed that the Bashir regime had fallen. It was his same security council taking reins. It wasn’t a full revolution, and the political elites have failed us and we kept chanting in the streets: It still did not fall.

KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?

Tametti: The civil disobedience, grassroots organization, and strikes are our peaceful tools to we are using to face this regime, and we are still innovating and creating new peaceful ways in which we close down on this coup. I mean we have disposed of [Omar Al-Bashir]’s rule with our bare chests, and his regime was more stable and more powerful, this is evident from the way this coup is brutally facing any peaceful protests, it is a sign of desperation and fear, we can see them trying to cover themselves with the slogans of the revolution, however we are working towards building local rule and representation to limit and beseige this bloody regime, we are adamant on being peaceful and we will not turn into armed protests because we have seen that how since 1953 armed confrontation has only further distabilized the country and divided it.

KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?

Tametti: Regarding the regional powers, some of them had a positive stance, such as the African Union’s initial response in condemning the coup and freezing Sudan’s membership in the Union. Also Kenya’s official response in condemning the coup. Ethiopia’s official response was that it supported the people of Sudan. South Sudan, at the beginning, called for the release of the political prisoners. So there were some responses that were against the coup. However, on the other hand, you have countries like Egypt, and the [United Arab Emirates], who have supported the coup because they are invested in having an unstable regime in Sudan that is not strong, to further exploit Sudan or to implicate us in regional conflicts and wars that we have no business being involved in. For us in Neighborhood Resistance Committees, we have longed for and we are working towards breaking from Sudan’s past, in which it’s rulers were agents of regional powers. We want to achieve full sovereignty and independence, to put Sudan’s interests first above all other agendas. And on that basis, we want to create links and relationships with the international community. We were very disappointed in UN Secretary General António Gutteres’ remark, in which he advised the people of Sudan to approve of the Burhan-Hamdok agreement. As well as the appointed [UN special] representative to Sudan, Volker Perthes’ position, urging people to accept the Burhan-Hamdok agreement as a way forward. We view [United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan] UNITAMS’ role as explicit support for the coup. And several neighborhood committees have issued statements expressing their disappointment.

KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?

Tametti: We do understand that the international community, the European countries, the USA—the troika—have interests in Sudan. I don’t think that’s a problem. It could be a way to communicate about the situation in Sudan. However, we see their view that a deal or a partnership that includes the military as the only way towards transition as erroneous position and a weak position that does not express the aspirations of the people of Sudan. Even the USA talking about elections as a way out is not a good position. What elections when we do not have a census, when there are a lot of issues barring the full participation of all Sudanese? We still have displaced people camps. The transitional period has not achieved any of its goals. We can only see this as a wish by the forces of the international community to advance their interests and control on Sudan rather than supporting true change and and true transition towards democracy as demanded by the people of Sudan.

Y.S., Revolutionary Activist

KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?

Y.S.: The recent developments have done a great service to the revolution. It has expanded its horizon and has reorganized the revolutionary powers around the demands of justice, freedom and peace. This would not have been possible had it not been for the coup, which has lifted the mask on the so-called civilian-military partnership, and it has exposed those who are invested in the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a certain political elite from both the military and the civilian parties. It has revealed that the conflict is not actually between the civilians and the military—as claimed by the FFC—but it is actually a conflict within a certain political class, unconcerned with the aspirations of the Sudanese people for a civilian rule. Therefore, these recent developments have shown the people who supports their search for justice and who stands in their way toward achieving it, including international organizations, which were never faced with hostility before, but their latest stance in supporting the coup has put them in a position of being a barrier towards justice.

I did not completely expect the coup. It didn’t make sense to me why the military leadership would want to dispose of the civilian partners who were in line with their interests. However, it’s not strange the military has ambitions to be in total control.

KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?

Y.S.: The current movement, I believe, is capable of taking down the coup.

KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?

Y.S.: The regional powers intervene aggressively in Sudan to ensure the continuance of previous investments or in hope of newer ones, and to ensure the flow of raw materials and natural resources with no regulation. Sudan is an open battleground for regional and international conflicts to be fought on, amidst a total absence of any national agenda from the civilian and military ruling elites. The regional powers are unconcerned with the aspirations of the Sudanese people, But when there is threat to their interests, it is only logical that they side with the generals, the warlords and some armed militias.

KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?Y.S.: The international community, by which we mean the United States, is interested in dragging Sudan within the world order of trade agreements and the financial system. It supports whomever achieves those interests. Hamdok, with his background, is the most likely candidate. Since he is part of what is basically a military regime, supporting him is actually supporting military rule.

Kribsoo Diallo is a Cairo-based Pan-Africanist researcher in political science related to African affairs. He has written for many African magazines and newspapers, and Diallo has contributed to translated editions of papers and articles in Arabic and English for several research centers within the African continent.​_​_

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Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 31, 2022 2:21 pm

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© UN Photo/Martine Perret | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Obama Line, Samantha Power, and U.S. Intervention in West Africa During the Ebola Epidemic
Posted Jan 29, 2022 by Jean-Philippe Stone

December 2013 marked the beginning of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Ebola, a severe hemorrhagic virus which causes muscle and joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding, spread from Guinean forests to the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone by the summer of 2014.1 The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern” in August, sparking a tardy international medical and humanitarian response spearheaded by president Barack Obama’s three thousand-strong troop transfer to West Africa a month later. Belying expectations, the number of cases had dropped precipitously by December 2014 and the epidemic was over in Liberia in June 2015.2A total of 28,600 people were infected and 11,325 died.

On January 13, 2016, Obama delivered his final State of the Union Address as president. It was an ideal opportunity to remind a deeply disillusioned public what the Obama administration had achieved, or at least claimed to have achieved, during its eight years in power. The president reminisced about the Affordable Care Act and how the Iran Nuclear Deal made the planet a safer place. Obama’s speech also conveyed a striking message: his administration restored the rightful place of the United States as the first among equals on the world stage. In response to crises in Libya, Syria, Iran, and Ukraine, the United States did not act alone but in concert with various nations: “we will mobilize the world to work with us and make sure other countries pull their own weight.”3

Obama cited the global response to the Ebola epidemic of 2014–16 as another sterling example of how the United States single-handedly “mobilized” the globe to combat the virus: “Our military, our doctors, and our development workers—they were heroic; they set-up the platform that allowed other countries to join in behind us and stamp out that epidemic. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a couple million lives were saved.” This address concretized what some might call the “Obama line” regarding the U.S. response to Ebola. Adherents of the Obama line tend to follow a strict catechism: embellish or oversell what the U.S. intervention in West Africa accomplished, emphasize “collaboration” (code for U.S. leadership) with a vast UN coalition of nations to beat the epidemic, and you ostracize, minimize, omit, or avoid inconvenient truths that contradict or distract from the reigning narrative.4

The Donald Trump administration’s calamitous response to the COVID pandemic throughout 2020 breathed new life into the Ebola Obama line. The former president’s colleagues came out in force to remind everyone just how well they performed when faced with a virus—their supposed efficiency and intellect a glaring contrast to Trump’s deadly incompetence. Joe Biden’s presidential campaign team touted the former vice president’s record during the Ebola epidemic as proof of his credentials: “Biden knows how to mount an effective crisis response and elevate the voices of scientists, public health experts, and first responders.… He helped lead the Obama-Biden administration’s effective response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the Ebola epidemic.” Ron Klain, Obama’s “Ebola Czar,” recalled how the U.S. government marshalled all its resources to mount a swift response to Ebola, while Trump failed to do the same to fight COVID. Laura Baer, senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, praised the Obama administration for creating an office entirely dedicated to pandemic response and relief. Obama’s secretary of state John Kerry railed against Trump’s science denial and lamented: “President Obama put together a playbook for any administration that followed us—it happened to the Trump administration—and they threw it away…we knew we had to summon a global response.” Former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes hailed this U.S.-led “global response” as well, while officials who worked for Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor who was tapped as a potential vice president for Biden in 2020, claimed they would follow her into hell after bearing witness to her bravura performance under pressure while handling the Ebola crisis. Peddling the Obama line proved very useful indeed, as a weapon to attack Trump’s gross mismanagement of COVID, to counter MAGA-style antiglobalization nationalism, and to further professional ambitions.5

Samantha Power, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is another fervent advocate of the Obama line. Her best-selling memoir, The Education of an Idealist, devotes a whole chapter to detailing how the United Statesreacted to the West African Ebola epidemic. The chapter’s concluding remarks are perhaps the most perfect reproduction of Obama’s claims about Ebola in his last State of the Union Address: “President Obama ordered a mission that played an essential role supporting Africans fighting the disease. Obama’s leadership also gave despairing people a reason to believe that Ebola could be beaten.… He maintained leverage to rally other world leaders to resist as well.” Power exalts “Obama and American doctors, nurses, health workers, aid workers, diplomats, and soldiers” for their efforts in preventing spread of the virus, using the Ebola response as a prime example for why “the world needed the United Nations, because no one country—even one as powerful as the United States—could have slayed the epidemic on its own.”6 After reading Power’s chapter, one is left with the overwhelming impression that the United States played an outsized role, if not the critical role, in leading the world-wide charge against Ebola via its unparalleled military might, unequalled logistical capabilities, and an unshakeable devotion to “do the right thing.”

Yet, scholars have demonstrated that the U.S. response to Ebola was not the roaring success Power makes it out to be in her memoir. In fact, according to public health experts at John Hopkins, “the epidemic curve began decreasing before most global efforts were in place, limiting their impact on stopping the epidemic’s spread.”7 Global health specialists also agree that no one precisely knows why Ebola petered out in late 2014, but it had little to do with U.S. involvement. There is simply no evidence to support Obama’s extraordinary claim that U.S. health workers and soldiers helped save “hundreds of thousands, maybe a couple million lives” in West Africa. This is why Power’s interpretation of the Ebola Obama line warrants careful scrutiny. It is necessary to juxtapose her claims and statements, especially her comments on U.S.-made Ebola treatment units (ETUs), China’s response to Ebola, and U.S. lab technology, with what really happened on the ground.

To paraphrase journalist Tom Engelhardt and historian Karen Greenberg, the Obama administration declared a “war on Ebola” armed with the U.S. military. An organization already fighting a losing battle in the “war on terror” was suddenly thrust onto the frontlines of a war against a pandemic. It is a miracle that U.S. intervention in West Africa was not a monumental disaster, but for Power to call it “a stunning tribute to American ingenuity” and “creativity” is quite the exaggeration, if not an outright denial of the myriad problems that have plagued the U.S. military since the beginning of its operations.8

Power singles out the ETUs constructed by the U.S. military in West Africa as testaments to U.S. benevolence and quick thinking—another tool in President Obama’s “awesome demonstration of U.S. leadership and capability.” She observes that Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), claimed the military “would rapidly assemble what were called Ebola treatment units, the specifically designed, tented field hospitals where patients could be treated,” and which Power states allowed “up to 1,700 patients at a time to receive treatment.” Further on, Power claims a Liberian health worker told her that, because the United States and other nations “were furiously building Ebola treatment units across Liberia,” Doctors Without Borders clinics were able to care “for all those who arrived seeking medical attention.” On hearing about the ETUs’ seemingly stellar contribution to the war on Ebola, Power left West Africa convinced “we” (the U.S.-steered and engineered global response) could save the day and emerge triumphant.9

Power severely overestimated the efficacy of costly U.S.-built ETUs. Contrary to what Frieden promised, the U.S.military did not build ETUs rapidly, and ETUs that finally did see the light of day, long after the dreaded Ebola curve flattened, did not treat hundreds of Ebola patients. At best, ETU utility proved extremely uneven across Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. At worst, U.S.-made ETUs, particularly in Liberia, played no part in defeating Ebola. As Norimitsu Onishi amply illustrated in his investigation for the New York Times, only twenty-eight Ebola patients were actually treated in the eleven ETU facilities erected on Liberian territory by April 2015. Nine out of the eleven ETUs never treated anyone infected with Ebola and ten ETUs opened after December 22, 2014—too late to make any difference in containing the virus. Public health experts like Swedish Dr. Hans Rosling and Doctors Without Borders staff tried in vain to warn numerous international bodies that precious money spent building expensive ETUs (approximately $20 million apiece) should instead have been invested in local health care initiatives or communities. A U.S. Agency for International Development report concluded that the U.S. military based their ETU blueprints in accordance with the CDC’s “worst-case” epidemic scenario and therefore did not adapt ETU designs to fit improving conditions on the ground. Conversely, cheap treatment centers Doctors Without Borders established, consisting of wood pallets and plastic sheeting, had a far greater impact than Department of Defense-constructed ETUs. Had the U.S. military followed the example of simply made nonprofit treatment units, more lives may have been saved.10

Even the Department of Defense disagrees with Power’s rosy impression of the ETUs. U.S. Africa Command’s own evaluation of Operation United Assistance, the codename for the U.S. military’s intervention into West Africa, admitted ETUs “turned out to be underutilized” and were hastily conceived. Army captain Andrew Hill quickly sketched an ETU design while embedded with a Disaster Assistance Response Team since the military had no standard design outlined before the operation began. The Liberian Ministry of Health hoped the United Stateswould build an ETU per county but the construction process encountered numerous impediments. The Department of Defense clearly did not sufficiently prepare to overcome Liberia’s chronically poor infrastructure, collapsing bridges, low water supply, lack of gravel, sparse access to wells, uneven terrain, and woeful weather. As a result, a five-week construction schedule had to be extended “to nearly two months at some locations.” Rather than concede that the Department of Defense had failed to anticipate these predictable challenges, team members just blamed Liberia for not completing their mission on time. The report even implied the delayed completion of ETUs adversely effected essential health workers’ training, as they had to be transferred to other facilities to finish their programs. Similar hindrances beset the British in Sierra Leone as the lengthy erection of “semi-permanent” ETUs lowered the number of beds available out in the field. Studies estimate over 12,500 Ebola cases could have been avoided had the beds been in service a month before their delivery in December 2014. Once again, pricey and showy ETUs trumped economical, maneuverable, and reliable field hospital alternatives.11

What if U.S.-made ETUs had been repurposed to combat diseases other than Ebola? After all, the German Armed Forces, Ebola Task Force, Red Cross, and representatives of the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare converted a standard-issue ETU near the Samuel Doe Stadium in Monrovia into a “severe infections temporary treatment unit” for patients afflicted with malaria or other Ebola-like symptoms. Why would the United States not do the same? Doug Mercado, an expert in refugee protection and former Disaster Assistance Response Team leader during the epidemic, cast doubts on the feasibility of repurposing ETUs: “If we can leave something behind, that’s great but it’s not the key goal.” The ETUs were not built to last, made as they are of fragile plastic sheeting that deteriorates after prolonged exposure to harsh weather. Sturdier bamboo-structured ETUs were handed over to local communities but they were exceptions rather than the norm. Many, though not all, warehouses and lab facilities had to be dismantled as well. As U.S. ambassador to Liberia Deborah Malac opined: “It’s hard to move from disaster response to development. The colour of money is one issue. People don’t want to give up resources.”As the world’s foremost exponent of for-profit and neoliberalized health care, the United States has little incentive to support large-scale redistributions of medical apparatus and supplies to West African populations affected by years of underfunded, understaffed, and increasingly privatized health systems.

Journalist Jennifer Lazuta witnessed first-hand the uncertain fate of abandoned ETUs. She interviewed a member of the child-development group Plan International, who revealed West African governments had not a clue what to do with stranded ETUs. Aid workers hoped ETUs would strengthen primary health care services but there was no guarantee such massive structures could ever be maintained. Petrified locals feared retired ETUs contained traces of Ebola, no matter how many times they were decontaminated. To make matters worse, corrosive chlorine disinfectants damaged ETUs, putting their survival in even greater doubt. Four months later, Jason Beaubien discovered Liberia still had not figured out what to do with them, especially a three hundred-bed behemoth in Monrovia. Though some former isolation ward tents remained relatively intact, pierced partition tarps quickly frayed without regular repair. The “lavish” Chinese ETU near the Samuel Doe Stadium, equipped with air-conditioned private rooms and video monitors that kept nurses at a safe distance from infected patients, looked imperishable and high-tech compared to rapidly disintegrating U.S. ETUs. So much for U.S. innovation and creativity.

Speaking of China, Power could not resist insinuating that the country endeavored to help West Africans fight Ebola just to flex its burgeoning superpower muscles: “China, which was increasingly looking for ways to show off its superpower status, declared fighting Ebola ‘a common responsibility of all countries in the world.’” This is a breath-taking, although not at all surprising, case of the pot calling the kettle black. A glib comment redolent of a Washington elite terrified of its own waning influence. Are we, the public, really expected to believe that the U.S.government’s financial contribution of $750 million dollars to fighting Ebola was a disinterested act of unalloyed generosity and definitely not another excuse “to show off its superpower status”? Did the pursuit of self-interest happen to be on sick leave when the White House decided to invest so much capital into intervening in West Africa?14

Power mentions China once more in the chapter when she describes a scene of herself on a plane conversing with President Obama via videoconference: “Knowing the President’s frustration about ‘free-riding’ in the international system, I also laid out in detail what China, the UK, France, and even small countries like Cuba were contributing.” The Obama line strikes again as Power panders to U.S. exceptionalism: the United States“collaborates” with the rest, the argument goes, but behind the scenes it really does all the hard work no one else bothers to—and deserves all the credit. Western governments initially castigated China in 2014 for not doing enough to combat Ebola. Yet, when news broke that hundreds of Chinese medical staff readied for battle against the virus, officials changed their tune and painted the Chinese as a bunch of calculating opportunists out to save African lives for political gain. Damned if you do, damned if you do not. Power’s subtle jab at China echoes the media’s incessant habit of obscuring or belittling the achievements of the United States’ chief enemy whenever and however possible.15

China’s Ebola response has been underrated and merits further study. Chinese medical teams ranked among the very first responders to Guinea’s Ebola outbreak in March 2014, “in stark contrast to the delayed response of the rest of the international community.” Thanks in large part to China’s considerable medical footprint in the form of anti-malaria centers established throughout the continent, the Chinese had a head start in facing Ebola as medical teams were already present in West Africa. By August, Beijing had sent plane-loads of emergency antiepidemicgear, drugs, food, and sterilization equipment. In September, dozens of Chinese lab technicians landed in Sierra Leone. In November, China announced the arrival of one thousand medical experts over the following months.16

It is worth stressing that of all the nations to send troops into West Africa, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, and African Union states, China was the only nation to deploy mostly medical personnel from the People’s Liberation Army.The crucial difference between Chinese and U.S. approaches to virus eradication lies in what human security specialists call “empowerment.” The Chinese understood we can only combat diseases like Ebola if we first eliminate poverty and promote development. A strategy prioritizing “long-term capacity building,” such as China’s promise to send hundreds of medical workers to African states over a three-year period, is likely to bear more fruit for West Africans in the long run than Obama’s one-off troop and supply surge in autumn 2014. Unlike the United States, China was attuned to conditions on the ground and reacted accordingly.17

U.S. Navy doctors even acknowledge China’s global health strategy during the Ebola epidemic far outmatched that of the United States. The Department of Defense’s global health strategy is generally obsessed with quantifying its performance without actually measuring its impact in the real world. Meanwhile, China, inspired by its own “barefoot doctors” from the Maoist era (regular farmers who received medical and first-aid training to help treat common illnesses in far-flung communities bereft of health clinics), updated this tradition and applied it to Ebola-stricken West Africa. While deploying the U.S. military cost $360 million, not including expenses for running often useless ETUs, China invested in comparatively inexpensive long-term projects such as sending out teams ranging from six to one hundred health care providers for nearly two years. This kind of grassroots embeddedness is an expression of forward-thinking health diplomacy, beneficial not only for a China seeking to widen its influence, but for local African recipients as well. A sign in Monrovia neatly summarized the health strategy Liberians preferred: “China 1 USA 0.”18

Confronted with inquiries about ineffectual ETUs, some respondents pointed to successful public health worker or volunteer training courses the United States, United Kingom, United Nations, or WHO implemented as better indicators of the long-term value or goals that medical interventions intended to accomplish in West Africa. But this does not change the fact that nations like China wasted nowhere near the amount of money the United Statesspent on ETUs—and probably trained just as many if not more volunteers to boot. The U.S. army in Liberia only trained 1,539 health care workers by February 2015. In Guinea, infection prevention and control courses trained around 3,250 Guineans, frontline health workers, and supervisors between October and December 2014. CDC safety training courses aiming to prepare U.S. health care workers for ETUs in West Africa trained 570 participants between September 2014 and March 2015. The International Organization for Migration collaborated with the WHO, CDC, and Sierra Leonean Health Ministry to train 4,500 health workers in Freetown by March 2015. In comparison, Chinese public health training teams who arrived in Sierra Leone in November 2014 had trained “10,000 residents, including medical staff, community healthcare workers, government officials and volunteers” by August 2015. This is not an exhaustive list of all the courses administered or the exact number of those who took part in public health training in West Africa, but it gives a fair indication of the incredible scale of Chinese humanitarian operations undertaken during the epidemic. How could such monumental efforts be so casually dismissed as mere showing off? Are they not proof that the international community can, to borrow Obama’s phrase, “pull their own weight” in a global crisis without U.S. stewardship?19

While other nations’ efforts to subdue Ebola receive fleeting cameos within the chapter, Power reserves high praise for the “impact of U.S. lab technology” in Liberia and U.S. Navy technicians who helped set up Ebola testing labs.20 Test results were delivered in five hours instead of five days, speeding up the isolation of Ebola patients and therefore cutting down transmission rates. Power’s comments are intriguing for two reasons.

First, according to a paper analyzing interventions in Liberia during the epidemic, the impact of laboratories on transmission rates in 2014 was limited. The names of laboratory-confirmed cases were “not provided back to the county teams responsible for contact tracing and isolation.” This meant families and communities did not know if a loved one had Ebola and forced labs to trace both suspected and confirmed contacts—draining already meagre resources further. Even after an influx of supplies and labs in October 2014, contact tracing did not substantially improve as late as February 2015.21

Second, Power never mentions that U.S. labs and their staffs collected thousands of blood samples that were then opaquely expedited from West Africa without patients’ assent. French journalists Emmanuel Freudenthal and Chloé Hecketsweiler discovered that the U.S. military inventoried and stored around five thousand blood samples within the Liberia Institute for Biomedical Research in Monrovia before their eventual dispatch to Fort Detrick, Maryland—a premier biodefense research site of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease. Le Monde revealed labs analyzed 269,000 blood samples in West Africa throughout the epidemic, a biological gold mine for scientists in the United States, Canada, Europe, China, and Russia. A fierce competition erupted to acquire blood samples for projects and papers unrelated to diagnostics. One French pharmacist ruefully noted UN planes and medical teams treated Guinea like a colander and not a country, sneaking boxloads of samples away from Guinean border guards and police with impunity. The CDC has officially admitted to expediting a few hundred samples from Sierra Leone with no permission from local authorities. One doctor alleged blood sampleswere stolen “without the greenlight from Liberia.” Ebola survivors, many of whom lost family or jobs due to the virus, were disgusted to learn Western labs exploited their blood for biodefense purposes or to make exorbitantly priced vaccines.22

Freudenthal and Hecketsweiler probed deeper into biosecurity machinations in West Africa and found military personnel in 2019 still staffed Russian labs assembled in Guinea during the epidemic. Across the Atlantic, virologists in the employ of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease are openly conducting “threat characterization” experiments with Ebola (making the virus more virulent or airborne in order to test new vaccines and predict what kind of biological weapons terrorists may unleash in future). Boundless research into lethal pathogens like Ebola or anthrax can have devastating consequences should an accidental “lab leak” ever occur.23

Some scholars suspect the CDC may have enjoyed even greater access to blood samples and other sensitive data stored in laboratories installed throughout Sierra Leone’s sixteen districts during the epidemic. Though different countries nominally ran each lab, the U.S. military helped set them up and the CDC processed whatever entered these labs—namely blood samples extracted from Ebola patients and donors. When journalists like Freudenthalstarted asking questions as to why West African countries could not retain their own people’s blood, Western officials feigned concern that Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia did not have enough labs to safely store samples. Western biosecurity units, universities, and possibly pharmaceutical companies would hold onto them for safekeeping. Trespassing on West African sovereignty and trampling over the human rights of vulnerable people obviously did not arouse the same level of concern.24

The “lost” Ebola blood samples scandal is a clear-cut example of bio-imperialism: the West’s extraction of biological material from Global South nations. Recovered microbes become the basis for formulating and manufacturing vaccines most countries in the Global South are unable to afford or reproduce. For a contemporary iteration of this practice, see the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union’s enormous COVID vaccine purchase and accumulation spree in 2021, while 130 poorer nations may not organize mass vaccine distributions until 2023. Pushing back against bio-colonialism is a risky business, although Indonesia’s refusal to hand over avian flu samples to Australian companies in 2007 is proof that protecting biological raw materials from predatory pharmaceutical corporations can be done. The WHO did create a framework designed to force vaccine manufacturers to hand over profits to countries from whence virus strains arose. Yet, the pandemic influenza preparedness framework only covers flus and does not prevent the wealthy North from pillaging the South. The Nagoya Protocol, a subsidiary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, is exceptional in that it seeks to enforce “the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising” from the use of genetic resources. However, as Maryn McKenna noted, the United States refuses to ratify the Convention and therefore the Protocol as well. Considering that former settler-imperial powers greatly fear demands for reparations will eventually encompass past environmental and biological crimes, the likelihood of more Nagoya-like legislation seeing the light of day anytime soon is slim. Power is correct to a degree. U.S. lab technology certainly did have an impact in West Africa: it facilitated the harvesting of blood samples and data without the consent of their owners—to the delight of paranoid biosecurity experts and insatiable corporations.25

One question still remains: What role did Power ultimately play in the Ebola drama? Her main contribution lies in corralling international support at the United Nations for Resolution 2177 on Ebola Relief. Judging from Power’s account of the build-up toward the resolution’s passing, it seems Tom Frieden and Liberian health worker Jackson Niamah deserve just as much credit, if not more, than Power. The former scared the living daylights out of every UN ambassador Power sent his way, the infamous “slide” of doom projecting over a 1.4 million infections and thousands dead if Ebola went unchecked. The latter’s vivid testimony at the UN Security Council relating Ebola’s rampage surely convinced the rest to pledge their support for the resolution. But credit where credit is due. Power had a hand in bringing UN Resolution 2177 on Ebola Relief to life. However, the bill also announced the unprecedented militarization and “securitization” of humanitarian responses to the Ebola epidemic. The virus granted U.S. Africa Command a cover to expand its presence in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and gave the United States free rein to interfere and intervene wherever it chose in the Global South. This is quite the feat for someone like Power, who claims in her memoir’s afterword to abhor the “militarization of U.S. foreign policy.”26

Overall, in light of the ETUs ineffectiveness, the superiority of China’s response, U.S. lab complicity in the unethical reaping of West African blood samples, and the weaponization of humanitarian aid in the name of “human security,” the U.S. response to Ebola feels less like the heroic feel-good, fist-pumping victory that Power claims it was, and more like another display of imperial grandstanding. From now on, perhaps the n should be removed from the “Ebola Obama line.”

Notes:
1.↩ “Timeline of Ebola Virus Disease Progress in West Africa,” in Lawrence O. Gostin and Eric A. Friedman, “A Retrospective and Prospective Analysis of the West African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic: Robust National Health Systems at the Foundation and an Empowered WHO at the Apex,” Lancet 385 (2015): 1902–09.
2.↩ “Remarks of President Barack Obama–State of the Union Address as Delivered,” White House, January 13, 2016.
3.↩ “Remarks of President Barack Obama.” Medical anthropologist Adia Benton from Northwestern University, Illinois, coined the term “the Obama line” to describe the official narrative regarding the U.S. response to Ebola in a Zoom discussion on August 19, 2021.
4.↩ Sabrina Siddiqui and Warren P. Strobel, “Joe Biden Points to Ebola Experience in Pitching Coronavirus Plan,” Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2020; Gabriel Debenedetti, “Obama’s Ebola Czar, Ron Klain, on How Trump Has Bungled the Coronavirus Response,” New York Intelligencer, March 12, 2020; Hari Sreenivasan, “Lessons Learned in the Battle Against Ebola,” PBS, April 12, 2020; Chloe Taylor, “Trump’s Coronavirus Response Is a ‘Denial’ of Science, Experts and Facts, John Kerry Says,” CNBC, June 10, 2020; Blake Hounshell, “What Ebola Taught Susan Rice About the Next Pandemic,” Politico, June 8, 2020; Samantha Power, The Education of an Idealist (London: Harper Collins, 2019), 456–57.
5.↩ Thomas D. Kirsch et al., “Impact of Intervention and the Incidence of Ebola Virus Disease in Liberia: Implications for Future Epidemics,” Oxford Journals Health and Police Plan 32, no. 2(2017): 205–14.
6.↩ Global health professor at the University of Iowa Sokheing Au, in an e-mail on August 9, 2021, stated: “No one knows precisely why the curve dived at the end of 2014, but it certainly had little to do with U.S. involvement.”
7.↩ Tom Engelhardt and Karen Greenberg, “Fighting the Last War: Will the War on Terror Be the Template for the Ebola Crisis?,” Tom Dispatch, October 21, 2014.
8.↩ Power. The Education of an Idealist, 437–38, 450–53.
9.↩ Power, The Education of an Idealist, 437–38, 452.
10.↩ Norimitsu Onishi, “Empty Ebola Clinics in Liberia Are Seen as Misstep in U.S. Relief Effort,” New York Times, April 11, 2015; Jennifer Widner, All Hands on Deck: The U.S. Response to West Africa’s Ebola Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University, 2018).
11.↩ Operation United Assistance: The DOD Response to Ebola in West Africa (Suffolk, VA: Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, 2016), 47–49, 99–100; Emma Ross, Gita Honwana Welch, and Philip Angelides, “Sierra Leone’s Response to the Ebola Outbreak: Management Strategies and Key Responder Experiences” (research paper, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2017). See Adam J. Kucharski et al., “Measuring the Impact of Ebola Control Measures in Sierra Leone,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 46 (2015): 14366–71.
12.↩ Christian Janke et al., “Beyond Ebola Treatment Units: Severe Infection Temporary Treatment Units as an Essential Element of Ebola Case Management During an Outbreak,” BMC Infectious Diseases 124, no. 17 (2017).
13.↩ Widner, All Hands on Deck, 26.
14.↩ Jennifer Lazuta, “Fate of Ebola Treatment Units Is Unclear,” Voice of America News, January 30, 2015; Jason Beaubien, “What Should Liberia Do with Its Empty Ebola Treatment Units,” NPR News, May 5, 2015; Power, The Education of an Idealist, 443, 453.
15.↩ Shunji Cui, “China in the Fight Against the Ebola Crisis: Human Security Perspectives,” in Human Security and Cross-Border Cooperation in East Asia, ed. Carolina G. Hernandez, Eun Mee Kim, Yoichi Mine, and Ren Xiao (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 155–80; Adia Benton, “Whose Security?: Militarisation and Securitisation During West Africa’s Ebola Outbreak,” in The Politics of Fear: Médecins sans Frontières and the West African Ebola Epidemic, ed. Michiel Hofman and Sokhieng Au (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 45.
16.↩ Cui, “China in the Fight Against the Ebola Crisis,” 161; Peilong Liu et al., “China’s Distinctive Engagement in Global Health,” Lancet 9945, no. 384 (2014): 793–804.
17.↩ Benton, “Whose Security?,” 30; Cui, “China in the Fight Against the Ebola Crisis,” 162–67.
18.↩ Michael Owens, “‘China 1 USA 0’: A Former Ebola Provider’s Explanation Why the United States Is Falling Behind in the Global Health Arena,” Military Medicine 181, no. 9 (2016): 951–52; Onishi, “Empty Ebola Clinics in Liberia Are Seen as Misstep in U.S. Relief Effort.”
19.↩ Lazuta, “Fate of Ebola Treatment Units Is Unclear”; Brian Castner and Cheryl Hatch, “Hearts, Minds, and Ebola: The U.S. Army Drops in on Liberia,” Vice, February 17, 2015; Heidi M. Soeters et al., “Infection Prevention and Control Training and Capacity Building During the Ebola Epidemic in Guinea,” Plos One 13, no. 2 (2018); Rupa Narra et al., “CDC Safety Training Course for Ebola Virus Disease Healthcare Workers,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 23, no.1 (2017): 217–24; Nicolas Bishop, “IOM Ebola Response: Training Expands Across Sierra Leone from Academy in Freetown,” International Organization for Migration News, March 17, 2015; Cui, “China In the Fight,” 167.
20.↩ Power, The Education of an Idealist, 450–53; Kirsch et al., “Impact of Intervention”; Emmanuel Freudenthal and Chloé Hecketsweiler, “Ebola: La science éprise de sang,” Le Monde, January 23, 2019; Emmanuel Freudenthal and Chloé Hecketsweiler, “Un virus qui intéresse les militaires,” Le Monde, January 23, 2019; Gwen Shuni D’Arcangelis, Bio-Imperialism: Disease, Terror, and the Construction of National Fragility (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020), 5.
21.↩ Benton spoke at length about the CDC’s alleged role in “processing” blood samples in Sierra Leone during a Zoom conversation on August 19, 2021.
22.↩ Maryn McKenna, “Colonialists Are Coming for Blood—Literally,” Wired, March 3, 2019.
23.↩ D’Arcangelis, Bio-Imperialism, 1.
24.↩ McKenna, “Colonialists Are Coming for Blood.”
25.↩ Akin Olla, “Welcome to the New Colonialism: Rich Countries Sitting on Surplus Vaccines,” Guardian, April 14, 2021; McKenna, “Colonialists Are Coming for Blood.”
26.↩ Jacob Levich, “The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 74, no. 4 (2015): 704–42; Power, The Education of an Idealist, 438–42, 551.

https://mronline.org/2022/01/29/the-oba ... -epidemic/

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Demonstrations Rage in Sudan to Demand Civilian Rule

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Anti-coup protesters, Sudan. | Photo: Twitter/ @ADFmagazine

Published 31 January 2022 (1 hours 24 minutes ago)

The protests took place despite a ban announced by the State's security committee on Saturday on gatherings in central Khartoum during the weekend.

On Sunday, thousands of protesters took to the streets in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum and other cities to demand civilian rule and urge the authorities to punish killers of protesters during demonstrations in recent weeks.

Protesters gathered in Khartoum's busiest bus station Sharwani, and marched toward the Republican Palace, but the security forces used tear gas to expel them.

Sudanese security forces closed major roads in central Khartoum and deployed military reinforcements around the army headquarters, as well as the routes leading to the presidential palace in Khartoum. The protests took place despite a ban announced by the State's security committee on Saturday on gatherings in central Khartoum during the weekend.

On the same day, the United Nations Integrated Transitional Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) urged the Sudanese authorities not to restrict peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.


For nearly two months, the Sudanese capital Khartoum and other cities have been rocked by regular mass protests demanding civilian rule, and dozens of protesters were killed in clashes with security forces.

Sudan has been suffering a political crisis after the general commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan declared a state of emergency on Oct. 25, 2021 and dissolved the Sovereign Council and the government.

Subsequently, at the beginning of the year, political and social organizations established the Sudanese for National Sovereignty to demand “the cessation of foreign interference in the Sudanese decision, against the backdrop of international and regional initiatives to resolve the crisis,” as reported by the East African.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Dem ... -0002.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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