Africa

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 30, 2022 2:37 pm

Image
A teacher writes on a blackboard at a PAIGC school in the liberated areas in the Guinean forests, 1974. Source: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974)

The PAIGC’s political education for liberation in Guinea-Bissau, 1963–74
By The Tricontinental (Posted Jul 27, 2022)

Originally published: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research on July 1, 2022 by Sónia Vaz Borges (more by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research) |

Whether in Cape Verde or anywhere else in the world, education is the fundamental basis that underpins the work of the emancipation of every human being and the conscientisation of mankind,1 not in relation to individual or class needs or conveniences, but in relation to the environment in which he lives, to the needs of the community, and to the problems of the humanity in general.… Today, education aims at the full realisation of man, without distinguishing race or origin, as a conscious and intelligent, useful, and progressive being, integrated into the world and his (geographic, economic, and social) environment, without any sort of submission. For this and because of this, the issue of education cannot be treated separately from the socioeconomic question.– Amílcar Cabral, 1951.2

The PAIGC’s Struggle for Liberation

Image
A child’s drawing made at a school in the liberated area of Candjambary, 1974. (Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

The liberation struggle against colonialism, if it is to be a total liberation struggle, is not only for the political conquest of territory (‘flag independence’); it is a struggle to liberate the people from the tentacles of colonialism. The liberation struggle is a social and political phenomenon that gains strength when colonised people organise themselves to reclaim their political and economic sovereignty and to dismantle and destroy the institutions that overpower their own sense of themselves and their capacity to control the fruits of their labour. The liberation struggle employs–at different times–a range of means to end colonial domination, from armed struggle to economic strikes to educational projects, programmes, and cultural resistance.

It was within this context of colonialism and oppression and through the process of becoming conscious of these structures that the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was created in September 1956. Founded by a group of anti-colonialist militantes (‘militants’) primarily from Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, A Geração Cabral (‘The Cabral Generation’)–named after the anti-colonial Bissau-Guineans leader Amílcar Cabral–emerged to lead the struggle for liberation from Portuguese colonialism.3

Born in Guinea-Bissau with an extensive diasporic network, the PAIGC emerged out of a long tradition of resistance in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Portugal. In a struggle that lasted from 1903 to 1936, the people of Guinea-Bissau revolted against the imposto de palhota (‘hut tax’), a property tax that was imposed on people’s homes and that, across colonial Africa, was used to force people into wage labour. In the case of the Cape Verdean Islands, a significant peasant uprising known as the Revolt of Ribeirão Manuel (1910) struck out against the deplorable conditions of subsistence in the countryside. In Lisbon, the political centre of Portuguese colonialism, discontent grew–particularly after the Second World War (1939–45)–amongst the more politically organised African students who had come from colonised territories to pursue university studies in Portugal. From the state-created Casa dos Estudantes do Império (‘House of the Students of the Empire’), African students created the Centro de Estudos Africanos (‘Centre of African Studies’). The political curiosity of African students found expression in clandestine study groups housed in the private home of the Espírito Santo family from São Tomé and Príncipe. Their home became a hub where critical political thought around national independence and liberation began to emerge amongst African students. Amílcar Cabral (1924–73), who was studying agronomy in Lisbon at the time, emerged from these experiences to lead struggles in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and became one of the most influential anti-colonial African liberation leaders. Inheriting the collective outcomes of these political and intellectual rebellions, young Africans discovered their generation’s mission: to fight for Africa’s independence from colonialism. Later, in a fictional narrative that laid out the path taken by these groups of young people and their desires for liberation, Angolan writer Pepetela would describe them as A Geração da Utopia or ‘The Generation of Utopia’.

In 1961, six years after the creation of the PAIGC and after several attempts to negotiate independence with the Portuguese colonial regime, the party officially began an armed liberation struggle in the name of total independence. Led from within the forest territories of Guinea-Bissau, the armed guerrilla struggle lasted from 23 January 1963 until April 1974. On 24 September 1973, challenging Portuguese colonial rule and international diplomacy, the PAIGC declared independence for Guinea-Bissau, though this was only officially recognised by the Portuguese government on 10 September 1974.

The objective of the PAIGC’s struggle was very clear: independence and liberation of two colonised territories, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, which were politically and culturally connected by the historical developments of colonialism. In order to achieve this, the PAIGC sought to:

1.Overthrow colonial institutions of oppression and exploitation, and
2.Create a project of national reconstruction to pursue the economic, political, and social liberation of the people. This project would fight against the toxic residues left by colonial structures in the bodies and minds of the people.

These objectives were further elaborated on in the Party’s Major Programme, which was made up of nine sections.4 The first section demanded the ‘total and unconditional national independence of the people of Guinea and the Cabo Verde Islands [and] the end of all colonialist or imperialistic relationships, … revision or revocation of all agreements, treaties, alliances, and concessions made by the Portuguese colonialist’. The second and third sections defended national ‘economic, political, social, and cultural unity’, emphasising the union between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde for the ‘construction of a strong and progressive African nation, on the basis of suitably consulted, popular will’. The fourth section complemented these last two by defending African unity. The fifth section focused on what kind of government to implement in the territories after independence, namely one that is ‘democratic, anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist’ and committed to the principle that all citizens would be equal ‘before the law, without distinction as to nationality or ethnic group, sex, social origin, cultural level, profession, position, wealth, religious beliefs, or philosophical conviction’. The sixth section focused on economic independence, a structured economy, and the development of production ‘governed by the principles of democratic socialism’; the seventh section on ‘justice and progress’ at the social, educational, and cultural levels; and the eighth section on national defence and how it was ‘linked to the people and directed by national citizens’. Finally, the ninth section explained how its international policy aimed to be developed ‘in the interest of the nation, of Africa, and of the peace and progress of humanity’.

To fulfil the objectives of the national liberation movement and to put into practice the programme and strategies designed for liberation, one had to be ready to face significant obstacles. The majority of the population was experiencing great levels of impoverishment and underdevelopment, exhibited in high infant mortality rates, cyclical famines, high percentages of illiteracy, a lack of public infrastructure and services, and underdeveloped to non-existent industrial sectors. In a speech given at a mass meeting in London, October 1971, Amílcar Cabral explained the dismal situation:

the lack of protein and many basic foods holds back the development of our people. In some regions, there has been an 80% infant mortality rate. Throughout the golden age of Portuguese colonialism, we had only two hospitals with a total of 300 beds in the whole country and only 18 doctors, 12 of them in Bissau.

As for schools, there were only 45 of them, and they were Catholic missionary schools, only teaching the catechism. There were 11 official schools for assimilado5 children. There were no secondary schools at all in [Guinea-Bissau] until 1959; now there is one. … There were only 2,000 children in schools throughout the country. And you can imagine the kind of teaching. It was a deliberate decision to prevent the development of our people, just as they did in Angola, Mozambique, and the other colonies.6

Image
A student at a PAIGC semi-boarding primary school in the Sárà region reviews the mathematics textbook for grade one, produced for the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) by Joachim Kindler and financed by the German Democratic Republic (DDR) under the International Solidarity Committee, 1974.
(Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

The path to liberation required leadership that lived by Cabral’s often quoted words: ‘Tell no lies … claim no easy victories’. As such, in the pursuit of national liberation, the PAIGC was faced with the task of creating anew the processes, structures, and spaces that could begin to attend to the material needs of the people and the needs of the political struggle. Investing in education became a fundamental pillar of the liberation struggle that was necessary at the levels of political, economic, cultural, and armed resistance. Combating illiteracy, fear, and ignorance, education would become the means through which African people could begin to reclaim and regain their voices and emerge as politically conscious and active members of society, both within their country and in the course of world history.

The PAIGC’s Education Project

The first party congress of the PAIGC, known as the Cassacá Congress, took place between 13–17 February 1964 in the southern liberated area of the Guinean forests. The ‘liberated areas’ or ‘liberated zones’ (terms often used interchangeably in the party writings) were the major territories under party control; here, Portuguese access or influence was very limited and virtually non-existent. By 1971, two-thirds of the country was governed by the PAIGC.7 In these territories, the party developed the beginnings of a revolutionary state that prioritised providing the inhabitants with people-centred basic services such as healthcare, judicial organs, education, and small commerce. These liberated areas played an essential political function in the liberation struggle.

A key outcome of the congress was the political and military reorganisation of the party, with important restructuring regarding:

*The reinforcement of popular power;
*The regulation of economic, administrative, judicial, educational, and social assistance activities in the liberated areas; and
*The creation of the Forças Armadas Revolucionárias do Povo (FARP, or ‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People’), which included the guerrilla groups, popular army, and popular militia.

Among the resolutions that came out of the congress was the need to enhance knowledge. This took place by creating schools, investing in the education of adults and youth, and encouraging individuals to invest in their own education for the betterment of party cadres. In the directives that Cabral wrote for the congress, he highlighted how, in order ‘to carry on the victorious development of our struggle’, the PAIGC would need to:

Set up schools and develop teaching in all the liberated areas. … Improve the work in the existing schools, avoid a very high number of pupils which might prejudice the advantage to all. Found schools but bear in mind the real potential at our disposal to avoid our having to later close some schools because of a lack of resources. … Constantly strengthen the political training of teachers… Set up courses to teach adults to read and write, whether they are combatants or elements of the population. … Little by little set up simple libraries in the liberated areas, lend others the books we possess, help others to learn to read a book, the newspaper and to understand what is read.8

The creation of a national consciousness about Portuguese colonialism and the need to struggle for national independence and reconstruction under the umbrella of a pluralistic but singular Guinean identity was a significant obstacle that the party had to face at the beginning of the struggle, in which the PAIGC’s education project played a key role.

Developing mobilisation campaigns to popularise the party directives from the Cassacá Congress became an important process for educating the general population as well as for training within the party’s organisational structures. Through the work of the comissário político (‘political commissar’), these campaigns became a significant activity for the party. Congress directives invited PAIGC militants to ‘give the widest possible distribution of the party newspaper, hold sessions for collective reading (in a group) and lead those who are reading into a discussion and into expressing views on what they have read’.9

Under the shade of mangrove trees, open sessions were held with the general population. The mobilisation campaign concentrated on dialoguing about the practical aspects of daily life under Portuguese colonial rule. In January 1969, during an interview recorded at the International Conference in Support of the Peoples of Portuguese Colonies and Southern Africa in Khartoum, Cabral shared the content of these conversations and the goals that they aimed to achieve:

Telling the people that ‘the land belongs to those who work on it’ was not enough to mobilise them, because we have more than enough land, there is all the land we need. We had to find appropriate formulae for mobilising our peasants, instead of using terms that our people could not yet understand. We could never mobilise our people simply on the basis of the struggle against colonialism–that has no effect. To speak of the fight against imperialism is not convincing enough.

Instead, we use a direct language that all can understand: ‘Why are you going to fight? What are you? What is your father? What has happened to your father up to now? What is the situation? Did you pay taxes? Did your father pay taxes? What have you seen from those taxes? How much do you get for your groundnuts? Have you thought about how much you will earn with your groundnuts? How much sweat has it cost your family? Which of you has been imprisoned? You are going to work on road-building: who gives you the tools? You are bringing the tools. Who provides your meals? You provide your meals. But who walks on the road? Who has a car? And your daughter who was raped–are you happy about that?’10

The meaning and impact of colonialism needed to resonate with people on the most personal level in their daily lives. The open sessions intended to raise the people’s consciousness about what was happening to them on their land and were crucial to the PAIGC mobilisation campaigns and the early development of political education, also known as ‘militant education’.11

Such conversations with the population and the broader investment in education contributed to the party’s larger aim to ‘combat, without violence, harmful practices, the negative aspects of the beliefs and traditions of our people… [and] all particularisms (separatist feeling) prejudicial to the unity of people, [and] all demonstrations of tribalism, of racial or religious discrimination’.12 The sessions not only contributed to raising and solidifying people’s consciousness about the struggle, but also to establishing administrative, political, judicial, economic, and social structures in the liberated areas. These structures and processes promoted a great shift in people’s lives and were crucial to reinforcing the political development of their consciousness. As Cabral noted in the congress directives:

Image
A student uses a microscope during a PAIGC medical consultation in a college in Campada, 1973.
(Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

The people struggle and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle, but in order to gain material advantages, to be able to live in peace, to see their lives progress, and to ensure their children’s future. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, working for peace and progress–independence–all these are empty words without meaning for the people unless they are translated into a real improvement in standards of living. It is useless to liberate an area if the people of that area are left without the basic necessities of life.13

PAIGC Schools in the Liberated Areas

Under the struggle’s watchwords ‘all those who know should teach those who don’t know’, the PAIGC developed two simultaneous educational projects, one for adults and another for youth. The underlying goals of developing education systems in the liberated areas were, in Cabral’s words, ‘to destroy, through our resistance, everything that makes our people like dogs – men or women – to let us advance, grow, and rise up, like flowers on our land, all that can make our people valued human beings’.14

Between 1963 and 1972, the PAIGC developed educational facilities for three groups: youth, adults, and military personnel. Educational initiatives for adults and military personnel had been carried out since the mobilisation work of the early years but were strengthened and institutionalised during this period through the creation of schooling and education infrastructure. Escolas de Tabanca (‘village schools’) and internatos (‘boarding schools’) were built in liberated areas ­– with the exception of two boarding schools that were located in neighbouring countries (Escola Piloto in the Republic of Guinea and Escola Teranga in the Republic of Senegal).

The PAIGC’s schools abroad were coordinated by Instituto Amizade (‘Friendship Institute’), created by the party in 1965, with permanent representative offices in Conakry and Dakar. The institute was non-political with ‘humanitarian purposes’, as its statutes describe, and worked in close collaboration with the education department of Guinea-Bissau’s liberated areas. It therefore functioned as a ‘sort of outline of a Ministry of Education’ within the party structure.15 The institute coordinated all aspects arising out of party directives, from running schools to developing curricula and materials to managing and distributing scholarships abroad. During the liberation struggle, the PAIGC was offered scholarships from countries such as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The institute was also responsible for organising and coordinating adult seminars, training cadres, educating social service workers such as schoolteachers, and tracking the rapid growth of school life during the liberation struggle.15

The core educational structures of the PAIGC were developed through broader mobilisation campaigns and educational processes for children and youth coordinated by the Friendship Institute. There was also a group of facilities for adults: Lar Sami in Ziguinchor and Lar de Dakar in the Republic of Senegal as well as Lar do Bonfim (also known as Lar de Conakry) in the Republic of Guinea.17 These were multifunctional centres that served as party representative offices for administrative and political functions, small hospitals and recovery centres for those injured as a result of the armed struggle, and educational spaces that provided literacy programmes and political education courses for those who were recovering from injuries. In 1966, the party created two other centres for the adult population and the military: the Centro de Reciclagem e Aperfeiçoamento de Professores (‘Centre for Improving and Retraining Teachers’) and the Centro de Instrução Política e Militar de Madina do Boé (‘Political and Military Instruction Centre of Madina do Boé’). In 1964–65, the PAIGC education system had 50 schools with 4,000 students total in the liberated areas; this increased to 127 schools with 13,361 students and 191 teachers by 1965–66 and to 159 schools with 14,386 students and 220 teachers by 1966–67.18 In a 1973 report about the development of the PAIGC education system between 1963–73, the total numbers of trained party cadres and students in the liberated zones were recorded as follows:

Today, the party has 164 primary schools in their liberated areas, where instruction is carried out by 258 teachers, serving a total of 14,531 students, of whom about a third are girls. … Today, in less than ten years, the PAIGC formed 36 university cadres and we have 46 cadres of higher technical training; 241 cadres of professional and specialised education; 174 trade union and policy cadres; and 410 healthcare cadres. In addition to those already formed, we have at this moment 422 students receiving middle and higher training abroad who will be joined by about 100 students this year.19

Image
A makeshift PAIGC school in the liberated areas built with leaves and branches, hidden under trees to avoid being spotted by aircrafts, 1974. (Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

In order to gain a fuller appreciation of the PAIGC’s education initiatives and achievements during the liberation struggle, it is necessary to study the approach that guided their political education and consciousness work, which reached beyond conventional childhood education and literacy programmes.

A Militant Approach to Education

Many African countries declared their independence in the second half of the twentieth century, led by their liberation movements and in interaction with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles around the world. The PAIGC, along with the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and others, was deeply influenced by communist and socialist ideologies. The adoption of the term militante or ‘militant’ to identify particular members of the party, for example, was drawn from the revolutionary frameworks of the PAIGC’s international contemporaries.

Submerged within the ideological, political, social, and armed movement, militants were characterised by their disciplined adherence to the liberation struggle and active engagement within the fight to achieve total independence from the Portuguese colonial government. In 1974, Samora Machel–a military commander, leader of FRELIMO, and socialist in the tradition of Marxism-Leninism–provided the following definition of militants and militancy:

The militant is he who lives the worries of the organisation and who, through the creative application of our line of thought in the detail of everyday life, becomes a model servant of the people for everyone, the builder of the new society. The task entrusted to him is carried out with the sense that its objective is to serve the people, and in receiving his mission from the people, he consecrates everything to them, including his own life.20

In the PAIGC’s liberation struggle, ‘militant’ was used as an umbrella term for all those who consciously participated in the struggle, whether they were combatants, commanders, political commissars, ‘responsible workers’,21 teachers, nurses, doctors, or civilians. The party considered the militant to be the key participant in the vanguard of the struggle, with the following considerations in mind:

a good militant (like a good citizen) is the one who does his duty properly. He is the one who, in addition to doing his duty, succeeds in improving himself each day so as to be able to do more and better. … [A]ll those in our land who are ready to put an end to Portuguese colonialism and ready to follow the party’s watchwords and to respect and carry out the orders of our party leadership – they are of the party. But tomorrow the party will mean only those who have exemplary moral conduct, as men and women worthy of our land. It will mean those who work and have work, for there can be no place for idlers in our party. It will mean those who dedicate themselves body and soul to the programme of our party in our land, ready to fight any enemy.22

During a seminar for PAIGC members held between 19–24 November 1969, Cabral explained how, in the ‘service of the liberty and the progress’ of the Guinean people, the militant should defend at all costs the advances being made in the liberation struggle.23 The militant should ‘live among the people, before the people, behind the people … [and] must work for the party in the certainty that they are working for the people in our land’.24

Becoming a PAIGC militant was considered a conscious act. As such, ‘some specific evidence that one satisfies certain requirements’ was to be given to the party leadership that exhibited knowledge about its programme and principles. The militant should also have been active in organisational work that sought to achieve the party’s objectives in practice.25

To achieve these goals, this militant vanguard, or what the PAIGC called the militante armado (‘armed militant’), also needed to be actively leading or engaged in political education about the struggle amongst adult civilians, party members, youth, and children. The militant vanguard needed to be the driving force behind politically educating those strategic groups that could be forged into political instruments for the liberation struggle and for national reconstruction after independence. The creation of such a vanguard, as Cabral outlined during the November 1969 sessions, should be ‘constantly more honed, more sharpened, more perfected, and our people must constantly embellish it’.26

It was in this context that the PAIGC developed their concept of educação militante (‘militant education’, also referred to as political education). This term was not used often in PAIGC archival documents until in 1978, when was the term adopted to characterise the education system developed during the struggle.27 The PAIGC’s conception and practical application of militant education were deeply influenced by the specific historic moment in which it emerged and shaped by a number of factors: African liberation struggles and their anti-colonial positions; pan-African movements and the African unity principle; the Cold War and socialist ideological blocs; the Non-Aligned Movement and international solidarity; the period of internal armed conflict in the Guinean territory; and the international human rights struggle of the liberation movement in the realm of the United Nations.

Militant education was a committed, engaged, and conscious anti-colonial educational process focused on an expansive concept of liberation ‘rooted and supported by the realities and necessities of the community’ and principles of decolonisation. Its ‘pedagogical role combined three aspects: political learning, technical training, and the shaping of individual and collective behaviours’.28 Through this education, students and citizens would be guided to develop themselves fully and encouraged to give conscious contributions to the sustainable development of the newly independent country. Militant or political education was applied to the training and formation of three groups: the militant teacher, the militant combatant, and the militant student.

The Militant Teacher

Militant teachers abandoned their daily lives to join the struggle; they came from the working class (artisans, service and urban industry workers, etc.), the peasantry (farmers and rural land-dwellers), and a few from the petty bourgeoisie (former primary school teachers, former government employees, and students). Their ages varied from 15 to 25 years old, and students recruited from Portuguese colonial schools to join the struggle were also trained to become PAIGC militant teachers.

For a militant teacher, one’s profession and work entailed more than preparing classes, teaching the set curricula, and grading students’ academic performance: militant teaching sought to transform behaviours and habits, overcome past experiences, rethink and produce new knowledge, and adapt to the changing world and the demands of the liberation struggle. In this way, becoming a militant teacher was to undergo two simultaneous processes: to decolonise the existing educational materials and to produce new school curricula and materials as part of the PAIGC’s broader educational work. In this way, the militant teacher was both a pedagogical resource and a mirror of the liberation struggle’s ideals. Until the publication of the first school manual in 1966, PAIGC teachers had to operate using colonial manuals and material. For example, teachers had a double task when using the Portuguese spelling manual: apart from fundamentals such as teaching the alphabet, it was also their work to critically interpret the message that the Portuguese books transmitted and reformulate it in a way that was more relevant to the students’ universe.29

However, for this to happen, the teachers themselves had to go through their own process of decolonisation to deconstruct and dismantle the colonial knowledge that was imposed on them by the Portuguese government. Although the party developed training courses for teachers which addressed themes such as pedagogy and the acquisition of pedagogical skills, the process of becoming a militant teacher was largely characterised by the teachers’ re-investment in and re-evaluation of their own education and knowledge. This often took place through early apprenticeships in the classroom together with their students.

Teachers in these schools found themselves in a position in which their knowledge, skills, and attitudes could work to create learning environments that encouraged critical thinking amongst students. The process of questioning, interrogating, and sparking curiosity not only built confidence in the students; it also transformed the teachers into agents of change. Although the militant teacher and militant combatant were engaged on different fronts in the struggle for independence and liberation, both were tasked not only with carrying out daily technical, logistical, and operational functions (such as contributing to running schools and participating in running military operations), but also with consciously training and politically educating the future generation that would lead the country to liberation and post-independence reconstruction. In this process, it was their responsibility to develop the pedagogical approaches and materials – as well as the emotional conditions–that would cultivate the principles and goals designed by the party.

The Militant Combatant

Inspired by the Cuban military training model, the Political and Military Instruction Centre of Madina do Boé was created in 1966 by PAIGC Commander Pedro Verona Pires, who had received military training in Cuba. Following the PAIGC’s directives, it was important for the party’s military to be conscious of the liberation struggle’s political strategies: the revolutionary armed forces could only wage an effective military campaign if they knew why the struggle was necessary and what the intended outcomes were. Political lessons about colonialism and the principles and goals of the liberation struggle were an integral part of their training.

Due to the high illiteracy rate in Guinea-Bissau, the instruction centre also promoted literacy classes for militant combatants. Teaching reading and writing skills was a crucial aspect in the military not only because it was necessary for engaging and comprehending party materials, but also because it was required for developing military logistics, preparing attacks, communicating between fronts and the party headquarters, and understanding military coordinates and technology.

As a continuation of this political and ideological mobilisation work and the education of civilians, the PAIGC created the Brigadas de Trabalho Político (‘Political Work Brigades’) in 1968, which were re-organised under the name Brigadas de Acção Política (‘Political Action Brigades’) in 1970. According to the Political Action Brigades’ 1971 statutes, their core functions were:

to strengthen the party’s political work… [and] to strengthen and develop the political consciousness of militants, combatants, and populations, [as well as] the explanation and popularisation of the party’s watchwords and other directives in all fields of our activity. … [The brigade] must have materials for the realisation of its function (party documents, newsletters, press releases, photographs, and other audiovisual media) that are provided by the party leadership. The brigade, like any other organism of the party’s political leadership, must live in the heart of the people.30

The Militant Student

It was under the slogan ‘Education, work, struggle’ and the salutation ‘long live the PAIGC, strength, light, and guide of our people in Guiné and Cape Verde!’ that the party started to train what it would consider to be ‘the best sons and daughters’ of the nation, namely militant students and students of the youth organisation Pioneiros do Partido (‘Party Pioneers’).31 In 1966, alongside the inauguration of the boarding school Escola Piloto in Conakry, the PAIGC created the Party Pioneers for students between the ages of 10 and 15 years old who had concluded their first year of primary education. As an ‘organisation of [the] vanguard’, it aimed to create spaces and processes that would produce militant students. According to its statutes, the Party Pioneers aimed to contribute to a quality education for children based on the principles of the party and to reinforce love for the Guinean and Cape Verdean people, dedication to the struggle, respect for the family and schools, and ‘fondness for justice, work, progress, and liberty’. Its goals and activities sought to make all of its members ‘worthy militants’ of the party and ‘conscious citizens’ capable of taking on the great responsibilities of national reconstruction in the future as well as the ‘uncompromising defence of the conquest of the revolution’.32

Image
PAIGC militant combatants use their resting time to learn to read and write, putting into practice one of the Party Watchwords to ‘demand from responsible workers of the Party that they devote themselves seriously to study … [and] constantly improve their knowledge, their culture, their political training … [and] constantly learn’, 1974. (Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

In addition to the work involved in being a good student, other tasks of the militant student included:

to discuss everything that concerns the struggle, school, and land. They should meet with parents, … leaders, officials, militants, fighters, foreign friends, and all those who are interested in the [Party] Pioneers’ work. They should organise sports competitions, drawing, games competitions, singing, handwork, etc., both with school students and with other pioneers.33

Transforming Pedagogical Materials and Curricula

Political education was obligatory in every front of the struggle and was one of the PAIGC’s highest priorities. As Cabral explained in a seminar to party members in November 1969:

It is necessary to struggle with political consciousness in one’s head. It is necessary that we be aware that it is the consciousness of a man that guides the gun, and not the gun that guides his consciousness. The gun counts because the man is behind it, grasping it. And it is worth more the more the consciousness of the man is worth [and] the more the man’s consciousness serves a well-defined, clear, and just cause.34

The PAIGC’s militant or political education was anti-colonial and African-centred in its objectives, aiming to dismantle the biased, hierarchical, and oppressive education system and practices inherited from Portuguese colonial education. It brought new knowledge and experiences of social life to school manuals and curricula, placing an emphasis on learning about the concrete realities of the African people, the historical processes that they were challenging at the time–that is, colonialism–and the violent and structural relations that emerged from its practices.

Equally as important was the special emphasis placed on learning and teaching strategies of resistance against colonial practices. The experiences of African people, their past, their present, and their future had to be at the heart of this new education. The school curricula needed to grapple with and be shaped by the forms of knowledge that existed in local communities. With these new approaches to knowledge, the PAIGC intended to cultivate in the learners a personal sense of obligation to themselves, their peers, and their communities. As early as 1949, Cabral advocated for knowledge production to focus on the existing African realities through his research experiences of the agricultural conditions in Portugal and its African territories.35 He argued that one of the best ways to defend the land lay in learning and understanding how to use the soil sustainably and consciously improve the benefits we reap from it.36 To know and understand the land was a form of defending the people and their right to better their living conditions.

The curricula developed for the education of the militant student was comprised of several subjects, from mathematics to Portuguese language learning, gymnastics, art, geography, science, theatre, and music. Between 1966 and 1974, the PAIGC developed four school manuals for the first to the fourth grade and four manuals for the fifth and sixth grade. These included one manual on general African history, one on the history of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, another on political lessons, and, finally, a translation of A Short History of Pre-Capitalist Society (the first volume of a two-volume study written by D. Mitropolsky, Y. Zubritsky, V. Kerov, and others in 1965 at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow, USSR). PAIGC school manuals were created collectively by teachers and other militants and printed in Uppsala, Sweden by the printing house Wretmans Boktryckeri. Cabral’s transcribed speeches and writings were also used as teaching materials.

In addition, the party developed a range of media, including newspapers such as Jornal Libertação (‘Liberation Journal’) and the international French-language PAIGC Actualités (‘PAIGC News’) and a youth magazine, Blufo –­Órgão dos Pioneiros do PAIGC (‘Blufo: Organ of the PAIGC Pioneers’),37 which was also widely read by adults. In addition, the party founded the Rádio Libertação (‘Liberation Radio’), which broadcasted daily news about the struggle and contributed to the PAIGC’s adult education programme.

Curricula for Children and Youth

Strongly inspired by the party’s political and ideological orientation and influenced by global circumstances at the time, the PAIGC curriculum for children and youth was divided into two phases: from first to second grade and from third to fifth grade, each with a different scope. Political education for the first and second grade was dedicated to the history of the liberation struggle. Here, themes such as the creation of the PAIGC and its structure and organisations, heroes and heroines, and goals and programme were central. Teaching about the liberation struggle would in turn require discussing colonialism, oppression, exploitation in general, and Portuguese colonialism in particular.

Political education for the third to fifth grade was more comprehensive than the curricula for the first and second grade and centred on the liberation struggle’s dedication to internationalism. The PAIGC taught about similar struggles on the African continent, such as the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO); the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP); the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA); and the Conference of Nationalist Organisations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP), an organisation for cooperation between the national liberation movements of the African territories colonised by the Portuguese. Such national struggles were explored in relation to other international issues, including:

*Diplomatic struggles such as fighting for international recognition of the colonial occupation of their territories by the Portuguese.
*Gender struggles aiming to advance the rights of women and children in a context in which feudal and colonial patriarchal domination were interlaced (which PAIGC leaders like Carmen Pereira referred to as ‘two colonialisms’).
*Historical struggles elsewhere such as the socialist revolution in Russia in October 1917 and the labour movement in Africa.
*Class struggle highlighting the connection between the PAIGC, trade unions such as the National Union of Guinean Workers, and the international working class.
*Racism, freedom, progress, national reconstruction, and African history (including the slave trade and the great empires that predated colonisation).

Writing school texts was central for transmitting the ideas defined in the school curriculum and for assisting teachers in transmitting dense information to school students in an accessible and interesting way. One way of doing this was to transform the liberation struggle of daily life, politics, and ideology into short stories and fables that explored human and militant civic behaviours and complemented the political or militant components of the curricula.

For the first and second grades, the teachers who were entrusted to create school manuals developed a broad range of lesson plans. In the curricula for the first to the fourth grade, political and ideological themes were adapted to school texts, intertwining concrete learning outcomes with texts that directly expressed the objectives of the liberation struggle, including the following titles:

*The Major Programme of Our Party, which introduced the party principles to first grade students.
*The Great Patriot, which addressed the theme of the militant combatant to second grade students.
*The Past of Our People and Centuries of Pain and Hope, concerning the history of Portuguese colonialism for third grade students.
*The Poem of a Militant and The Objectives of Our Struggle, which shared the core goals of liberation for fourth grade students.

Unlike past materials that represented far-flung scenes of colonial Portugal, these new materials and learning processes were embedded with the geography, social life, and organisation of the territories where the struggle for liberation was taking place. Now one could find texts with titles such as Life in the Tabanca (‘village’) and The Professions, the latter of which revealed the local social structure and organisation. There was also a dedicated focus on scientific explanations of the natural world. Lessons addressed the marvels of nature such as oceans and the richness of botanical life. The goal was to demystify natural phenomena while taking care not to put into question the students’ religious beliefs. Another important theme explored was how to use natural resources for the country’s development in a sustainable manner.

However, PAIGC school programmes and texts did not always achieve the goals for education, particularly in school manuals from first to third grade. The great emphasis on celebrating the contemporary struggle, battles, and heroes of the PAIGC left topics on African culture and history almost unexplored in the school manuals.

Curricula for Adult Political Education

Adult political education at the Political and Military Instruction Centre of Madina do Boé followed the same topics as youth education but with a deeper analysis. The centre’s instruction curriculum, Programa para a formação do soldado FARP (‘Training Programme for the FARP Soldier’), consisted of 180 hours of classes during a thirty-day period, of which 60 hours were dedicated to ‘political preparation’.

The political education curriculum for adults was divided into five sections. The first section was dedicated to history and geography, addressing themes such as ‘the exploitation of our people by the Portuguese colonial government’, as well as its consequences; ‘the distinction between Portuguese colonialism and the Portuguese people’; and ‘oppression’.38 It was an important part of the PAIGC’s politics to clarify that they were fighting an oppressive colonial structure–not its people. This made two issues very clear: first, that fighting people did not necessarily result in the elimination of the colonial structure and, second, that the Portuguese people were also victims of the oppression perpetrated by an authoritarian regime.

The second section of the curriculum was dedicated to the PAIGC’s history and ideology, which more or less followed the same lines that were implemented in the curriculum for school children. However, greater focus and detail were given to the PAIGC’s history, especially concerning its early mobilisations and the beginning of the armed struggle and its development, difficulties, and reality at the time. Discussions also focused on the party programme and principles as well as some of the struggle’s weaknesses. Here, socialist and Leninist concepts such as criticism, self-criticism, democratic centralism, and revolutionary democracy were expounded upon in greater detail, shedding light on the political influences that the party received from other ideologies and how it intended to adapt them to the Guinean context.

The third section of the curriculum was dedicated to international issues. The purpose here was to contextualise the PAIGC’s liberation struggle in the broader context of struggles that were happening around the world and to establish the connections between them. This aimed to highlight international themes such as the contemporary liberation struggle and decolonisation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; the Cold War; imperialism; and anti-colonial organisations around the world. Discussions of topics such as imperialism, socialism, the ‘Third World’, and the liberation struggle against imperialism were central.

The fourth section focused on the sociological and ethnographic character of Guinea-Bissau in the present and future. Here, they covered topics such as religion, ethnicity, and racism, as well as the economy, organisational work, development, and planning methods. Religion needed to be confronted given its dominant role in social life and given that there was a concern that the strong influence of religious leaders could jeopardise the development of the struggle.

Image
The daily schedule at a semi-boarding primary school in the Sárà region that seeks ‘to improve the services’ of the school, which is to be ‘strictly adhered to … [but] changed if required by the circumstances’, 1974. (Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

The last section of the programme was focused on the training and civic behaviour of the militant armed forces. This included gender equality and the expectation that combatants behave with discipline and comradery both amongst each other and with civilians.

Education, Revolution, and Resistance

The PAIGC’s liberation struggle and political education were not just ideals. They were a continuous process of reflection, organisation, and action that sought to develop a militant, anti-colonial, and decolonial consciousness in the minds and bodies of the people of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Despite the fact that this iteration of the PAIGC’s political education system existed only for a brief period (1963–74) and within a small territory, it remains an important part of the larger liberation struggle. The study of the PAIGC’s educational practices during its liberation struggle forces us to leave the realm of the theoretical and engage with the concrete historical processes that unfolded. Delving into the material realm of how the struggle’s ideals were put into practice in daily life and how they were transmitted to future generations pays homage to the revolutionary principles that guided the liberation struggle.

Early in the struggle, the party and its militants understood the crucial role and power of education to fulfil the goals of the liberation struggle. This led them to put into practice revolutionary ideals and initiatives such as:

*Creating schools across the liberated zones for youth, adults, and combatants. In addition to teaching, reading, and writing, the schools emphasised the development of education curricula based on the realities of the people and their struggle.
*Carrying out mobilisation campaigns to educate and raise the political consciousness of the population.
*Establishing political education as central in the process of national liberation and basing education in anti-colonial and decolonial practices.
*Developing school curricula and materials that reflected the reality of Africa in relation to other international struggles with the aim of pursuing the goals of total liberation.
*Valuing the importance of teachers’ work, their role in the vanguard of the struggle, and their responsibility to the country’s advancement.
*Establishing international networks for educational support. This included countries such as Cuba, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the USSR, Romania, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, where students could continue their technical and higher education studies as well as cadre training.
*Producing and publishing media via their own platforms and channels for communication (newspapers, magazines, and radio), which functioned as additional educational material throughout the liberation struggle.

Together, political education and the revolutionary process became crucial for producing political consciousness and facilitating the struggle that led to national liberation. Political education was the most important way to keep the party’s ideology alive and the only way to solidify the roots of independence required to imagine and create the future. Ideology, education, and conscious politicisation worked together in the PAIGC’s political education process in a way that allows us to see the liberation struggle as both a political process and an educational praxis.

Image
Students inside of a PAIGC classroom in a primary school in the liberated areas, 1974. (Photo: Roel Coutinho, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal Photographs (1973–1974))

The PAIGC’s experience of building schools in the forest, their pioneering form of political education, their development of emancipatory curricula specific to their context, and their establishment of international networks supporting this education process are both our legacy and inspiration. They are processes from which we must learn and advance as we envision and enact our struggles today.

https://mronline.org/2022/07/27/the-pai ... u-1963-74/

Bibliography and Notes at link.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 01, 2022 2:22 pm

Africa, China, and US Imperialism
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 30, 2022

Image

This important essay by US scholar Joel Wendland-Liu, originally published on the CPUSA website, provides a serious and detailed comparison of the US-Africa relationship and the China-Africa relationship. Referencing numerous recent studies indicating that Africans – and particularly younger Africans – have a more favorable opinion of China than of the US, the author contrasts the West’s record of military, economic and political coercion on the continent with China’s record of extensive, mutually-beneficial cooperation.

Wendland-Liu notes that China’s loans and investment terms are consistently more favorable than those of the US, and that China’s interest rates are lower and repayment terms more flexible. Most importantly, Chinese financing does not come with strings attached, and investment is not linked to an undermining of African sovereignty – as is the case with the Western financial institutions. Meanwhile, it is the US and its allies that are engaged in assorted and escalating military projects in Africa, in particular via AFRICOM.

The assorted (and unsubstantiated) claims about Chinese “debt traps” and imperialistic behavior in Africa, generated by the Western ruling class media but unfortunately parroted by sections of the left, serve to demonize China and to distract attention from the West’s very real ongoing imperialist objectives on the continent. As such, it is crucial that these myths be comprehensively exposed.

– Friends of Socialist China


The U.S. government has become obsessed with Africa. Not with fostering its strength, independence, health, or economic development, mind you. Instead, it is worried about why Africans don’t like us much. Recent polling in 29 African countries shows that African youth hold more favorable opinions of China than of the U.S. More than eight in 10 respondents see China’s influence in their country as both more prominent than that of the U.S. and more positive. Upbeat views of China are nearly unanimous in Nigeria, Malawi, and Uganda.

Separate data reveals that since 2015 the number of African students from English-speaking countries who gained admission to Chinese universities surpassed that of those who attend universities in the U.K. and the U.S.

This data shows a considerable shift in African perceptions of China, to the detriment of the dominant neocolonial powers.

After four centuries of the European/American slave trade, colonialism, and neocolonialism, followed by decades of neglect, the U.S. government in 2021 called Africa “the southern flank” of NATO. Large chunks of the massive annual $800 billion military budget fund the complex of military installations, intelligence networks, and interventionist political projects called AFRICOM.

In Political Affairs 15 years ago, Gerald Horne noted the U.S. government’s growing concern about China’s deepening relations with African countries. At the time, the Bush administration expressed frustration that they could not disrupt that relationship. They predicted that if China were allowed to continue in that manner, U.S. imperialist hegemony would wane. Time has proven this forecast correct.

This transformation in the global state of affairs has resulted from the rise of China, the developing independence of Global South countries, and a related decline of U.S. hegemony.

End AFRICOM

Given the diminishing U.S. ability to compete economically, it intends to create a position of force against African countries. By linking NATO and AFRICOM in a global military alliance against China, it plans to ratchet up dangerous U.S. interventions in that part of the world.

The U.S. sees Africa through a narrow, racist lens: a site of struggle for Western imperialist domination. Today’s Western interventions in Africa — historically rooted in the European slave trade, colonialism, and neocolonialism — “must be seen through a dependency perspective.” W. Alphaeus Hunton, in his groundbreaking study Decision in Africa, detailed the historical continuity between European colonialism and U.S.-led neocolonialism in Africa.

He showed that Western loans and foreign direct investment in Africa functioned primarily to 1) extract wealth (minerals, energy, and agricultural products); 2) bring this wealth to seaports in raw form for export to metropoles; 3) maintain comprador relations with state political forces; and 4) ensure internal security of the Western imperialist project. Those forms remain unchanged. The side-effects produced sharper inequalities, provided little traction for anti-poverty initiatives, negated autonomous capacity for development, and reduced political sovereignty.

Western-derived loans, grants, aid, or foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries have streamed toward dominant classes sympathetic to Western goals. Western-originated lending and investment favor the wealthiest, least financially risky sites. This situation produces an “excessive concentration of economic activity” around already successful, powerful actors. Those lending practices exclude those classes and sectors that need the most direct stimulation.

New plans for infrastructure projects projected as part of the Build Back a Better World initiative, which the Biden administration plans to help rebuild U.S. control over Africa, will no doubt function similarly.

The U.S. government has never tried to promote equal relations between itself and African countries. It cares little for that continent’s human rights issues, democracy, or economic development, except insofar as it can use these issues to impose its will.

What is development?

In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney defined truly free national development in these terms:

higher levels of economic and political equality within a country
the complexity of production (raw to finished outputs) controlled by entities belonging to the nation (preferably public entities)
the capacity for autonomously produced technical and creative capacity
complex, necessary, and productive social services
the ability to center a planned concept of improved people’s well-being.
Sovereign control, rather than dependence on an outside entity, such as a foreign-owned corporation, a Washington-dominated financial apparatus, or a cadre of political operatives under the direction of a foreign government, was Rodney’s key ingredient. Historically, this has never been the goal of the U.S.

Today is no different. A top U.S. military official admitted as much in a 2020 congressional hearing. AFRICOM’s commander warned that China’s growing influence undermined U.S. domination. Without a sense of irony, he labeled China’s increasing role in African economic development as “coercive and exploitative activities.”

His language, repeated on cue in the U.S. media, distorts China’s actual role in Africa, cynically and falsely portraying it as a U.S. enemy.

Unfortunately, this official Western/imperialist view of China-Africa relations has also seeped into radical circles. It is commonplace for some U.S. and U.K. leftists to denounce China as imperialist. In so doing, they display little knowledge of the precise relationships it has tried to develop with African countries.

What is the situation?

There is little space here to explore and document Africa’s full diversity and complexity, with 54 countries and 1.2 billion people, more than 1,000 languages, dozens of traditional and modern religious orientations, 3,000 ethnic groups, varied ecosystems, diverse political orientations, and complex histories. Still, the following data opens a tiny window into the developing China-Africa paradigm.

African agriculture makes up about one-third of the continent’s total GDP, employing about 60% of the African workforce. Even to this extent, African countries have not yet reached the continent’s “full potential in agriculture.” Researchers show that Chinese policymakers are carefully attending to the necessity of building on the agricultural sectoral as a base for “structural development economics.”

Forty-nine countries have established financial relations with China through loans and grants for seaport construction or expansion, hydroelectric dams, standard gauge railways, highways, roads, bridges, technical training facilities, medical support, and agricultural projects. Why infrastructure? One estimate shows that current infrastructure conditions restrain growth throughout Africa by at least 1% of annual GDP growth rates.

Between 2002 and 2012, China earned high praise from humanitarian watchers for delivering loans and grants with few political strings, regular low-interest rates, and generous repayment conditions. After the 2008 recession, the Chinese government canceled 168 African debts to enable a return to economic growth on the continent.

Since 2013, with the establishment of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), some growth in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) — separate from government-backed loans or grants—spurred the development of the number of Chinese-owned and operated businesses in Africa. Today, about 10,000 Chinese businesses operate in African countries, with at least 1 million Chinese citizens living on the continent.

Chinese-African trade totaled $200 billion in 2015, and China has become the continent’s single largest trading partner.

Chinese investments in infrastructure, FDI in the development of African energy and mining sectors, and material aid in the form of hundreds of medical and educational missions are premised on mutual benefit. In other words, the Chinese government regards international relations as a vehicle for stable political relations and trade.

On the one hand, trade provides each side with various products, labor resources, and earnings for private and public enterprises. On the other, they create new opportunities for technical and cultural development and the transfer of modernized agricultural and industrial capacity from China to African countries.

Up to 2019, Chinese investments in Africa drove an average 4% GDP growth rate. Only halted by the pandemic, average growth fell to 1.4% in 2021, mirroring global trends.

“Debt trap” or “African agency”?

The mutual benefit idea causes some Westerners to be suspicious of China’s lack of pure altruism. U.S. officials and media pundits have incorrectly claimed that China aims to manipulate African countries. Some call it a “debt trap”; others warn of new imperialism.

A recent analysis of the realities, however, has noted that “the inclination to characterize Africa’s debt crisis as Chinese-designed is deepening global political and financial tensions.” Blaming China hides the reality. African countries have been able to pay off about 75% of Chinese-held debt since 2000. Accusations that China is driving African debts (the overwhelming majority of which is held by non-Chinese actors) are “clearly hyperbolic.”

Still, African debt to China totals $143 billion, or about 15% of the continent’s indebtedness.
(By comparison, China holds slightly more than $1 trillion of U.S debt.) While some researchers describe the situation as “disquieting,” it isn’t clear for whom this situation is so disturbing. Suddenly, many who have never uttered similar fears of U.S. or European dominance (often brutal) are concerned about African sovereignty.

Since the 1940s, the U.S. has controlled global indebtedness to manage the domestic policies of other countries. When U.S-dominated institutions couldn’t impose their will, they often withheld aid, imposed sanctions, or directly intervened with military force or other forms of power.

In the 1990s, World Bank–ordered structural adjustment programs (SAPs) favored the consolidation of massive monopoly landholdings and large-scale capital through privatization, freezing small farmers out of agricultural markets, deepening inequality, and providing zero relief for poverty. Indeed, a prominent (intentional) feature of most SAPs was proletarianization, loss of traditional land holdings, and internal social upheavals.

In contrast, researchers found that China doesn’t “seize assets” or force privatization. It doesn’t demand international arbitration for defaults. Instead, it generously offers occasional cancellation but most often negotiates loan restructuring and refinancing. This approach allows borrowing countries to retain ownership of resources and enterprises and complete needed infrastructure projects.

Recent research on East African dynamics provides a detailed example. Many East African countries have taken advantage of Chinese-originated loans, which are accompanied by a hands-off policy, generous repayment schemes, and restructuring processes. The impacts of two major Chinese-backed infrastructure projects in East Africa (a regional energy pipeline and a standard gauge railway system) show concrete positive outcomes. Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Rwanda have been the direct beneficiaries.

The full impact of these two infrastructure projects is yet to be fully realized, but they are expected to increase international trade in that region by five times.

In addition, these two projects aided the East African Community’s (EAC) resuscitation. Crushed by international intervention and political unrest almost two decades ago, a revived EAC provides those countries with international venues for settling political and economic disputes and developing cooperative approaches to development, rather than military intervention and other hostilities.

Completing those two significant projects required building hundreds of additional roads, bridges, electrification projects, and other physical structures that promote “economic connectivity.” Similar infrastructure projects in Congo, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mozambique, Angola, Chad, Cameroon, and Ethiopia produced similar results. Managed by Chinese state–owned enterprises (SOEs) operating on smaller profit margins than Western firms, those projects hired more local workers and supervisors than Western firms, successfully committed to schedules and projected costs better than Western firms, produced high-quality outcomes, and supported the transfer of technology and human capacity.

A third outcome, which is more difficult to quantify, is related to the issue of sovereignty. Between 2002 and the present, researchers have found that “African agency” has increased. In the China-Africa paradigm, countries have more room to make autonomous decisions. They have decided where infrastructure projects will be located and created new levels of cooperative relations with once rival, even hostile, nations. The China-Africa paradigm has opened new space for East African countries to secure their national interests.

African countries generally can use their elevated status in the China-Africa dynamic to secure better financial arrangements and shape the nature of Chinese investments. For example, researchers recommend that African countries negotiate for investments in building solar-power facilities (production and usage), make permanent medical facilities and universities (rather than simply missions), and enhance Chinese-African ties through enhanced technical and cultural training for African international students in China itself. African countries use vehicles such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to accomplish these tasks.

What is “structural development economics”?

SDE is a concept coined by economist Justin Yifu Lin. Beijing-based Lin co-authored a study of the idea with Boston-based scholar Yan Wang titled Going Beyond Aid: Development Cooperation for Structural Transformation.

Their research is premised on the significant historical-geographical shifts in economic development. From Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries to North America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then to East Asia in the post-World War II era, Lin and Wang follow the trajectory of the most dynamic cases of development over the past three-plus centuries.

Important developmental pillars were planned and created in each situation: 1) a solid agricultural base, 2) an expanding infrastructure, 3) the transfer of modern agricultural and industrial capacity, and 4) attention to growing the technical and cultural capacity of the workforce (more so after the 19th-century interest in public education institutions).

In European and North American capitalist development, the European slave trade and the expropriation of Indigenous lands in the Americas were the foundation of the first two pillars. The Chinese concept of “structural development economics” sidesteps violent and genocidal primitive accumulation in favor of a people-centered political philosophy.

Lin and Wang say states and international institutions can achieve this through planning and deploying dynamic development processes in new places without imperialist goals or outcomes. State-led public-private partnerships can design infrastructure projects that uplift the unique resource advantages of a particular geographical space. These could be energy, mineral, or agricultural resources that establish a base for international trade and capital for industrial development. Industrialization is sparked by a shift in manufacturing centers from highly developed (China) to less developed countries.

In contrast with Western corporate outsourcing, the industrial offshoring in the SDE package is accompanied by improvements in technical capacity and labor development in the receiving country.

Western capitalist offshoring cared little for the social conditions of the receiving communities or the communities from which they moved. In U.S. contexts, capital flight was accompanied by neoliberal policies of diminishing social services. Motivated by a declining rate of profit, capitalists expected displaced U.S. workers to accept low-paid, nonunionized service-sector jobs. This structural de-development resulted in a massive erosion of public resources and living conditions in “rustbelt” centers.

In receiving countries, capitalist enterprises demanded government policies that eroded worker, ecological, and social welfare protections. They expected to profit from an even lower-paid workforce starving for job opportunities. Investments in offshore sites tend to remain isolated from the larger social development of the country in which those investments are made, producing limited structural transformation or only isolated pockets that promote more profound internal inequalities.

Africa in a new direction

Chinese policymakers see Africa as the next site of a major world-historic economic development.

Like the East African example, Chinese-backed infrastructure projects supported manufacturing investments in Mauritius, Tanzania, and Ghana in the early 2000s. These were followed by technology transfers, technical training, and educational programs, and by 2018 had resulted in “structural transformations in the industrial sector” in those countries.

Electrification projects in several countries such as DR Congo, Ghana, and other sub-Saharan African countries, along with considerable successes in railway projects in East Africa and Angola, are moving the needle on the relation between poor infrastructure and low growth rates. Thus, while much still has to be done, much has already been accomplished.

Structural transformation through infrastructure, economic connectivity, and industrialization (combined with technology transfers and human capacity improvements) within the China-Africa paradigm strongly contrasts with Western patterns. Instead of mining and petroleum extraction for export as raw resources, Chinese state–owned enterprises work with state-owned and private enterprises in African countries to manufacture finished goods. The research frequently discusses Chinese loans for jointly operated steelworks and cement works in Zimbabwe; Niger’s gas-producing oil refineries that produce for local consumption; oil refineries, cement makers, and telecoms in Chad; oil extraction and hydropower projects in the Republic of Congo; hydropower facilities and telecoms in Cameroon; and textile manufacturing centers in Benin and Tanzania. Such activities require technology transfers, training, high levels of local employment, and more complex local marketplaces.

One study of Chinese projects in developing countries concluded that infrastructure projects effectively oversaw significant spatial diffusion of economic activity to “reduce economic inequality within and between subnational localities.” Instead of injecting resources into isolated pockets of already successful enterprises, Chinese-originated resources diffuse to a larger scale of smaller enterprises that can then use newly built infrastructure to connect with local, national, regional, and international marketplaces.

Fears about “debt traps” can be alleviated if even more “connective” infrastructure is built that further erode the town-country contradiction and the isolating framework of Western-style aid. This model of structural development economics can work only if political nonintervention is prioritized. The diffusive benefit is restricted as soon as the lending entity decides who is most worthy to receive its aid.

Conclusions and directions

Structural development economics offers positive steps in a new direction that more closely meets the basic tenets of Rodney’s definitions of people-centered development. Autonomous political and economic decision-making, broader social and economic development that aims for equality within and between countries and regions, and enhanced technical and cultural development are key promises of that paradigm.

A realistic assessment of the overall record reveals more successes than failures. The most significant risk to success for the China-Africa independent development project lies with the dangers of U.S. imperialism. By conflating Africa with U.S. imperialism, U.S. officials are threatening to open numerous proxy wars on that continent via renewed military occupations, political interventions, and economic sanctions regimes that could derail the China-Africa paradigm and return the continent to some of the worst depredations of the neocolonial era.

The struggle to end expanding U.S. military involvement in Africa and to challenge distorted and hypocritical U.S. propaganda about the China-Africa paradigm is vital to derailing that imperialist agenda. Structural development economics allows developing countries to establish the foundations for social, political, economic, and cultural autonomy denied under neocolonialism and neo-imperialism.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/07/ ... perialism/

France is Rapidly Losing Influence in Africa
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 30, 2022
Vladimir Danilov

Image

France has never taken into account the interests of the African nations, and now, as a result of its aggressive neo-colonial policies, this former imperial power is seeing a rapid decline in its influence not only in its former colonies but across the continent. In fact, France is increasingly being viewed both in these countries and in the continent as a whole as a destabilizing force, and scandals involving French citizens and organizations continue to inflame anti-French sentiments.

For example, on June 29 LaProvence reported that preliminary investigations have begun into offences committed by Sucrerie Centrafricaine (SUCAF), a subsidiary of the major French drinks holding Castel. SUCAF is accused of having, for many years, funded militants from Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), a radical group which has destabilized the Central African Republic and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in that country. According to a report by the Sentry, an NGO, SUCAF’s management concluded illegal agreements with criminals who were paid to provide fuel and vehicles to “protect” SUCAF’s factories and cane plantations. SUCAF has also been accused on a number of occasions with running unofficial customs schemes which have allowed Paris to illegally transfer some $256,000 out of the CAR in the last six years. When presented with incontrovertible proof of their activities, representatives of Castel accepted liability on behalf of their company and agreed that it would cooperate with the investigators.

It is clear from the results of the investigation that France is prepared to apply any methods, including working with bandits and thieves, in order to retain its hold over Africa. There can now be little doubt as to the true goals of France’s Operation Barkhane, which since 2013 has been trying to preserve France’s hold over the region without providing any real help to the local population in their fight against terrorism.

The Central African newspaper Le Potentiel Centrafricain recently claimed that Paris’s influence in the country has greatly declined over the last few years as a result of its ill-considered foreign policy. This decline is evident in both the economic and the diplomatic spheres, and Africans are also unhappy with Paris’s activities in other areas. In fact, France is quite unnecessarily plunging the countries where it has activities into a state of chaos. 90% of the CAR’s population now have a strongly negative attitude to France, which is scarcely surprising as they can see how that country is continuing to impose neo-colonial policies on their nation and trying to gain access to its valuable natural resources.

Even the French media noted that “Paris’ failures in Africa are the result of France’s extreme arrogance, a purely neo-colonial mentality and blatantly predatory aims towards African states.” This view is shared by numerous African media outlets and has been expressed in speeches on France’s actions by politicians from the CAR, Mali, Burkina Faso and many other African countries. As a result the African countries’ relations with France have been deteriorating over recent years, and they are cutting ties with their former colonial master and have little wish to find themselves once more under its control.

One clear demonstration of the current trend occurred at the end of June this year, when two former French colonies, Gabon and Togo, were admitted to the British Commonwealth. They were the latest countries lacking any historical links to Britain to have joined that group of English-speaking nations which is headed by Queen Elizabeth II. Observers see the decision by Gabon and Togo to join the Commonwealth as a clear rejection of French influence. According to the Togolese political pundit Mohamed Madi Djabakate, his country’s decision is partly due to its economic woes, for which it blames France’s influence. “Togo joining the Commonwealth is better for many people than sharing the French language and culture, which at the end of the day has not promoted development,” he said in an interview with the French news agency AFP.

Some years before Togo and Gabon, another African state, Rwanda, had joined the Commonwealth, becoming its 54th member. It was also motivated by a combination of political, economic and diplomatic considerations and a desire to spread its wings. It also adopted English, rather than French, as its main (European) official language.

The processes described above demonstrate, among other things, that more and more African countries are coming to understand that partnerships with France can only lead to poverty and bloodshed. As is clear from many recent media reports in Mali, the CAR and other francophone countries, Africans tend to blame France for never having taken any interest in their fight against radical movements, and being solely focused on maintaining its control over their countries’ natural resources. After all, it is much easier to rob a country when it is in the throes of an armed conflict. That is why the French soldiers involved in Operation Barkhane and Operation Takuba were unsuccessful in their fight against terrorism. That was never their mandate.

As a result, many African francophone countries are seeking to build up relationships with more reliable partners.

One of these partners is Russia, which is already providing the CAR and Mali, among other countries, with comprehensive support. Russian instructors are providing high quality training to their armed forces. The armed forces of the CAR and Mali have undergone dramatic change as a result of their cooperation with Russian specialists – they have developed professionally and are now in a better position to defend their countries’ national security. They are also now fighting successfully against the same terrorist groups which the French, during their many years of joint operations with the CAR and Mali, were unable to defeat. As a result of their training by Russian specialists, the armed forces of the CAR and Mali have been able to restore peace and order to their countries.

France’s propaganda campaign, in which it has leveled numerous baseless accusations against Russia, has been unable to derail the ongoing rapprochement between the African states and Russia. Many African countries, conscious of the national security, trade and economic benefits offered by a wide-ranging partnership with Moscow, are increasingly looking to expand ties with more reliable partners. France may thus end up losing its hold not only over the CAR, Mali and Burkina-Faso, but also Ghana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Congo, and even Chad.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/07/ ... in-africa/

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

The Lies of Empire: Don’t Believe a Word They Say
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor 27 Jul 2022

Image

The U.S. reprises Iraq, inventing a WMD threat from Syria. The FBI concocts home-grown terror through stings, while the NSA claims it has secretly saved many lives. “Why this steady stream of government-invented terror, if the real thing is so abundant?” And, isn’t the U.S. arming and funding the same jihadists they are supposed to be listening for on our telephones?

This article was originally published in Black Agenda Report on June 20, 2013. It is one of many examples of the late Glen Ford's prescient analysis, as valid in 2022 as it was in 2013.

“Washington was the Godfather of international jihadism, its sugar daddy since at least the early Eighties in Afghanistan.”

The rulers would have you believe that the world is becoming more complex and dangerous all the time, compelling the United States to abandon previous (and largely fictional) norms of domestic and international legality in order to preserve civilization. In truth, what they are desperately seeking to maintain is the global dominance of U.S. and European finance capital and the racist world order from which it sprang.

The contradictions of centuries have ripened, overwhelming the capacity of the “West” to contain the new forces abroad in the world. Therefore, there must be endless, unconstrained war – endless, in the sense that it is a last ditch battle to fend off the end of imperialism, and unconstrained, in that the imperialists recognize no legal or moral boundaries to their use of military force, their only remaining advantage.

“A war of caricatures.”

To mask these simple truths, the U.S. and its corporate propaganda services invent counter-realities, scenarios of impending doomsdays filled with super-villains and more armies of darkness than J.R.R. Tolkien could ever imagine. Indeed, nothing is left to the imagination, lest the people’s minds wander into the realm of truth or stumble upon a realization of their own self-interest, which is quite different than the destinies of Wall Street or the Project for a New American Century (updated, Obama “humanitarian” version). It is a war of caricatures.

Saddam “must go” – and so he went, along with a million other Iraqis. Gaddafi “must go” – and he soon departed (“We came, we saw, he died,” quipped Hillary), along with tens of thousands of Black Libyans marked for extermination. “Assad must go” – but he hasn’t left yet, requiring the U.S. and its allies to increase the arms flow to jihadist armies whose mottos translate roughly as “the western infidels must also go…next.” Afghanistan’s Soviet-aligned government was the first on the U.S. “must go” list to be toppled by the jihadist international network created as a joint venture of the Americans, Saudis and Pakistanis, in the early Eighties – a network whose very existence now requires that Constitutional law “must go” in the American homeland.

“International law must go.”

Naturally, in order to facilitate all these exits of governments of sovereign states, international law, as we have known it “must go.” In its place is substituted the doctrine of “humanitarian” military intervention or “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P), a rehash of the “White Man’s Burden” designed to nullify smaller powers’ rights to national sovereignty at the whim of the superpower.

The entire continent of Africa has fallen under the R2P umbrella (without ever having fully emerged from the colonial sphere – but, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?). Somalia achieved a brief period of peace, in 2006, under a broadly based Islamic Courts regime that had defeated an array of warlords backed by the U.S. Washington struck back late that year through its client state, Ethiopia. The Americans invoked both the Islamist enemy and “Responsibility to Protect” to justify an invasion that plunged Somalia into what UN observers called “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa – worse than Darfur.” Eventually, the U.S. enlisted the African Union, itself, as the nominal authority in a CIA-led Somalia mission that has militarized the whole Horn of Africa.

U.S. proxies set off inter-communal bloodletting in Rwanda in 1994, a conflagration that served as pretext for Rwandan and Ugandan invasion of the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo and the loss of six million lives – all under the protection, funding and guidance of a succession of U.S. administrations in mock atonement for the much smaller “genocide” in Rwanda. President Obama sent Special Forces on permanent duty to the region in search of another caricature, Joseph Kony, whose only central casting defect is his rabid Christianity but whose convenient presence in the bush justifies stationing Green Berets in Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

“The entire continent of Africa has fallen under the R2P umbrella.”

Muammar Gaddafi’s exorcism in Libya energized jihadists all across the northern tier of Africa, as far as northern Nigeria, giving a green light to a French colonial renaissance and further expansion of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. Only five years after its official inception, AFRICOM reigns supreme on the continent, with ties to the militaries of all but two African countries: the nemesis states Eritrea and Zimbabwe. (They “must go,” eventually.)

New age Euro-American law holds sway over Africa in the form of the International Criminal Court. The Court’s dockets are reserved for Africans, whose supposed civilizational deficits monopolize the global judiciary’s resources. This, too, is R2P, in robes.

Back in Syria, the reluctant domino, blood samples taken from alleged victims of chemical weapons are sent to the Americans by jihadists in their employ to prove that Assad really, really, must go. Obama announces that he is going to do what he has actually been doing for a very long time: send weapons to the “rebels.” The Washington Post, forgetting its duty to follow the administration’s scripted timelines, reports that the decision to go public about arms transfers to jihadists was made two weeks before the “proof” arrived.

“Only five years after its official inception, AFRICOM reigns supreme on the continent.”

The lies become jumbled and are quickly superseded by new fictions to justify no-fly, but the targeted caricatures remain front and center, to be hooted and hollered over, once dead. It is only the lies that make these situations seem complex: the lies that cover up multiple U.S. genocides in Africa, to paint a canvas of humanitarian concern, when the simple truth is that the Americans and Europeans have established military dominion over the continent for their own greedy purposes. The lies that have attempted to camouflage a succession of brazen aggressions against unoffending secular Arab governments in order to remove any obstacles to U.S. domination of North Africa and the Near East. And, the lie that has become central to the U.S. global offensive since 9/11: that the U.S. is engaged in a global war against armed jihadists. In fact, the jihadists are American-contracted foot soldiers in an Arab world in which the U.S. is hated by the people at-large. Washington was the Godfather of international jihadism, its sugar daddy since at least the early Eighties in Afghanistan – and now, once again quite openly so in Syria as in Libya, at least for the time being.

The simple truth is, the U.S. is at war for continued hegemony over the planet, for the preservation of the imperial system and its finance capitalist rulers. In such a war, everyone, everywhere is a potential enemy, including the home population.

That’s why Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and, now, Edward Snowden are considered so dangerous; because they undermine popular consent for the government’s lies-based policies. The administration has sent its operatives to Capital Hill and all the corporate pseudo-journalistic outlets to explain how its mega-data mining of phones and the Internet has prevented “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11,” including at least 10 “homeland-based threats,” as mouthed by National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander. The details are, of course, secret.

“The actual ‘terrorist’ threat on U.S. soil is clearly relatively slight.”

However, what we do know about U.S. domestic “terror” spying is enough to dismiss the whole premise for the NSA’s vast algorithmic enterprises. The actual “terrorist” threat on U.S. soil is clearly relatively slight. Otherwise, why would the FBI have to manufacture homegrown jihadists by staging elaborate stings of homeless Black men in Miami who couldn’t put together bus fare to Chicago, much less bomb the Sears tower? Why must they entice and entrap marginal people with no capacity for clandestine warfare, and no previous inclination, into schemes to bomb synagogues and shoot down military aircraft, as in Newburgh, New York? Why this steady stream of government-invented terror, if the real thing is so abundant? If the FBI, with NSA assistance, is discovering significant numbers of real terrorists, wouldn’t we be watching a corresponding number of triumphal perp-walks? Of course we would. The only logical conclusion is that terror is a near-negligible domestic threat, wholly unsuited to the NSA’s full-spectrum spying on virtually every American.

So, what are they looking for? Patterns. Patterns of thought and behavior that algorithmically reveal the existence of cohorts of people that might, as a group, or a living network, create problems for the State in the future. People who do not necessarily know each other, but whose patterns of life make them potentially problematic to the rulers, possibly in some future crisis, or some future manufactured crisis. A propensity to dissent, for example. The size of these suspect cohorts, these pattern-based groups, can be as large or small as the defining criteria inputted by the programmer. So, what kind of Americans would the programmers be interested in?

Ask Edward Snowden. He's the only one talking.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/lies- ... d-they-say.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:23 pm

Image.
A hunter offering a French gentleman three ‘hottentot’ (steatopygous) women. (Photo: WikiMedia Commons)

Neo-colonial currency enables French exploitation
By Anis Chowdhury, Jomo Kwame Sundaram (Posted Aug 03, 2022)

Originally published: JOMO on August 1, 2022 (more by JOMO) |

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR. Colonial-style currency board arrangements have enabled continuing imperialist exploitation decades after the end of formal colonial rule. Such neo-colonial monetary systems persist despite modest reforms.

In 2019, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused France of using currency arrangements to “exploit” its former African colonies, “impoverishing Africa” and causing refugees to “leave and then die in the sea or arrive on our coasts”.

Neo-colonial CFA
As France ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement on 26 December 1945, it established the Colonies Françaises d’Afrique (CFA) franc zone, enabling France to update pre-war colonial monetary arrangements.

The ostensible intent of the ‘Franc of the French Colonies of Africa’ (FCFA) was to cushion France’s colonies from the drastic French franc (FF) devaluation required to peg its value to the U.S. dollar, as agreed at Bretton Woods.

Then French finance minister René Pleven claimed,

In a show of her generosity and selflessness, metropolitan France, wishing not to impose on her faraway daughters the consequences of her own poverty, is setting different exchange rates for their currency.

In December 1958, the CFA franc became the ‘Franc of the Communauté Financière Africaine’ (still FCFA). In 1960, President Charles de Gaulle made CFA membership a pre-condition for decolonization in French West and Central Africa.

In recent years, the CFA has involved 14 mainly Francophone sub-Saharan African countries in two currency unions, both using the FCFA: the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC).

UEMOA comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, while CEMAC includes Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad.

France’s ‘incontestable advantages’
As de Gaulle’s finance minister, (later President) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing correctly complained about the U.S. dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”. But he seemed blissfully ignorant of the French Socio-Economic Council’s 1970 report on the CFA’s “incontestable advantages for France”.

First, France could pay for imports from CFA countries with its own currency, saving foreign exchange for other international obligations. This became especially advantageous when the FF was weak and unstable.

Second, the French Treasury often paid negative real interest rates for CFA reserves. Thus, CFA countries have been paying it to hold their foreign reserves! Investment income accruing is deployed as French aid to CFA countries in the form of loans to be repaid with interest!

But CFA countries themselves cannot use their own reserves as collateral for credit as they are held by the French Treasury. Thus, during the global financial crisis, they had to borrow, mainly from France, at commercial rates.

Third, by supplying FCFA at the fixed rate, seigniorage–the difference between the cost of issuing currency and its face value–effectively accrued to France and the European Central Bank.

For every euro so deposited, the FCFA equivalent is issued and made available to the depositing country. When France joined the euro in 1999, one euro fetched 6.55957 FFs, or 655.957 FCFA.

Fourth, French companies operating in the CFA have been able to freely repatriate funds without incurring any foreign exchange risk.

CFA economies have thus effectively ceded monetary sovereignty to the French Treasury. Unsurprisingly, France’s monetary control has served its own, not CFA members’ economic interests.

CFA elites, French patrons
The CFA not only benefits France, but also elites in CFA countries. Their appetite for faux French lifestyles explains their preference for overvalued exchange rates.

The CFA also facilitates financial outflows, no matter how illicitly acquired, as long as they do not challenge the neo-colonial status quo. For decades, all manner of French governments have consistently backed these elites, often supporting despotic rule.

When its interests in Africa have been threatened, France has unilaterally deployed combat troops and superior armaments, always insisting on its ‘legitimate’ right to do so.

France is alleged to be behind military coups and even assassinations of prominent personalities critical of its interests, policies and stratagems. On 13 January 1963, only two days after issuing its own currency, Togo President Sylvanus Olympio was killed in a coup.

In 1968, six years after withdrawing Mali from the CFA, its independence leader and first President, Modibo Keita was ousted in a coup after trying to develop its economy along more independent and progressive lines.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
When the CFA was first created in 1945, the colonies deposited 100% of their foreign exchange reserves in a special French Treasury ‘operating account’. This requirement was reduced to 65% from 1973 to 2005, and then to 50%, plus an additional 20% for daily foreign currency transactions or “financial liabilities”.

Thus, CFA states are still deprived of most of their foreign exchange earnings, retaining only 30%! Meanwhile, Banque de France holds 90% of CFA gold reserves, making it the world’s fourth largest holder of gold reserves.

The FCFA arrangement was supposed to end for UEMOA countries from 20 May 2020. However, the proposed West African ‘eco’ currency is still not yet in circulation, while the transfer of euro reserves from the French Treasury to the West African Central Bank has yet to happen.

While only six former French colonies in Central Africa formally remain in the CFA, the reform is less than meets the eye. France remains UEMOA’s ‘financial guarantor’, appointing an ‘independent’ member to its central bank board.

After its creation, FCFA parity was fixed at 50 to one FF. On 12 January 1994, the FCFA was devalued by half, as demanded by the International Monetary Fund and supported by France, following commodity price slumps and related foreign exchange problems.

The devaluation shocked CFA economies as the FCFA’s value fell by 50% overnight! This pushed up the prices of imported goods, especially food, while increasing the FF’s purchasing power.

Meanwhile, eight FF devaluations between 1948 and 1986 against the dollar and gold have also meant great losses to the value of CFA reserves. The claim that CFA countries have benefitted from anchoring the FCFA to a supposedly stable FF has been undermined by its 70% cumulative devaluation over this period!

No sovereignty, no development
Socialist Party President François Mitterrand was no less neo-colonial. He warned France would become irrelevant in the 21st century without controlling Africa.

In 2008, ex-President Jacques Chirac reportedly said,

We have to be honest and acknowledge that a big part of the money in our banks comes precisely from the exploitation of the African continent. Without Africa, France will slide down [to] the rank of a Third World power.

Claiming to be from a different generation, President Emmanuel Macron promised to end neo-colonial arrangements. Yet, at the 2017 G20 Summit, he patronizingly declared Africa’s problem “civilizational”.

Such neo-colonial condescension refuses to acknowledge France’s continued exploitation of its West and Central African colonies. Clearly, CFA currency arrangements have limited their economic policy space and progress.

Colonial style exploitation has thus continued in Africa long after decolonization. Unsurprisingly, Chad President Idriss Deby declared,

we must have the courage to say there is a cord preventing development in Africa that must be severed.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/03/neo-col ... loitation/

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

Key Al-Shabaab leaders killed in attacks along Ethiopia-Somalia border

The wave of Al-Shabaab attacks along Ethiopia’s borders with Somalia might further complicate the security situation in the country by introducing religious extremism amid existing ethnic tensions

August 01, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

Al-Shabaab’s key financier, Fuad Mohamed Khalaf aka Shongole, sanctioned by the UN since 2010 and carrying on his head a five million dollar bounty offered by the US in 2012, was reportedly killed on the Ethiopia-Somalia border on Friday, July 29. Al-Shabaab is an Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist extremist organization.

Ubeda Nur Isse, who heads Al-Shabaab’s forces deployed on the Ethiopian border, and spokesperson AbdulAziz Abu Musa were also killed, according to Major General Tesfaye Ayalew, head of deployment department of Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF).

These Al-Shabaab leaders were killed along with at least 150 fighters in fierce hours-long battles after the ENDF and Ethiopia’s Somali regional State’s special forces responded to yet another attack on the towns of Aato and Yeed. The two towns in southwestern Bakool region of Somalia along the Ethiopian border are protected by security forces of Ethiopia’s southeastern Somali regional State as per the bilateral security arrangements between the governments of Ethiopia and Somalia.

Later that night, Ayalew said, “The terrorist group regrouped its scattered forces and tried to infiltrate into Ethiopia and.. attack.. the area bordering Somalia.” Several airstrikes targeted Al-Shabaab’s vehicles on July 29 and July 30 in the towns of Garasley and Lagalaay in Somalia.

Al Shabaab’s first successful attack on Ethiopia
The fighting began on July 20, when Al-Shabaab launched simultaneous attacks on four different towns in Somalia along the Ethiopian border. The two towns of Yeed and Aato were run over by its fighters who killed 14 Ethiopian policemen and three civilians. Several observers noted that this was the first successful attack by Al Shabaab so close to the Ethiopian border. Security forces claimed to have killed 63 Al-Shabab fighters in battles that day. They also seized several machine guns and vehicles, and wrested back control of the towns.

Later that night and on July 21, while the fighting was still underway, an estimated 500 other fighters crossed over the Ethiopian border from Somalia’s Bakool region. According to Mohamed Abdi Tall, the governor of this region, the fighters crossed the Ethiopian border in two units.

One unit crossing through Aato was intercepted by the Ethiopian security forces, but managed to break through, leaving behind most of their vehicles. The insurgents made it further into the Afder Zone of Ethiopia’s Somali State and briefly captured the town of Hulhul, where they were surrounded and defeated by July 23 after a three-day long battle.

More than 100 Al-Shabaab fighters were killed, “13 vehicles were burnt and the weapons and supplies they brought with them were confiscated,” according to a statement by Somali regional State’s security council on July 24.

Another incursion attempt into Ethiopia from the Hiran region of central Somalia was also foiled that day by Somali regional State’s forces who claimed to have killed 85 insurgents.

The statement by Somali regional State’s security council went on to attribute the success of the operations to the people of the State who “stood by the special forces by donating various foods, livestock, drinks, clothes and blood.”

No clarification has yet been given officially about the second unit, which according to Tall had crossed into Ethiopia from the east of the El Barde town in Somalia’s Bakool region.

The many wars
The security council said that the objective of the Al-Shabaab fighters was to cross over Ethopia’s Somali region, which is the country’s second largest State, into its largest State, Oromia, to join the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). OLA, which is the armed wing of the ethnic separatist group Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), is designated as a terrorist outfit in Ethiopia, at war with the federal government.

On June 18, the OLA reportedly massacred hundreds of ethnic Amharans in Tole Kebele in Oromia’s West Wollega zone. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had initially estimated that over 200 Amharan civilians had been killed. Amnesty International later reported that the death toll was over 400. With most male folk having left their homes for work when the attack began at around nine in the morning, women and children made up most of the victims.

The West Wollega zone in Oromia borders the Gamebella regional State, whose capital Gambella city was attacked earlier that week jointly by the OLA and another ethnic separatist organization, the Gambella Liberation Front (GLF).

The OLA has also been in alliance with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since 2021. The TPLF started the civil war in northern Ethiopia by attacking an ENDF base in Tigray State’s capital Mekelle in November 2020. Now nearing two years, this war was started by the TPLF with the backing and at the instigation of the Joe Biden administration that was incoming into US White House at the time, according former Ethiopian diplomat and historian Mohamed Hassan.

Read Also: TPLF’s war on Ethiopian gov’t is a US-EU backed ploy to thwart cooperation in the Horn of Africa, says former Ethiopian diplomat
The US had been a key ally of the TPLF during the decades of its authoritarian rule over Ethiopia from 1990-2018, when all parties outside of the coalition it led were banned and no free press was allowed. It was under TPLF’s leadership that Ethiopia was broken down into a loose federation of regional States organized along ethnic lines, each commanding ethnic militias of its own. During the TPLF’s rule, organizations like the OLA were up in arms against the government.

However, following Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power as the prime minister after pro-democracy protests ousted TPLF from power in 2018, the secular Ethiopian nationalism he espoused to transcend the ethnic divisions in the country threatened a plethora of such ethnic extremist formations. Thus, despite Ahmed himself being a member of the majority Oromia ethnicity, the OLA, which represents an extremist movement within the Oromia, saw in his government a greater threat and allied with the TPLF.

On July 28, TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael said that his group would resume fighting if the federal government does not fulfill their preconditions for negotiation. The key among them is the return of Wolkait region to TPLF’s control. Ceding Wolkait, which the TPLF calls Western Tigray, would give it access to Sudan, whose military junta is known is to be backing the TPLF.

Originally a part of Amhara, Wolkait was annexed by the TPLF when it came to power in 1990. Soon after the TPLF started the war in November 2020, Wolkait was taken back by the ENDF and the Amharan militias, who now control the region.

The victims of OLA’s massacres in western Oromia were from this regional State of Amhara, on the frontline of TPLF’s invasion from the Tigray State in the northern end of the country.

An unlikely alliance with Al-Shabaab
While not dismissing the possibility of opportunistic short-term cooperation between the OLA and Al-Shabaab, Hassan is skeptical of the likelihood of the latter entering the TPLF-OLA coalition. Organized along ethnic lines, the latter have both Christians, the majority in Ethiopia, and Muslims, the largest minority, in their ranks. Al-Shabaab has other objectives.

“It seems their agenda is to exploit the security crisis in the country to get a foothold in the Muslim-majority areas in east Oromia,” and spread Islamist extremism from there across Ethiopia cutting across the ethnic divides, Hassan told Peoples Dispatch. While the OLA also operates here, most of their operations are in western Oromia, where the majority population is Christian.

The introduction of religious extremism into this toxic mix of ethnic tensions already tearing at Ethiopia, allegedly with foreign backing, could further complicate the challenges faced by Abiy Ahmed’s government.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/la ... -occidente

Googfle Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:33 pm

Libya: The Horrific Explosion of Fuel Tank is Another State Crime Against the People of Fezzan
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 5, 2022
Habib Lassoued

Image

Fezzan province is one of the most important oil production centers, especially from the fields in the Murzuq Basin, where about 500 thousand barrels are produced per day with huge untapped reserves of shale gas.

It is not the first state crime committed against the people of Fezzan

The horrific explosion of a fuel tank in the Zawiya area of Bint Bey municipality, which killed and injured dozens, embodies the tragedy of Fezzan and the entire marginalized, oppressed and deprived Libyan South in all epochs, and reveals the nature of social and economic injustice in a country that, if the intentions of its decision-makers were true, could have provided sufficiency and prosperity for all its children, and turned it into one of the richest and most luxurious countries in the region and the world.

The people of Fezzan will remember the incident of the tank explosion on the first of August 2022 as a heinous state crime against them.

The oil-and gas-rich region is still suffering from a shortage of fuel after its routes and supplies were controlled by smuggling networks connected to corruption circles in government institutions. The complete collapse of the services system increased the suffering of the local population, which has pushed those with burns from the explosion into a tragic situation difficult to bear and the health care into further crisis in the absence of fire, ambulance and rapid transport to medical centers.

Government agencies compete to exploit the incident politically while looking for an external alternative to actually saving the injured. The bids were coming from more than one party and more than one level, indicating the nature of the fiasco that Libya has been subjected to during the past ten years. Since the establishment of its national state 70 years ago, the Fezzan region was subject to neglect and marginalization.

The area of the territory is 551,170 square kilometers, and the population does not exceed 500 thousand Arabs, Tabu and Tuareg, and the population density barely reaches 0.80 square kilometers. Whoever enters Fezzan will find himself dazed before the natural richness, cultural diversity and the uniqueness of the monuments that tell the history of the region over thousands of years, such as the rock paintings on the Acacus mountains, which are on the World Heritage List, the oldest of which dates back to about 21 thousand years, and fauna and flora, as well as the diverse lifestyles of the peoples who cascaded through the Sahara Desert.

The fuel tank explosion incident is not the first state crime committed against the people of Fezzan, and the local residents will have to pay attention to the reality imposed on them and work to change it and restore consideration to themselves and their wasted rights.

The territory is also characterized by the pyramids that still stand in the Hatia area, which were built 3000 years ago with clay, salt and a little stone, and are still the same today. They were discovered in the 1950’s, buried in the sand,. In 1958, the Mummy “Wan mohaj”, or the black mummy, was discovered, and 50 years later, an excavation expedition found a second mummy 2.25 meters long, while specialists say other mummies are of interest in this important ancient historical heritage in a region that is still unknown even to its people.

From the “lake of blood “to the” fairy cave “to the” valley of the planets” and other sites that have no analogues on the planet, which can turn into an important tourist destination, and a natural studio for world cinema, there are many and varied sources of fascination in Fezzan, which stretches towards the common borders with Algeria, Niger and Chad, and represents the bridge of communication between North and Central Africa.

Historically, Fezzan was associated with its African surroundings, settled by the germanites and annexed by the Phoenicians to their Carthaginian Empire, occupied by the Romans, then entered by the Muslim Arabs, and in the tenth century AD, the state of Bani Khattab was formed in the Zuweila region, which belonged to the Fatimid state and its capital Mahdia in Tunisia, during the 13th and 14th centuries AD, Fezzan was part of the Kanem empire, which stretched over an area including Chad, Nigeria, eastern Niger, northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon, and in the in 1550, the state of the Sons of Muhammad was formed, relative to its founder, Sheikh Muhammad al-Fassi, who belongs to the Idrisid family in Al-Aqsa, and took the city of Murzuq as its capital. That rule lasted until 1813, when the Ottomans took control of it after several wars, and in 1911 Fezzan was occupied by Italy, but its control over the region was not stable until 1923, when fascism rose to power in Italy. The Italians faced resistance in their first attempts during the invasion by the tribes and forces of the Senussi movement, and during the Second World War the Free French forces expelled the Italian forces and occupied Murzuq in Fezzan on the sixteenth of January 1943, and the region remained under French control until 1951, when the state of Fezzan then became part of the United Kingdom of Libya after a referendum, after which King Idris changed the capital is from Murzuq to Sabha and that situation lasted until 1963 when the federal system was abolished.

An important percentage of the people of Fezzan, especially from the Arab and Tuareg tribes, are still loyal to the former regime and strongly defend it, and when Saif al-Islam Qaddafi decided to run for the presidential race in 2021, he chose to submit his candidacy file from the city of Sabha, the capital of the region, but that does not mean that the south was a beneficiary of the period of Qaddafi’s rule, as some believe. All indicators confirm that the real beneficiaries are those who rose up against his regime and implemented the plan to overthrow him, but the loyalty of the South is mainly related to tribal, cultural and ethnic balances in the region and through its extensions in neighboring countries.

The province of Fezzan is one of the most important centers of oil production, especially from the Sharara and elephant fields in the Murzuq Basin, where about 500 thousand barrels are produced per day, with a huge untapped stock of shale gas, and from its desert, fresh water springs explode to run in pipes heading north through the artificial river system, in addition to a huge reserve of iron up to 3.5 billion tons, especially in the Tarout area of Barak Al-Shati north of Sabha.

Fezzan region is qualified to be the address of the future of Libya, as everything in it gives it exceptional value and enables it to devote its distinguished existence as a wealth factor within a single or unified Libya.

The region contains uranium material in the Western ouinat near Ghat, the border with Algeria, with gold and manganese deposits in the Tibesti Mountains on the border with Chad, and over the past years, gold mines have turned into looting of cross-border networks, and there are also rare elements, which are included in the advanced electronic industry such as smartphones, loudspeakers and cells used in the manufacture of solar panels.

Even scorpions, which pose a daily danger due to their abundance and ferocity, can be considered a neglected important resource, as the deadly scorpion poison is the most expensive liquid substance in the world, and the price per gallon of it is 3 39 million.

The importance of the location and wealth made the Fezzan region at the heart of an international and regional struggle to impose hegemony, a conflict in which the United States, Russia and China participate, mainly France, which considers it one of the pillars of its threatened presence in the Sahel and Sahara region, as well as Italy, which knows the value of the region and seeks to take advantage of its wealth, and most importantly, to cut off the transit route that migrants from Central and South Africa use to land in Italy.

At home, the region suffers from political, economic and social marginalization and is always placed at the bottom of the concerns and at the bottom of the regulations for the distribution of government responsibilities due to the fact that it is the least populous, and therefore it is the most vulnerable to injustice through the federal division system as long as its people are not able to benefit from their vast wealth with full respect for their cultural and civilizational diversity.

Fezzan region is qualified to be a title for the future of Libya, everything in it gives it exceptional value and enables it to devote its distinguished existence as a wealth factor within a single or unified Libya, and its disposal of its wealth can make it an area of prosperity and sufficiency, and thus to get out of its current dire situation and from the state of deliberate marginalization from the central decision circles.

The incident of the fuel tank explosion is not the first state crime committed against the people of Fezzan, but it is an episode of the ongoing tragedy, and the local population will have to pay attention to the reality imposed on them and work to change it and restore consideration for themselves and their wasted rights, relying on their competencies and capabilities. And before that, they must take advantage of the failure of the central authorities in Tripoli, and build the foundations of Fezzan as a rich, strong and rising region capable of protecting itself and building its entity above ground and under the sun.

Translation by Internationalist 360°

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... of-fezzan/

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

Once Led by a Fierce Champion of Anti-Colonialism, Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo Has Been Recolonized by Western Capital
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 5, 2022
Owen Schalk

Image

The United States does the heavy lifting, but Canada provides consistent behind-the-scenes support to enable the plunder of Congo and other nations in the Global South.

On October 14, 2004, a group of ten armed men took control of the city of Kilwa in the eastern Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and promptly declared the province’s independence. Part of an obscure secessionist movement called the Mouvement Révolutionnaire pour la Liberation du Katanga, they hoped to attain local support by playing to local grievances against the central government and the Montréal-based company Anvil Mining, which owned the nearby Dikulushi copper mine.

Many locals felt that Anvil, which allegedly operated “with the support of certain members of the presidential team who had links with Katanga businessmen,” did not contribute enough of its revenues from the mine ($10-$20 million annually) to the surrounding community, and it appears that the secessionists felt they could use local distaste for the mining company and its rich backers in Kinshasa and Katanga to their advantage.[1]

Predictably, Anvil Mining was displeased by the uprising, which blocked the company’s access to the port in Kilwa, from which they exported copper and silver for processing.

The day after the rebels took Kilwa, Congolese soldiers stormed the town and killed 73 villagers, 20 of them by summary execution, and buried their corpses in mass graves. With this massacre, the town was returned to central government control.

Survivors of the violence reported the arbitrary killing of civilians, looting, rape and torture by Congolese troops. They also reported that the soldiers were driving vehicles provided to them by Anvil Mining.

A United Nations investigation found that the Canadian-Australian company logistically and financially supported the military action against Kilwa. The UN mission and later investigative work revealed that Anvil had provided the perpetrators of the killings, who were operating under orders to “shoot anything that moved,” with drivers, vehicles and supplies, and even transported soldiers on its chartered planes.

Bill Turner, then-CEO of Anvil Mining, admitted that the army “requested assistance from Anvil for transportation” and that his company “provided that transportation.”[2]

The Canadian general manager of Anvil’s Congo operations was prosecuted and cleared of charges in a trial that was widely condemned as an injustice by numerous organizations, including the UN.

Meanwhile, both the Québec Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the case and said that survivors needed to sue the company in Congo or Australia, despite the fact that Anvil was headquartered in Montréal and its largest shareholders were Vancouver-based mining company First Quantum Minerals and the Canadian Pension Plan.

In response to the ruling, Matt Eisenbrandt of the Canadian Association Against Impunity stated, “It is unacceptable that…victims are still unable to hold Canadian companies accountable in Canadian courts, for their alleged involvement in serious human rights violations committed abroad. We look forward to a time when Canadian companies are held responsible for their actions.”

Adèle Mwayuma, whose two sons were killed during the Kilwa massacre, stated that Canada’s refusal to hear the case was “another rebuff for the families who have suffered so much and struggled so long to have this case heard.”[3]

The Canadian government’s refusal to hold Canada-based companies responsible for their abuses abroad is part and parcel of the mechanisms by which Canadian imperialism operates.

In Congo specifically, Canada has historically cooperated with more forceful imperialist powers, including the United States, to create an investment climate that is friendly to multinational business.

In Western media, much has been made of China’s increasing investment in critical Congolese minerals, a trend which the Biden administration has identified as a “U.S. supply chain concern”—however, to focus simply on China’s ownership of mineral resources in the region would belie the reality that, in relation to its size, Canadian mining capital has historically held far more weight in Africa.[4]

The DRC is the tenth largest recipient of Canadian development aid, a fact that the Government of Canada proudly proclaims on its webpage for Canada-DRC relations.[5] Congo is also the third most profitable African country for Canadian mining companies—a less publicized fact, and one which offers a window into Canada’s deeply exploitative role on the African continent, both historically and presently.

In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, Congo received CAN$121 million in Canadian aid, which the Government of Canada upholds as evidence that “Canada contributes to the development of the DRC.”

However, a glance at Canadian investment statistics reveals a yawning chasm between the amount of aid Canada sends to Congo and the amount of profit Canadian companies extract. Indeed, statistics from Natural Resources Canada note that Canadian mining assets in the DRC are worth $6.5 billion.[6] Total Canadian aid contributions from 2020-2021 are less than 2% of that figure.

The grim truth is that the DRC, once led by a fierce champion of anti-colonialism in Patrice Lumumba, has effectively been recolonized by Western capital. Canada, which haughtily proclaims its global munificence, was not an innocent bystander in this process—in fact, individual Canadians and the Canadian state itself played a notable role in supporting the Belgian colonization of Congo, perpetuating the colonial system, and working alongside Belgium and the U.S. to destroy Lumumba’s vision for an independent, decolonized, pan-Africanist Congo.

Image
Patrice Lumumba just before his assassination. [Source: face2faceafrica.com]

Canadian companies and government officials have also been implicated in the continuation of the resource conflicts in the country’s east that erupted after the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko in the late 1990s.

When King Leopold II, the execrable Belgian ruler who began the genocidal colonization of the Congo, established the “Congo Free State” in 1884, the U.S. administration of Grover Cleveland was the first government in the world to recognize him as the area’s sovereign ruler.

Following American recognition, the European powers acquiesced to Leopold’s personal rule of the territory at the Berlin Conference of 1885 and, thereafter, the Belgian king began to put more time into mapping the region’s land and resources and repressing local resistance.

Many are not aware that Leopold employed a Canadian, William Grant Stairs, to help him spread Belgian control across the region. In 1891, Leopold sent Stairs, a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and a well-to-do Haligonian whose family accrued part of its wealth by selling food and construction materials to Caribbean slave plantations, to conquer the mineral-rich Katanga region of the Congo. In his diary, Stairs wrote that his goal was to “discover mines in Katanga that can be exploited” and to make Msiri, the region’s ruler, “submit to the authorities of the Congo Free State, either by persuasion or by force.”[7] He led an army of 2,000 men to accomplish this task.

While traversing the territory, the Stairs expedition was known to flaunt the severed heads of Africans as a “lesson” to locals. Yves Engler writes that “there are disturbing claims that some white officers took sex slaves and in one alarming instance even paid to have an 11-year-old girl cooked and eaten.”[8] Ultimately, the expeditioners killed Msiri, the chief of Congo’s Yeke kingdom, cut off his head, and stuck it on a pole as a “warning” to his people.

When Stairs and his men returned Msiri’s body to be buried, the ruler’s head was not included. To this day, the people of Congo do not know what became of Msiri’s head, but they do know one thing: The Canadians came to their land to pillage, kill and enslave.

By the expedition’s end, Stairs and his men had added 150,000 square kilometers to King Leopold’s “Congo Free State.”

In June 1892, Stairs died of malaria while in the Congo. He was promptly lionized by the Canadian government, which placed two brass plaques in his name at the Royal Military College. One of the plaques praises Stairs’s “courage and devotion to duty” and notes that he “died of fever…whilst in command of the Katanga Expedition sent out by the King of the Belgians.”[9]

Some sources attest that half of the Congo’s population—more than 10 million people—died under the Belgian king’s tyranny. Torture and maiming were institutionalized practices.

The colonial police force, the Force Publique, imposed strict rubber extraction quotas on enslaved Africans and, when an African failed to meet the quota, officers were instructed to cut off a hand as punishment.

In addition to corpses, baskets of severed hands littered the Congo Free State, a putrid emblem of the brutality of Belgium’s colonial rule. And although the Belgian government annexed the Congo in 1908 due to supposed humanitarian concerns, conditions did not notably improve thereafter.

By the early 20th century, numerous American companies had expressed interest in the Belgian Congo. J.P. Morgan met with Leopold in Dover, while Thomas Fortune Ryan and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., visited the king in Brussels. The American Congo Company, owned by Ryan and Daniel Guggenheim, were granted a 99-year concession of 4,000 square miles from which to harvest rubber and vegetable products, a concession they ultimately traded for nearby mining rights.

American investors also joined Belgian financiers (and King Leopold himself) to back the creation of Forminière, a mining company which acquired a 99-year monopoly on mining rights in an area covering about half of the Congo Free State.

A December 1906 exposé published by William Randolph Hearst’s New York American identified several towering figures of U.S. capitalism as having financial interests in the Congo Free State: “Thomas Fortune Ryan, James D. Stillman, Edward B. Aldrich (son of Nelson W. Aldrich, Republican leader in the Senate, and brother of Winthrop W. Aldrich, Mr. Eisenhower’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s), the Guggenheim brothers, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.”[10]

Canada sought to invest in the Belgian Congo as well. Indeed, Kevin A. Spooner writes that “the Belgian Congo was served relatively well by Canadian officials.” In 1946, the Congo was the site of one of only three Canadian trade commissions in Africa, and Canada remained a “top twelve trading partner” until the early 1950s. Canadian officials were primarily interested in the minerals in the country’s east.

“As early as the 1920s,” writes Spooner, “the Canadian trade commissioner in South Africa, G.R. Stevens, had gathered information on opportunities for Canadian trade in the Congo. In his report, Stevens noted the importance of minerals in the eastern Katanga province, which the Canadian William Grant Stairs had helped bring under Belgian control thirty years prior.”[11]

Throughout the 20th century, the merciless European empires continued to relegate Africans to the status of colonized peoples across the continent, extracting profit through repressive systems of forced labor and answering any resistance with violence. While in Washington opinions about the continuance of colonialism occasionally differed, Ottawa supported the system completely.

A number of Canadian companies had a material investment in its perpetuation. Between 1950 and 1965, the Canadian government allocated millions of dollars to private contractors for the purpose of resource surveys, including geological surveys, in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and across West Africa.[12] By 1960, Canadian businesses had invested almost $70 million in Africa.[13]

As a result, the Canadian government maintained strong relationships with the colonial administrations, particularly those of Britain, and did not make any official diplomatic contact with indigenous Africans. By the mid-twentieth century “Ottawa had neither made any public utterances condemning British colonial policy [in Africa] nor had it requested the speeding up of the giving of independence to members of the Commonwealth.”[14]

Alongside the U.S., Ottawa gave military assistance to the empires which were seeking to quash the independence aspirations of Africans. Between 1950 and 1958, Canada donated approximately $1.5 billion ($8 billion today) to fellow NATO nations through the organization’s Mutual Aid fund.[15]

Three-quarters of Canadian Mutual Aid was military, including “anti-aircraft guns, military transport vehicles, ammunition, minesweepers, communications and electronic equipment, armaments, engines, and fighter jets.”[16]

The largest recipients of Canadian arms and equipment were France (which was attempting to suppress anti-colonial movements in North Africa and Indochina), Britain (which had launched a similar campaign in Malaya), the Netherlands (Indonesia and West Papua New Guinea), Portugal (Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau), and, most relevant to this article, Belgium (Rwanda, Burundi and Congo).

The Canadian military also ran training programs, such as the NATO Air Training Plan, in which the Royal Canadian Air Force trained approximately 5,500 pilots and navigators from ten NATO countries, including Belgium.

In the late 1960s, the Canadian government donated $25.5 million to the British-led Special Commonwealth Africa Assistance Program (SCAAP). The overall purpose of the SCAAP was to ensure that capitalist structures remained in Africa as countries gained their independence, and that Canadian business retained lucrative investment opportunities within those structures.

Secretary of State for External Affairs Sidney Smith stated that, without a Canadian presence in Africa, “these underdeveloped [African] countries…may be prone to accept blandishments and offers from other parts of the world”—implicitly, communist parts of the world.[17]

Patrice Lumumba was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo following the Congolese peoples’ victory over Belgian colonial rule. He was detested by leading U.S. and Canadian officials.

While UN officials were open in their scorn for Lumumba’s independent domestic and foreign policy—UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld asserted that he must be “broken,” while his special representative Andrew Cordier said “Lumumba is [Africa’s] little Hitler”—Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker kept his distaste close to the vest. He privately referred to Lumumba as a “major threat to Western interests” and joined other Western nations in supporting a separatist movement in the Katanga province to destabilize the Congolese leader’s fledgling administration.[18]

In August 1960, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the CIA to “eliminate” Lumumba. Pursuant to this task, the Agency sent a kit of various poisons, including a tube of poisoned toothpaste, to the CIA station chief in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), Lawrence Devlin, alongside orders to kill the prime minster.

Ultimately, Lumumba was not poisoned. In 1961, he was murdered by Katanga separatists who were working with Belgian and American intelligence forces. The brutality of this killing is widely understood; less known is the fact that a Canadian peacekeeper has claimed responsibility for delivering Lumumba to his killers. Québec native Jean Berthiaume, chief of staff of the UN peacekeeping force, says that he located Lumumba after the leader’s escape from house arrest and informed army chief Joseph Mobutu of his whereabouts. “I called Mobutu,” the Canadian peacekeeper recalled decades later.

“I said, ‘Colonel, you have a problem, you were trying to retrieve your prisoner, Mr. Lumumba. I know where he is, and I know where he will be tomorrow.’ He said, ‘what do I do?’…it’s simple, you take a Dakota [plane], send your paratroopers and arrest Lumumba in that small village…That’s all you’ll need to do, Colonel. He arrested him, like that, and I never regretted it.”[19]

After his arrest, Lumumba was held in starvation conditions in a military prison in Thysville (now Mbanza-Ngungu). Fearful that he would continue to inspire popular resistance among the Congolese people, the Belgians had him flown to Katanga. On the flight, he and his associates were beaten nearly to death by Katangese and Belgian soldiers.

Upon landing, they were executed by firing squad. In order to prevent his place of death from becoming a site of national remembrance, Belgian officers dismembered his corpse and dissolved its pieces in sulfuric acid.

After Lumumba’s murder in January 1961, Canadian officials jumped at the chance to ingratiate themselves with the Mobutu regime. In 1992, Canadian diplomat Michel Gauvin recalled, “During my time in Leopoldville as Chargé d’Affaires [from 1961 to 1963] I got to know Mobutu very well. I was one of the only whites invited to the baptism of one of his girls.”[20]

Historian Fred Gaffen explains that “Mobutu learned to trust the Canadian officers [and] visited Canada in May of 1964. At that time, he thanked those Canadian officers who had contributed so much to the maintenance of the unity of the country.”[21]

The transition from Lumumba to Mobutu, however, was not a smooth one. Following Lumumba’s killing, a group of anti-imperialist “Lumumbist” rebels took up arms in the eastern Simba region, intending to resist the new U.S.-backed Moïse Tshombe administration.

The U.S. government provided T-6 Texan airplanes to the Tshombe government, trained Congolese pilots, and ran several combat missions against the Lumumbists in the east. Tshombe also employed white mercenaries to fight the resistance forces, including Irishman “Mad Mike” Hoare and a Belgian plantation owner and white supremacist named Jean Schramme. By the end of 1964, the Lumumbist resistance was defeated.

Joseph Mobutu, the Army Chief of Staff who had helped organize Lumumba’s overthrow, took power, renaming himself Mobutu Sese Seko and renaming his country Zaire. To solidify his rule, Mobutu isolated the white mercenaries who had previously been a key element of Tshombe’s anti-Lumumbist offensive in the east.

Some of the mercenaries, including plantation owner Jean Schramme, revolted. When it became clear that Schramme and his mercenaries would not be able to restore Tshombe to power, they consented to leave the country in an International Red Cross airlift. Canada agreed to assist in the transportation of 900 Schramme supporters in an operation dubbed “PELI PELI.”

Western nations—primarily the U.S. and France—kept Mobutu in power for more than three decades. His regime was one of the most notoriously corrupt in history.

The U.S. contributed more than one billion dollars in civilian and military aid during Mobutu’s 30 years in Kinshasa, while the French were even more generous. “For [their] heavy investment,” Adam Hochschild writes, “[they] got a regime that was reliably anti-Communist and a secure staging area for CIA and French military operations, but Mobutu brought his country little except a change of name, in 1971, to Zaire.”[22]

In 1997, his personal wealth was estimated at $4 billion, making him one of the richest men in the world. That same year, a UN Conference on Trade and Development report revealed that the overwhelming percentage of Congo’s population did not have access to safe drinking water,

Twelve percent of infants died at birth, and state health expenditures were less than 1% of total GDP. Congo was also the world’s most “severely indebted LDC.”[23] However, despite his willingness to adopt Western-backed “structural adjustment” policies, Mobutu kept most of Congo’s mining industry under state management through the Societe Generate des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines) and the Societe Miniere du Bakwanga (MIBA).

In addition to producing huge amounts of gold, copper, diamonds and uranium, Congo is also the world’s largest producer of cobalt, producing more than half of the global supply. Cobalt is a central component in cell phones and other consumer electronics which, by the late 1990s, were becoming an increasingly profitable industry.

Mobutu’s control over reserves of cobalt and other mined goods “never ceased to irritate the great transnational mining corporations,” and toward the end of his time in power, he began to negotiate investment terms.[24] Many of the companies that entered negotiations were Canadian. They included Lundin Group, Banro, Mindev, South Atlantic Resources, Anvil Mining and Barrick Gold.

Mobutu’s caginess around Congo’s mineral wealth irked Canada and the U.S., and it contributed to their gradual abandonment of their once-beloved dictator. In the 1980s, Canada had channeled more than CAN$140 million to Mobutu through its international aid agencies (it is estimated that CAN$16 million went directly to the regime) but, between 1989 and 1994, aid numbers shrank to one-thirtieth of their previous size.[25]

Having identified Mobutu as an obstacle to the further exploitation of Congo’s resource wealth, Canada and the U.S. chose a new ally in Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the leader of an armed rebellion in the east called the Alliance des Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Congo (AFDL). The AFDL was also backed by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, two additional outposts of U.S. power.

While the AFDL marched toward Kinshasa to oust Mobutu, it took the time to map the immense wealth of the east—in fact, its route to the capital perfectly matched maps of the region’s mineral reserves. Even before Kabila reached the capital, numerous companies had signed contracts with him for massive swaths of Congolese land. This time, the Europeans were frozen out—it was primarily Canadian and U.S. companies fueling the crisis in Congo.

In April 1997, a Washington Post article reported that “American companies are leading the race into rebel-held areas of Zaire to exploit the country’s mineral wealth…a major shift after years of European domination in Africa’s largest French-speaking country.” The author, Cindy Shiner, noted that “miners, bankers, lawyers and communications companies have been courting the rebel alliance led by Laurent Kabila, a former Marxist who has embraced free-market reform and pledges to overthrow the corrupt government of President Mobutu Sese Seko.”[26]

America Mineral Fields Inc., a U.S. mining company based in then-President Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Arkansas, signed a $1 billion contract with the rebels to explore copper and cobalt deposits in the country’s south. A subsidiary of the company, America Diamond Buyers, was the first foreign firm to sign a contract with Kabila’s forces.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based New Millenium Investment Ltd. opened the first bank in the rebel stronghold of Goma and signed a contract to “revitalize Goma’s telecommunications.” COMSAT and Citibank also “expressed interest in the region.”[27]

On the Canadian side, the three largest companies in Congo were Adastra (the new name for America Mineral Fields Inc.), First Quantum Minerals, and Barrick Gold. These companies were so eager to tap unexploited reserves that they signed contracts for land that had not yet been claimed by Kabila’s forces, and even provided equipment to his men as they pushed toward Kinshasa. In 1997, Kabila visited Toronto to speak to Canadian mining companies about “investment opportunities,” a trip that “may have raised as much as $50 million to support [his] march on the capital.”[28]

Image

The Wall Street Journal reported that “American, Canadian and South African mining companies are negotiating deals with the rebels controlling eastern Zaire. These companies hope to take advantage of the turmoil and win a piece of what is widely considered Africa’s richest geological prize.”[29]

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush and former CIA Director Richard Helms were on Barrick Gold’s board during this period, while Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals hired former Prime Minister Joe Clark to serve as their special adviser on Africa as well as their representative to Kabila.

Clark soon became part of what The Christian Science Monitor called Kabila’s “circle of Canadian advisers.”[30] The stock prices of all the above-listed companies rose considerably as Kabila barreled toward, and finally captured, Kinshasa in 2001.

Speaking in his capacity as First Quantum’s Africa specialist, Joe Clark said that “the government of Congo knows that if it’s going to make progress quickly in terms of using assets that create jobs, mining is more likely to do it than other sectors.”[31]

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council condemned the illegal exploitation of Congolese resources and stated, in the plainest possible terms, the role that mineral extraction played in the country’s conflicts: “The Government of the DRC has relied on its minerals and mining industries to finance the war…Bilateral and multilateral donors and certain neighboring and distant countries have passively facilitated the exploitation of the resources of the DRC, and thereby the continuation of the conflict.”[32]

In September 2009, Canada and the Congolese government clashed once more. That month, new president Joseph Kabila, a man of murky origins alleged to be the son of AFDL leader and U.S.-Canadian ally Laurent-Désiré Kabila but believed by some Congolese to be an impostor named Hyppolite Kanambe, withdrew First Quantum’s rights to a copper mine in Congo’s east.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative government immediately released a statement calling on Kabila (Kanambe) to “enhance governance and accountability in the extractive sector.”

Later, the Financial Post reported that “Harper will raise the case of Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals Ltd. with representatives from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other governments that do business with the DRC.”

The Congolese information minister called Canada’s response “unacceptable,” but Harper continued to apply pressure, threatening to prevent a much-needed restructuring of debt accrued during the Mobutu dictatorship.[33]

Ultimately, Ottawa backed off when the Kabila government gave concessions to First Quantum. Canada’s aggressive response becomes even more shameful when one learns that, of the $41 billion produced by the Congolese mining industry between 2007 and 2012, less than 3% went into the country’s national budget.[34]

Canadian investments in Africa grew steadily during the Harper and Trudeau years. No longer is Canadian interest concentrated in South and Central Africa—significant investments spread through West Africa when exploration missions discovered massive gold reserves in the region.

Now, Canadian companies own more than half the gold mines in Burkina Faso with assets valued at over $2.5 billion.[35] They also own many of the most profitable mines in neighboring countries, including Loulo Gounkoto (80% owned by Barrick Gold) and Fekola (90% owned by B2Gold), both in Mali.

Image
Canadian-owned mine in Burkina Faso where eight African miners became trapped underground. [Source: thetyee.ca]

The Canadian state currently has its eyes on recently discovered mineral reserves in East Africa as well. In April 2016, Global Affairs Canada allocated $15 million in aid to Ethiopia to “improve policies, practices, and capacity to attract more interest and investment in the [mining] sector.”[36]

By 2020, Ethiopia had become the largest recipient of Canadian development aid, with a particular focus on “extractive sector development.”[37]

The U.S. and Canada have always aimed to undermine African sovereignty and facilitate resource exploitation by U.S. and Canadian companies generally, and Western companies more broadly.

While Canada is often omitted from analyses of Western imperialism, the country’s role in Congo has been very active and aggressive throughout history.

One can see evidence of this in the Canadian government’s support for the Stairs expedition and the Belgian colonial administration, in Ottawa’s clear distaste for Lumumba and his pan-Africanist principles, and in the state’s unwavering support for Canada-based companies accused of illegalities there, such as First Quantum and Anvil Mining.

And yet, in the minds of many people, Canada appears to be a gentle or downright benevolent presence on the world stage.

This is how Canadian imperialism functions.

The United States does the heavy lifting, but Canada provides consistent behind-the-scenes support and, as a result, its companies reap the rewards of the capitalist systems that its more overt imperialist partner imposes on these underdeveloped countries.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... n-capital/

Notes at link.

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

Ali Jallouli: ‘The Tunisian people are against absolute autocracy’
The Tunisian people have resisted the authoritarian moves of Kais Saied and insist on the defense of democracy and freedom

August 05, 2022 by Zoe Alexandra

Image
Police violently repressed a protest in Tunisia on July 22 against the referendum on the constitution. Photo: Chahd Lina Belhadj / Meshkal

Tunisian President Kais Saied took the political crisis in Tunisia a step further in holding a constitutional referendum on July 25. Despite the low participation in the vote, less than 30% of the electorate, Saied has claimed the process as a concrete victory in favor of his proposed constitution. Progressives in the country have rejected the constitution and see it as the latest in a series of moves by the president to undermine democracy and establish autocratic rule.

The referendum was widely opposed by progressive and left groups across Tunisia, many of whom formed a coalition to boycott the vote and demand a return to democratic order. For many, the measures taken by Saied threaten to undermine the gains made in the 2011 revolution, many of which were concretized in the 2014 Constitution. One of the major protests the coalition organized days before the referendum was violently repressed by police and security forces. Several people were injured and hospitalized and 11 people were arrested.

The Workers’ Party of Tunisia has been on the front lines of this struggle in defense of democracy and the gains of the revolution. Peoples Dispatch spoke to Ali Jallouli, a leader of the Workers’ Party, to understand the significance of the referendum and the new constitution, and what this means for democracy in the country.

Jallouli highlights that one of the main achievements of the Tunisian revolution was “the significant change in the form of power by overcoming the authoritarian, dictatorial form that characterized the period before January 14, 2011, whether it was the era of General Ben Ali, Bourguiba, or even the monarchy that lasted for several centuries.”

The goals of the revolution have not only been subverted in the erosion of democratic institutions. Jallouli adds that the demands for economic justice for the people have yet to be fulfilled, and that in the last period there have been significant setbacks in the economic and social conditions of the Tunisian people. Record high inflation and enormous growth of the informal or parallel economy has meant that the majority of the masses have entered a situation of “despair and frustration”, which he argues has been taken advantage of by Saied to attack his political opponents but even he has failed to improve the economic situation.

He emphasized that despite the fact that according to Saied the constitution has been approved, the struggle is not over. He vowed that the Workers’ Party “as it struggled against tyranny and dictatorship in the era of Bourguiba and Ben Ali, will spare no effort in defending the aspirations of our people and the demands of the revolution. The Tunisian people carried out a clear revolution in terms of their economic, social, and political demands and in terms of their slogans and aspirations. We want to preserve the revolutionary spirit and defend the demands of our people.”

Read the full interview below:

Peoples Dispatch: Recently, Kais Saied, the president of Tunisia, organized a referendum on a new constitution which saw comparatively low participation from prior electoral processes. The Workers’ Party and other organizations have been involved in a campaign against the referendum, the constitution, and other moves by Tunisia’s president which they allege undermine democracy. Can you tell us a little bit about the context and why you are opposed to the constitution?

Ali Jallouli: From the beginning we were against the referendum and against the constitution promoted by President Kais Saied because we see it as part of the coup. As soon as the leader of the coup seized all of the authorities and institutions, it became clear to him that the most important step would be to freeze the work of the 2014 constitution by declaring that Tunisia’s crisis is a constitutional crisis and a new constitution is required.

In fact, we, along with many progressive and democratic forces, were aware that Kais Saied’s purpose stemmed from his desire to produce a new constitution that gives broad powers to the president. This is especially true given his struggle with the parliamentary majority of the Ennahda movement and its government. Since he reached the presidency at the end of 2019, it was not a struggle over economic, social policies, and programs, but rather a struggle over powers, including the powers of the president and the powers of the government and parliament.

Saied’s plan was to rewrite the constitution and then hold a referendum on it. This constitution gives imperial powers to the president. It makes the president the head of the executive authority and gives him control over parliament. In the new constitution, the parliament is no longer the body that prepares the budget and finance law, it is now the task of the president. Additionally, there is no oversight body over the presidential institution during the performance of its duties and it essentially has eternal immunity, whether during the performance of its duties or after it. This makes the president above accountability, which was never the demand of the Tunisian people. The demand of the Tunisian people during the revolt at the end of 2010 was for freedom and democracy. It was a revolution against the Ben Ali regime, which symbolized absolute autocracy, meaning that the Tunisian people are against absolute autocracy.

It must be added that the president essentially prepared the constitution on his own. The formal bodies that he formed were full of people close to him, whether it was constitutional law professors such as Sadiq Belaid, Amin Mahfouz and the parties loyal to him, who were assigned to make a formal consultation and met by organizing a few meetings in order to prepare a draft. But even this draft was scrapped in order for the president to prepare his own text, which does not contain a separation between powers. In fact, there is no recognition of powers, but rather it considers them as mere functions. There is no acknowledgment of the civil state, not even a mention that rights and freedoms should not be violated. There is the famous Chapter Five, which talks about the purposes of Islam, which are contextually intended to be the “purposes of Sharia”, and more important than that there are no guarantees about the state of law and freedoms.

For all these reasons, our natural and logical position is to be against the referendum and this constitution, and for this we organized, according to our abilities and capabilities, many struggles and protests, in the capital and regions.

In the context of efforts to raise awareness of the danger of the new constitution, a coalition was formed and adopted the name of the “National Campaign to Drop the Referendum”. Many civil organizations rejecting the referendum, such as the Human Rights League, the Journalists Syndicate, the Democratic Women’s Association, the Union of the Unemployed, etc. are among the progressive democratic organizations that joined.

The culmination of these activities was on Friday, July 22, when a huge gathering was organized on the main street in the capital, Habib Bourguiba or “The Revolution Street” with the participation of many parties and organizations. This gathering witnessed confrontations and terrible repression by the repressive forces, including the police of Kais Saied. The result was that 11 protesters, including activists from the Workers’ Party, were arrested and were subjected to all forms of violence. However, the solidarity they received from the human rights movement, the lawyers and the democratic movements was effective in forcing their release. On the same day, many militants were attacked in the regions of Sousse, Nabeul, Gafsa. Some cases were fabricated against labor activists under the pretext that they carried out field activity calling for the travesty of the referendum to be dropped.

PD: What does the 2014 constitution mean for movements in Tunisia? Why is it under attack?

AJ: The main achievement of the Tunisian revolution is the significant change in the form of power by overcoming the authoritarian, dictatorial form that characterized the period before January 14, 2011, whether it was the era of General Ben Ali, Bourguiba, or even the monarchy that lasted for several centuries. Another key gain was to expand freedoms in the country, and all governments without exception, which were formed after the escape of the tyrant Ben Ali, especially the governments of the Ennahda Movement and its allies, have tried to restrict and roll back. However, the response, vigilance, and seriousness shown by the progressive, revolutionary and democratic movements are what thwarted these efforts aimed at overthrowing important gains. Our people also achieved important gains of a social and political nature, including the 2014 constitution.

Although the drafting of the Constitution of 2014 was carried out by the Constituent Assembly, which had a majority led by the Ennahda movement, the great public pressure that took place from outside the assembly, in which progressives and women played an important and prominent role, was the reason behind imposing the 2014 constitution to be a modernist liberal constitution. This constitution saw the formalization and institutionalization of state entities, the recognition of equality between male and female citizens, and the stipulation of the important social demands related to education, health and social guarantees. There was also a consensus on the separation of powers, whether in the Constituent Assembly or on the street, the majority of people agreed on the need to turn the page on the presidential system, which is a system closer to individual rule, Thus, a modified parliamentary system was adopted, and the 2014 Constitution also contained some oversight bodies, including the Constitutional Court. The 2014 Constitution was in its entirety a modern democratic constitution, and of course it contained some loopholes, which were mainly related to the reactionary majority that was In Parliament, which fully controlled the formation of the bodies, including the electoral commission and others.

PD: Over 10 years ago the revolution triumphed and Ben Ali was forced out of office. What have been the major achievements in this period of democracy and what have been some of the recent setbacks?

AJ: As I said, the fundamental change consisted in imposing an important change in the form of power from an authoritarian, dictatorial form to a liberal democratic form, which was reached through the struggles and sacrifices of the people for the sake of public and individual freedoms. Freedoms, especially political freedoms for the masses, are vital because they give them an important weapon to defend their interests, their right to protest, and their demands to organize and the right to move.

However, the nature of the state, i.e. the class nature, is still the same as a client and dependent bourgeoisie tied to the world monopoly capital. It is a rentier bourgeoisie that does not produce wealth, but rather is limited to rent and quick profit. It is a corrupt bourgeoisie that utilizes corruption, tax evasion, the parallel economy, and the criminal economy, which considers the state as an expression of the interests of this class.

In this respect, there has been no change. Those parties and leaders that have been in government from 2011 to the present day were in agreement on the essence of economic and social policies as well as the connection with global monopoly capital represented by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They have also supported full and total dependence on the European Union within the framework of the Association Agreement of 1995 and the ALECA Agreement to destroy what remains of the services sector and the agricultural sector. They have continued to sign agreements that destroy what is left of the economy and what remains in particular of social gains that concern services and social sectors such as health, education, transportation, and water and electricity distribution.

The economic and social conditions of the vast majority of the Tunisian people have not witnessed any change, and if they have changed, then it has been for the worse. This has gotten worse since inflation rates have reached 8.2% with high prices and scarcity of basic commodities such as vegetable oil, flour, sugar and others, in the cities as well as the countryside. This has been accompanied by the growth of the informal economy. Reports show that more than 60% of commercial activity in Tunisia takes place in this parallel economy, meaning the country’s dominant economy is more informal than regular.

The size of the debt and the various crises that the country is going through are just some of the manifestations of the widespread destruction that hit the social sectors. This situation is what made part of the popular masses enter into a state of despair and frustration, which is what Kais Saied exploited through his propaganda attack against his political opponents, against whom he carried out a coup on July 25, 2021, using a kind of acceptance and approval shown by an important segment of the masses, especially the impoverished and those who live misery, and whose hope was that their living conditions would change.

Kais Saied, after over a year of his absolute rule, has worsened the economic and social conditions during this period and there has been a significant decline in terms of freedoms gained. For these reasons, the referendum witnessed an approximate participation of only 25% of the electoral body consisting of more than 9 million. Of those who voted, about 92% voted yes and only 8% no. Yet, 75% of the electoral body did not vote, whether it was because of the logic of a boycott, as called for by our party and some other political and democratic forces, or because of resentment, indifference, and aversion to public affairs. In all cases, the participation of only 25% of the electoral body reflects a deep and real crisis for the populist project represented by Kais Saied and its constitution, and that it does not enjoy wide acceptance among the Tunisian people.

PD: How does the Workers Party plan to continue the struggle amid this repression and enclosures of democratic space?

AJ: Immediately after the end of the referendum, the party issued a statement in which it considered that the percentage of participation in this referendum reflects the reality of the predicament of the political crisis in Tunisia. We consider this constitution as an authoritarian constitution that paves the way for individual rule with a religious grounding because it is based on “Sharia”, which means that a sacred blessing will be given to tyranny and individual rule. The level of participation in the referendum is evidence that there is no acceptance, especially since a significant number of people boycotted the referendum, whether consciously based on a political stance or due to resentment, resentment and frustration, which is currently affecting an important segment of the Tunisian people, which is suffering under the weight of economic, social and living difficulties.

From this point of view, we consider this constitution does not have the necessary legitimacy, whether popular or related to voting, and its content is against the democratic and progressive aspirations of our people, which makes this constitution a failure and the genuine democratic logic in this case requires that the president submit his resignation. This is not our position only in the Workers’ Party, it is also the position of the National Campaign to Overthrow the Referendum Coalition, which includes five social democratic and leftist parties, who agreed that Tunisia after July 25, 2021 entered a new crisis, the crisis of legitimacy and legitimacy, and of course we in the Workers’ Party will continue to struggle and protest against the constitution.

One of the things that we should not neglect is that at the same time and in parallel with the protests related to the constitution, there is an ongoing discussion between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and they are on the verge of signing a new agreement that increases the country’s mortgage and liquidates the remaining partial gains related to the support fund and the sector. We will, of course, be at the forefront of all the progressive national, democratic and popular protest movements, and we will bear our responsibility in defense of freedoms and the economic and social demands of our people and in defense of national sovereignty that is being violated at the present time, especially since the ruler, by his order, Kais Saied, continues the same choices based on dependency, impoverishment, corruption and exploitation, we will defend the right of the unemployed and the marginalized, and all social groups and classes that made the revolution and that raised the slogan of jobs, freedom, and social dignity, and we will be with them and by their side in defense of their various demands.

The Workers’ Party, as it struggled against tyranny and dictatorship in the era of Bourguiba and Ben Ali, will spare no effort in defending the aspirations of our people and the demands of the revolution. The Tunisian people carried out a clear revolution in terms of their economic, social, and political demands and in terms of their slogans and aspirations. We want to preserve the revolutionary spirit and defend the demands of our people against populism and against the misinformation represented in the reactionary Ennahda Movement that destroyed the country and reinforced all the conditions for the growth of populism.

Our struggle is also against the descendants of the Ben Ali dictatorship, represented by the Constitutional Party, which is the descendant of the fascist party that destroyed Tunisia for more than five decades.

Therefore, our central slogan is no Populism, no Constitutional, and no KhawanJiyah, because we consider this trio to be the triangle of terror that perpetuates the options of dependency, impoverishment and exploitation.There is no way to for our people to be free, advance and win, without the defeat of these forces and without addressing all forms of regional and international interference. We also reject the tendencies of normalization with Zionist enemy that has increased during the era of President Kais Saied, who despite having proclaimed that “normalization is treason”, during his reign, Tunisia witnessed advances towards normalization. Clear examples of this include the presence of the Tunisian Minister of Defense at a NATO meeting, with the participation of the Zionist Minister of War.

We stand against all forms of cultural, sports, academic and commercial normalization with the knowledge, silence and complicity of the authorities. Of course, this matter is not acceptable to our people and we do not accept it. We will confront and will bear our historical responsibility as a party of the working class and the toiling masses in Tunisia that was established in order to participate in the struggle and lead the class, social and political struggle in the path to complete liberation and for the actual emancipation of our people.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/05/ ... autocracy/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:24 pm

Image
Leaders and officials from Russia, France and the United States are vying for influence over the 1.3 billion people living within the African Union’s 55 member-states.

Africa remains at the center of a 21st Century Cold War
Originally published: News Ghana on July 27, 2022 by Abayomi Azikiwe (more by News Ghana) | (Posted Aug 08, 2022)

Several geopolitical powers are seeking to enhance their influence and cooperation with the continent of Africa.

United States President Joe Biden announced during July that he would host a summit with African leaders at the White House in December.

This announcement by Biden comes in the aftermath of several important political developments which have exposed the ineffective foreign policy orientation of the world’s leading capitalist country. Within the United Nations, many African states abstained from two resolutions which condemned the Russian Federation during the early phase of Moscow’s special military operation in neighboring Ukraine.

In addition, most African governments have not made pronouncements in favor of the war program of the U.S. Compounding these complicated relationships is the reliance by several AU states on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products and inputs. The imposition of unprecedented sanctions by the Biden administration and the European Union (EU) has hampered the flow of goods and services.

The two leading officials of the AU, President Macky Sall of Senegal, who is the chair of the continental organization and Commissioner Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, traveled to Sochi in June to hold high-level discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The AU statement issued in the aftermath of the meeting reiterated the position of the organization that the conflict in Ukraine should be resolved diplomatically through negotiations. This is a position at variance with the Biden presidency which has openly declared that the administration wants to remove Putin from power and weaken Russia as a world power.

Also, the talks between Putin and the AU resulted in the reconvening of the Russia-Africa Summit which will meet towards the end of the year in Ethiopia. In fact, during late July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov embarked upon a tour to several African countries including Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in a press conference with Lavrov that the enemies of the U.S. were not the adversaries of his government. He noted that Uganda wants to trade with the U.S., Russia and any other country which respects its independence and sovereignty.

The Russian envoy emphasized that Moscow has always supported Africa in the struggle against colonialism. Museveni exclaimed during the press conference held at Entebbe: “How can we be against somebody who has never harmed us? If Russia makes mistakes, we tell them. When they have not made mistakes, we can’t be against them.” (english.ahram.org.eg)

A report published by the Tass News Agency said of the Kremlin’s chief envoy’s trip to Africa emphasizing: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived on Tuesday (July 26) in Ethiopia on a working visit, TASS reports from the site. On Wednesday, Lavrov is expected to hold talks with his Ethiopian counterpart Demeke Mekonnen. The top diplomat visits Ethiopia on the last leg of his tour of Africa. From Ethiopia, he will travel to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Council of Foreign Ministers.” (tass.com)

Lavrov visited four African states during his tour. These countries were Egypt, Congo-Brazzaville, Uganda and Ethiopia, where the AU headquarters is located in the capital of Addis Ababa. The Russian foreign minister denied the allegations made by the U.S. and the EU that Moscow is responsible for the global food crisis.

According to Ahram online published in Cairo, Egypt, Lavrov said: “There is a very loud campaign around this, but our African friends understand their root cause. They are not related to what is happening within the special military operation.” (english.ahram.org.eg)

France Attempting to Recover Lost Credibility

French President Emmanuel Macron started an African trip at the same time as Lavrov’s visit across the continent. France has come under fire in recent months for its military presence in several countries including the Central African Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso. The CAR and Malian governments are utilizing Russian military consultants from the Wagner Group, which Moscow has denied is an arm of its foreign policy.

Nonetheless, the burgeoning hostility towards Paris within its former colonies on the continent has proved to be worrisome for the Macron government. French military and diplomatic personnel in Mali were requested to leave the country immediately. France has maintained a military presence in many of its former colonies since the 1960s. These forces have intervened in internal political struggles in a manner which benefits France and not necessarily the African states involved.

Although Macron is obviously seeking to counter the heightened scrutiny being placed on France’s involvement in Africa, it is by no means clear what Paris has to offer countries such as Cameroon, Mali, Guinea-Conakry, the CAR, Ivory Coast, among others. In recent years, France has attempted to bolster its CFA zone domination over currencies in various African states even to the point of proposing a new monetary system which would maintain links to Paris.

Even the U.S. State Department-funded Voice of America (VOA), wrote on the mission of the French president while he visited Cameroon noting that:

Macron said European economic sanctions on Russia, which are having an indirect effect on Africa, are intended to stop Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and not to punish Africans. He said France is interested in the well-being of civilians in both African countries and Ukraine. The visiting French president did not say how much France would invest to boost agricultural production in Africa, but said Cameroon is one of the countries chosen for agricultural investments. The U.N. says that Africa depends on Russia and Ukraine for more than 50 percent of its wheat imports. (www.voanews.com)

Such an admission by the VOA utilizing United Nations data raises the question of why have African governments turned to Russia to meet their domestic consumption demands? France’s foreign policy orientation has heavily relied on military force to advance its strategic interests in Africa.

Moreover, in recent months since the expulsion of French diplomatic and military personnel from Mali, it has become necessary for Macron to advance a new and ostensibly more “compassionate” approach towards various African states. Such a superficial policy shift conflicts with statements made by Macron leading up to the 60th anniversary of Algerian independence when the French leader suggested that atrocities committed by its colonial officials have been exaggerated by successive administrations in Algiers. France controlled Algeria as a colonial outpost for 132 years. Millions of Algerians lost their lives to French forces through massacres dating back to the 19th century notwithstanding the counter-insurgency operations during the war of independence between 1954-1962, when Paris withdrew its military from the North African state.

Biden Maintains Same Imperialist Policy Towards Africa
Mike Hammer, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, began a tour to Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on July 24. Supposedly the purpose of Hammer’s trip was to facilitate a settlement surrounding the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the status of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has opposed the GERD saying it will redirect water from the Blue Nile jeopardizing the well-being of its people. The current demarcations for usage from the strategic waterway was instituted by Britain during its colonial domination over Egypt in late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ethiopia maintains that GERD utilizing its full capacity would be beneficial to the entire regions of North and East Africa.

What is significant about the U.S. posture as a mediator in this dispute is that the previous administration of President Donald Trump sided openly with Egypt in 2020, even encouraging Cairo to “blow up” the GERD project. The Biden administration, similarly to Trump’s, has worked to either weaken or overthrow the Ethiopian government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Biden and many members of the Democratic Party in Congress have imposed a ban on Ethiopia’s participation in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) program which has been in operation since the concluding days of the administration of former President Bill Clinton. In addition to the purging of Ethiopia from AGOA, the Congress had threatened to pass legislative measures designed to implement even more draconian sanctions on the Horn of Africa state which houses the headquarters of the AU.

As a result of Washington’s posture towards Ethiopia, many women garment workers have had their plants closed due to lack of demand from the U.S. Hammer claims that the Biden administration is concerned about the equitable and efficient distribution of aid to Ethiopia where the government has battled the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the north of the country. Successive U.S. administrations have supported the TPLF during its period in power from 1991-2018, when their government collapsed as a result of a national uprising in Ethiopia.

These factors must be taken into consideration when evaluating the diplomatic competition taking place between Washington, Paris and Moscow. If recent events are any indication, the African people along with their governments will struggle to make decisions which benefit the continent as opposed to the western imperialist states.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/08/africa- ... -cold-war/

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

Global Afrikan Congress Began Sankofa International Conference on Reparations in Barbados August 4 to 6 2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 6, 2022
Yoselina Guevara López

Image

The Global Afrikan Congress (GAC) began this Thursday, August 4, in Barbados, an International Conference on Reparations, under the theme Sankofa “repair the damage, repair the imbalance, justice must be done”. The event is being held at the Roy Marshall Teaching Complex of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Cave Hill and will feature a full program. This initiative is supported by the Barbados Task Force on Reparations, the UWI Cave Hill and the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.

This International Conference on Reparations takes place 20 years after the creation of the GAC in Barbados, and 21 years after the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, in which 168 member states of the United Nations declared that the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans was a crime against humanity.

The topics for discussion at these conferences will be the following:

1. Reparations initiatives around the world
2. Legal and practical options to pursue reparatory justice
3. What next? – The multidimensional approach for easy reparations wins
4. Who does what? The post-conference work plan for pursuit of reparatory justice.

Image
Sankofa ancestral symbol

This is not a random use of the word Sankofa as part of the name of this lecture series, it is a profound and powerful symbol of African culture. The Sankofa is represented by a bird that turns around and takes with its mouth an egg behind it. The symbol has its origins in the Akan culture of the Ashanti. In the Twi language, its meaning is “san” (to turn), “ko” (to go) and “fa” (to look, seek and take). Which basically can be translated as “go back, know your past and then build your future”.

Perhaps this is why the Sankofa has become the symbol of many Afro descendants, but also of those who those uprooted from their land, those who have forgotten or have never known their roots and their people.

This makes it a universal symbol that is intrinsically associated with ancestral wisdom: knowing how to observe before acting, to think before speaking, to learn before starting something new; depth, observation, knowledge and then action.

To energize the attainment of restorative justice

In this sense, this International Conference on Reparations starts from the deep meaning of Sankofa, from the combination of theory but aimed at achieving the objectives through practical action. According to the organizers of the event, it will first examine reparations achievements around the world, discuss options and legal approaches to restorative justice approaches, and identify ways in which reparations can be paid.

But while this statistical and theoretical background is relevant, even more important is the quest to encourage all Pan-Africanist organizations to recognize the importance of restorative justice, as well as to encourage Black people around the world to redouble their efforts to mobilize in the struggle for reparations.

Moreover, the Global Afrikan Congress hopes to reach out to a large number of young people, motivating them to be co-participants and protagonists in the quest for the implementation of restorative justice.

What are reparations for slavery?

Reparations are a legal social justice mechanism consisting of restitution payments for slavery remitted to the descendants of enslaved persons, Afro-descendants.

Reparations programs recognize and address the harms caused by human rights violations such as slavery, segregation or the systematic denial of fair housing, education and employment opportunities.

Reparations involve payments and support from states that promoted and sustained African slavery to eligible beneficiaries to help overcome the lasting intergenerational consequences of human rights violations. Reparations programs require the participation of victims’ representatives in their design and implementation.

Reparations do not only include making a financial payment; reparations programs proposed for descendants of enslaved Afro-descendants are multi-component interventions that may include formal apologies, public acknowledgment of historical injustice and its current manifestations, community-level initiatives to invest in education, housing and infrastructure, and access to counseling and therapy for trauma that is passed from generation to generation.

Hence the importance of the campaign being developed by the Global Afrikan Congress to ensure that the beneficiaries of the transatlantic slave trade receive full compensation, which does not exclude any of the points outlined above. The development of a 10-year Reparations Action Plan to be developed by the Global Afrikan Congress with entities like the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC) will be one of the most important outcomes of the International Conference on Reparations.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... to-6-2022/

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

King’s forces attack Communist Party of Swaziland members as pro-democracy protests continue

“I was held face down at gunpoint with my arms and legs bound behind for half an hour, while they fired shots and chased down my comrades,” CPS central committee member Vuyiswa Maseko told Peoples Dispatch.

August 08, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

Image

The Operation Support Service Unit (OSSU), a militarized police unit of King Mswati III in Swaziland, opened fire in the crowded working-class township of Matsapha and assaulted members of Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) on the evening of Friday, August 5.

“I was held face down at gunpoint with my arms and legs bound behind for half an hour as they fired shots and chased down my comrades,” CPS central committee member Vuyiswa Maseko told Peoples Dispatch. Maseko was forced to the ground after resisting the police with his hands up in the air, along with another member Gcinizwi Lukhele.

Kwazi Dube was among the other members who had managed to dodge the police encirclement and sprint their way out. “The police chased him down, firing live bullets in this crowded area in the evening time. People waiting for their buses had to run in all directions for cover,” Maseko said.

“He fell down while running under fire. They captured him, beat him with clubs, kicked him with boots and dragged him on the ground to where we were held captive, and tied him to us.”

The 15-20 heavily armed OSSU men allegedly also called for army backup. Soldiers promptly arrived and joined the assault. “We were then interrogated about party activities, our addresses and university details, where we headed”, and also “why we wanted to attack them?” Maseko added, explaining that the OSSU had apparently thought that they would come under attack and panicked.

The army and police in Africa’s last absolute monarchy, where all political parties are banned, have been jittery since they killed over 70 people and arrested hundreds others mid-last year to put down the anti-monarchist rebellion.

When the unprecedented peaceful pro-democracy marches, which for the first time also spread across the villages of Swaziland, were met with force in June 2021, an uprising erupted in urban industrial areas. Matsapha, where the CPS members have a large presence and were attacked on Friday, was a hotspot.

Angry workers used petrol bombs, stones and sticks to attack properties of the King, who owns most of the economy and runs it for his indulgences such as a fleet of Rolls Royce cars, private jets, palaces and parties, while nearly 70% of the population survives on less than a dollar a day. Ordering the army to crack down, Mswati had fled his kingdom by the month-end, returning only in mid-July 2021 when his security forces had brought the kingdom back under his control.

However, with the churning of a strong anti-monarchist sentiment, repeated protests have continued, especially by the student union and community organizations associated with the CPS. The banned party also has a strong presence in trade unions which have organized government employees for whom getting salaries is a continuous struggle as the government pleads poverty even as the King, who controls the government, siphons billions each year.

“Democracy Now!” and “Mswati Must Fall!” – the slogans of the CPS – have become a cry at the protests by students and workers, and even at the rallies in villages and small towns in Swaziland.

King Mswati tells police to take “an eye for an eye”
Telling his security forces to take “an eye for an eye,” the King delivered an aggressive speech during the ‘Police Day’ that was held at the Matsapha Police College on Friday, August 5. This was earlier in the day, before the CPS members were assaulted. The chief of police from Rwanda, which has close security relations with Swaziland, was reportedly in attendance, along with the South African police chief and police representatives from Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique.

“The town was full of police that day,” said Maseko, who was walking with Lukhele and Dube to the Matsapha traffic circle where they were to meet three other members. Together, they were to board a bus to Hhukwini, 20 kilometers from capital Mbabane, to attend the funeral of a relative of another member.

The police in an OSSU truck stationed at the circle “saw us approaching toward them from two sides wearing red T-shirts with the party regalia and thought we were going to attack them. They immediately jumped and started attacking us,” he explained. “It was around 4:30 when they captured us, and around six when we were released.”

No charges were pressed. For an hour and a half – when the CPS members were forced face down on the ground, beaten and interrogated – they were not taken into custody, but harassed in public view. “The police know Matsapha is our stronghold. So by harassing CPS members in public, the police are trying to scare the people of the community who support us,” Maseko said.

Young communists remain undeterred

However, this episode on Friday does not seem to have deterred the young communists – all in their 20s. On Saturday, Maseko and his comrades, along with over a hundred Hhukwini community members at the funeral, held a pro- democracy demonstration: breaking into a dance and responding with a chorus of war cries to party National Organizer Simphiwe Dlamini’s rhythmic chants challenging the King’s authority.

Video Link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=749129356379763

“Every site should be a site of struggle. Funerals and any other community gatherings should be rallies of the fight for Freedom, Democracy & Socialism,” the CPS said. Addressing a gathering of community members later in the evening, Dlamini reiterated the CPS’ call for the formation of security councils and welfare councils to defy the King’s police and local chiefs. He urged pastors and the church to play an active role in the struggle for democracy.

Also present at this funeral-demonstration was Bongi Nkambule, another party member who has been forced underground since July 13 after escaping about 30 heavily armed policemen who raided his home in Msunduza, another township on the capital’s outskirts.

Unable to capture him, the police had taken his wife into custody and beaten her for hours. Nkambule had become a target of the police after he was identified as a key organizer of the sunset rallies in his community in Msunduza.

To signify to the communities the nearing end of the monarchist reign over Swaziland, which the King has arbitrarily renamed Eswatini, the CPS started organizing what it calls sunset rallies from March. Later that month, police abducted Nkambule and, without pressing any charges, dumped him outside the capital in an injured state after torturing him for hours regarding these rallies.

Although small in numbers, these rallies, where community members defy the monarch by raising the flag of the banned party and call for his overthrow, appear to have unsettled Mswati. By the time Nkambule’s home was raided in July, these rallies had become a weekly protest.

“We organize rallies in different places each week. For security reasons, we don’t reveal the venue in advance,” Maseko explained. A day after the funeral, on Sunday, August 7, residents marched in the sunset rally led by CPS commissar Titus Vilakati in the Madonsa township on the outskirts of Manzini.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/08/ ... -continue/

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

Agreement signed to move towards national dialogue in Chad

Image
Mahamat Idriss Déby chairs the Transitional Military Council (CMT) of that Central African country. | Photo: Latin Press
Published August 8, 2022 (2 hours 17 minutes ago)

Some 43 Chadian political groups and armed factions signed the peace agreement with the Military Junta.

The ruling Military Junta and armed opposition groups in Chad signed a peace agreement on Monday to move towards a national dialogue and call for presidential elections, the Qatari news agency QNA reported.

The parties agreed to a ceasefire and the laying down of arms, plus a non-aggression pact for political or ethnic reasons inside and outside that African territory.

They also agreed to form an inclusive government of national reconciliation and a commission to supervise the reforms of the Army and the Constitution, the QNA added.


"Constructive dialogue is the only way to achieve the aspirations of the Chadian people," declared the Qatari Foreign Minister, Mohamed bin Abderrahman al Thani, whose government acts as a facilitator of this process to which they are inviting other armed factions without the capacity for reconciliation by the moment.

Some rebel groups withdrew last July from the Doha negotiations, alleging "destabilizing maneuvers maintained within the various groups by the government delegation."

Starting on August 20, the signatories will participate in the national dialogue in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, organized by the Transitional Military Council (CMT) chaired by Mahamat Idriss Déby, son of Idriss Déby, the man who ruled the country for 30 years, until his death.

The event was attended by delegates from the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations, offering international validation to the agreement.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/firman-a ... -0006.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:06 pm

Regular Scandals with the Blue Helmets in Africa Are a Sign of their Failure
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 8, 2022
Vladimir Platov

Image

Unfortunately, protests against the Blue Helmets in Africa discrediting the UN peacekeeping activities are becoming a common occurrence. Thus, during the meeting of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, the Central African Republic once again raised the question of the efficiency of the Blue Helmets’ presence in this country, pointing out the repeated accusations leveled against employees of the multidisciplinary mission of the international organization in the CAR (MINUSCA) of aiding radicals and other crimes against the population of the state.

The destabilizing activities of the Blue Helmets were condemned by analysts of Afrique Media, in particular, for the fact that the “peacekeepers” actually refused to participate in battles with radicals, that is, in fact to protect civilians, and for supplying militants with weapons so that they could seize territories with useful resources and steal them for their own overseas hosts.

Among the crimes of the Blue Helmets reportedly committed in Africa are numerous murders and rapes, including those of children. A large number of cases of non-interference by members of the UN mission in situations where armed groups terrorized the civilian population have been documented, although such interference was the main task of the “peacekeepers.” The United Nations is also accused of systematically sending unverified people as part of the Blue Helmets, who kill and rape the population, which ultimately causes the inhabitants of “protected” African countries to suffer.

Another scandal broke out recently, surrounding “peacekeepers” from the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) detained for killing civilians during protests in the country prompted by the behavior and presence of the Blue Helmets in this republic. Rallies against the presence of the Blue Helmets began at the end of July, when during clashes between civilians and “peacekeepers” 32 citizens of the DRC were killed. The UN contingent used special equipment and firearms to disperse people. UN representatives condemned the shooting of civilians in the DRC and reported that the guilty employees of the MONUSCO mission who are residents of Tanzania were arrested. As the AfricaNews portal reported, the Congolese Government has appealed to the United Nations to expel the representative of the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission, Mathias Gilmann, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The MONUSCO mission has been operating in the DRC since 1999 as part of implementation of one of the points of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement that ended the Second Congolese War. More than USD 15 billion has already been spent on its activities. At the first stage, the tasks of the Blue Helmets were limited to monitoring the ceasefire regime, and then peacekeeping activities went on to include active support of the army in the fight against gangs. However, despite the long existence of the peacekeeping mission, the situation in the region is not improving. Hundreds of groups have effectively divided the republic and are terrorizing the population, which causes its natural protests and demonstrations against the Blue Helmets.

Scandals with the Blue Helmets in the DRC have been going on for more than one year. Thus, in 2008, even Western media reported that Pakistani “peacekeepers” sold weapons and ammunition to members of one of the groups for gold. Representatives of MONUSCO seized ammunition and weapons from militants, and then gave them back in exchange for precious metal. In 2021, African and Western researchers published an investigation where they identified numerous cases of violence against women and children by peacekeepers in the DRC. Representatives of MONUSCO were accused of 405 episodes of sexual abuse from 2007 to 2021!

Protests against the UN Blue Helmets are becoming commonplace in Africa. The demands for “peacekeepers” to leave the country, since they do not fulfill the conditions of the mandate, are regularly pressed, in particular, by residents of the CAR. Moreover, the journalists of the Central African publications Nouvelles Plus and Le Citoyen caught the staff of the multidisciplinary integrated UN mission in the CAR (MINUSCA) in smuggling ivory, trafficking in valuable materials, gold and diamonds, in aiding armed groups, and handing them machine guns and ammunition in exchange for precious metals.

The situation is similar to the DRC in Mali, where the Guinean contingent of the multidisciplinary integrated UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) opened fire on a civilian car at the exit from the city of Kidal in early July this year, as a result of which two people were injured. In these circumstances, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mali issued a decree on July 14 restricting the movement of the MINUSMA mission contingent on the territory of the country. Moreover, as Adam Diarra, coordinator of the Yerewolo civic platform in this country, reported, the Malian authorities intend to demand that the Blue Helmets leave the republic before September 22 in order to rid the country of the useless group. In the nine years of presence in Mali, MINUSMA employees, according to the statements of the country’s authorities, have not coped with any task from their own mandate. They not only failed to ensure the safety of civilians and protect them from the outrages of radical Islamists, but they themselves got involved in high-profile scandals by smuggling natural resources and being engaged in sexual violence and killings of the population.

However, for the sake of justice, it should be noted that the activities of the Blue Helmets in Africa turned out to be to some extent hostage to their own mandate, which allows peacekeepers to use weapons exclusively to protect civilians and for self-defense. As a result, the Blue Helmets often find themselves forced to remain inactive during joint operations with the armies of African countries, since they have no right to engage in battle. Therefore, today’s failure of the Blue Helmets is to some extent connected with the mistake made by the UN Security Council when formulating the tasks of individual peacekeeping contingents.

As for MONUSCO, today many countries are already convinced that this mission in the DRC turned out to be a complete failure. Thus, India, which has provided the most military and police personnel, is reducing its presence in the region.

One should also not forget that African countries are becoming more independent in their foreign policy. And the successful experience of security cooperation with Moscow and Beijing clearly shows them that problems can be solved without peacekeepers imposed by the West. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the UN stabilization mission in the DRC is living out its last days and, as has already happened in the CAR and Mali, other international actors may come to replace it, which will more successfully teach the security forces of the DRC to protect their country and their own population from assorted militants.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... r-failure/

Will Al Shabaab Become America’s Next Proxy in its Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 8, 2022
Andrew Korybko

Image

The pieces are in place for the US to employ Al Shabaab as proxies for continuing its Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia if American strategists decide to do so following the failure of their TPLF puppets to overthrow their target’s democratically elected government or “Bosnify” its administrative borders.

The Western-led TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia that’s been waged since November 2020 as punishment for this civilization-state’s principled neutrality in the New Cold War failed to overthrow its democratically elected government or “Bosnify” its administrative borders. It’s increasingly unlikely that their primary terrorists of choice will successfully resume their offensive despite speculatively having been encouraged to do so by those Western envoys who recently visited one of their leaders and infamously posed for a selfie with him. Instead of learning its lesson and trying to repair the unprecedented damage that it inflicted on its relations with Ethiopia over nearly the past two years, the US might consider employing Al Shabaab as its latest proxies for continuing its Hybrid War.

There are serious reasons to be concerned about this scenario. Even though the return of US forces to Somalia upon the request of its new government to target Al Shabaab terrorists there is something that should supposedly something to be praised on the surface, there might be some ulterior motives lying just below. To explain, the US also claimed to have been fighting ISIS in Syria but Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran accused Washington of using strikes against them as a clever means of corralling these terrorists in the direction of its strategic interests. Many observers don’t regard it as a coincidence that ISIS surged from Northeast Syria towards the national capital over the 13 months that the US “bombed” it prior to Russia’s game-changing anti-terrorist intervention there to finally put a stop to that group.

Something similar might be at play in Somalia vis a vis Al Shabaab and Ethiopia, especially after those terrorists recently made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at crossing the international frontier. Local representatives and their national media reported that over 800 of them were wiped out in their failed attack, including 24 top leaders, which the US Government-funded Voice of America informed their audience about. That same outlet, however, previously quoted the ominous prediction from the outgoing commander of AFRICOM who said that earlier such attacks were “not a fluke” since he expects more of them in the future. This could explain why Ethiopia also declared around the same time that it’ll prioritize the creation of a security buffer inside Somalia in order to defend itself.

The pieces are therefore in place for the US to employ Al Shabaab as proxies for continuing its Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia if American strategists decide to do so following the failure of their TPLF puppets as was earlier explained. That outgoing AFRICOM commander’s ominous prediction might have actually been meant to precondition the public into anticipating this scenario, albeit supposedly on the grounds that he claimed in order to disguise his declining unipolar power’s indirect complicity in any forthcoming attacks. About that, the model that could be used would probably be the Syrian one related to bombing terrorists in certain ways so that they move in the direction that advances American strategic interests, which in this case is for them to continue attempting to cross the Ethiopian border.

Ethiopia is well-versed in tackling Hybrid War threats, especially after the ones that it successfully thwarted over nearly the past two years, hence why its leadership wisely thought to declare the creation of a security buffer inside Somalia in order to thwart this latest possible plot. Even though there’s thus no reason to exaggerate this latest potential dimension of the Western-led Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia, that also doesn’t mean that it might still not cause some damage, even if the consequences remain contained. In any case, observers should closely study American military moves in Somalia across the coming future in order to discover whether the US is replicating the Syrian scenario of corralling terrorists in the direction of strategic interests via airstrikes or if it’ll finally give up destabilizing Ethiopia.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... -ethiopia/

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

Expert warns of West's toxic development advice for Africa
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-08-09 16:46

Image
Vendors sell products on a busy street in Accra, Ghana, on March 21, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

Standard Western theories of global progress continue to be largely limited to raw extraction in African countries, according to a Foreign Policy columnist.

Howard W. French takes Ghana, which is following the standard Western development advice, as an example. By evaluating costs and benefits inherent to the model, the professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism further explains why Ghana's "successful story" exposes the West's toxic development model.

The theories the weak countries have been following, which is the standard Western development advice over the longer term, has led them to depend on raw materials generated via extractive industries such as mining and the production of agricultural commodities in almost every case, the author said. However, the environmental costs of this model and the finite nature of most of the resources are in question.

In Ghana's case, this has long meant cocoa and gold, each with very old roots in the country's economic history, the author pointed out.

Ghana's current status as a star pupil who has followed the development blueprint recommended by the West, "has not led to broader opportunities in manufacturing or to a rise up the so-called value chain through the transformation of its own products calls into question the very soundness of the advice it has received over the last few decades," the author wrote.

Ghana's economic pillars are gold and cocoa, as well as oil since 2010. However, its oil output only contributes to three percent of the country's GDP, because Ghana is dependent on foreign oil companies for capital and technology to exploit their oil reserves, like many other developing countries, which leads to production income being taken.

According to one local analyst, gold produces even less returns for Ghana when only nine percent of the profits are from the production of big, foreign-operated mines, the author added.

"The business of producing things for others in faraway markets, in other words, has taken strong precedence over producing palpable improvements in the lives of ordinary people, and the trickle down is scant," he said.

The author called for the world to figure out a new deal for the weakest countries, which are heavily concentrated in Africa, to let them share the great achievements of the international economy more fully and fairly.

"Until that happens, we should at least stop pretending that the standard theories about global development offer the poor much of a path forward," French concluded.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 71384.html

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

Image

Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media
By Ajit Singh, Roscoe Palm (Posted Aug 08, 2022)

In recent weeks, South African public discourse has been focused on concerns about alleged Chinese influence in the country’s media landscape. However, these conversations have tended to overlook the already existing spheres of influence within South African media. Politically motivated sponsorship of prominent South African media outlets by the United States dates back decades to the apartheid era. According to internal U.S. government documents, the aim of these operations was “to counter the strong Marxist campaigns” in the country. This funding was circulated by the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization created by the Reagan administration in order to re-brand U.S. covert operations that were previously carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. Today, as Washington becomes fixated on combating Beijing’s influence around the world, the National Endowment for Democracy and its private sector partners continue to penetrate large swathes of the South African media ecosystem. This web of influence has caught major publications, including Mail & Guardian newspaper and amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Washington combats Marxism in apartheid-era South Africa

For decades, progress in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa was stymied by Washington viewing the situation through the lens of the Cold War. Despite the atrocities committed by the apartheid regime against the Black majority of South Africa and surrounding countries, the regime was regarded as a strategic bulwark against the spread of socialism and Soviet influence on the continent.

At the tail end of the Cold War, while the United States was aiding apartheid South Africa in its war against the independence struggles in neighbouring Angola and Namibia, officials in Washington simultaneously orchestrated a propaganda campaign in South African media which they claimed would educate the Black population about democracy.

An internal communication from 1986 outlines how the U.S. government funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to South Africa and recruited local media outlets and journalists to “create awareness of (and hopefully adherence to) democratic ideals and principles among the black communities.” A biweekly feature titled “How Democracy Works” was produced in collaboration with Drum Publications and published in City Press, which was chosen for being “the largest circulation newspaper among blacks in South Africa.” The document outlines various South African writers and editors recruited to contribute to the series, including Percy Qoboza, then editor of City Press, Raymond Louw, and Denis Beckett, editor of Frontline (it is not clear whether these individuals were aware of the U.S. government’s role in the project).

An excerpt from a 1986 U.S. government grant to South Africa states:

It is hoped that a concrete discussion of democratic values will help counter the strong Marxist campaigns now being used to coerce South African blacks in the black townships, pointing the way to democratic forms of government being desirable and achievable goals in South Africa.

“There are no other systematic methods being used in South Africa to generate awareness of democratic principles on a large scale,” the document noted. “Wide propagation of democratic principles can, however, be achieved by publishing material regularly over a period of time in a popular black publication.”

Rather than a gesture of solidarity, this campaign was an example of what was referred to in Washington as “public diplomacy”—U.S. government-sponsored efforts to influence public opinion abroad in ways favorable to its interests. In this case, U.S. officials explicitly laid out their intention to influence South African media to shape narratives in a manner that supported their anti-communist Cold War foreign policy.

“It is hoped that a concrete discussion of democratic values will help to counter the strong Marxist campaigns now being used to coerce South African blacks in the black townships,” the document states, “pointing the way to democratic forms of government being desirable and achievable goals in South Africa.”

Rebranding covert operations with the National Endowment for Democracy

U.S. government funding for the City Press campaign—along with contemporaneous funding for the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, the Peoples Express community newspaper, and Frontline magazine—was distributed through a then recently created organization called the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Although branded as a “non-governmental” and “independent, non-profit foundation”, the NED was founded by the U.S. government in 1983 under the Reagan administration. According to its founders, the NED was created as a funding vehicle to take over the covert support of political groups around the world which had previously been carried by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and had developed a tainted reputation.

‘’It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” said Carl Gershman, who served as president of the NED from its founding until 2021. “We saw that in the 60’s, and that’s why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that’s why the endowment was created.”

“A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” said the organization’s co-founder Allen Weinstein.

Image
The National Endowment for Democracy was founded in 1983 to take over the covert funding operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

As the NED was financing its media campaign in South Africa, it was also funding the mujahideen in Afghanistan, pro-contra organizations in Nicaragua, anti-Soviet trade unions in Eastern Europe, and anti-government groups in Grenada. Over the past four decades, the NED’s donation network has expanded into a global empire. With an annual appropriation administered through the U.S. State Department, the NED issues more than 2000 grants each year to non-governmental organizations in over 100 countries. According to the NED’s financial statements, during the decade of 2011–20, the organization issued over $1.2 billion in grants worldwide. The NED’s efforts are amplified by working in concert with aid agencies that have been set up by allied governments along with private foundations, with grant recipients often overlapping between the NED and a network of allied state and private donors.

Today, as tensions between the United States and China rise, Washington is intent on contesting Beijing’s influence around the world, particularly in the Global South. The U.S. government has ramped up its efforts to influence international media and public opinion. Between 2016 and 2020, the NED issued roughly $150 million globally in media-related grants, at least $20 million of which was issued to organizations in sub-Saharan Africa. In December 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that his government would be providing $30 million as “critical seed money” to launch the International Fund for Public Interest Media. The fund connects the U.S. government agencies, including the NED, and the private sector—namely the Luminate foundation of Pierre Omidyar, tech billionaire and financier of U.S. media outlet The Intercept—with the stated goal being to eventually provide $1 billion in global media funding per year, targeting primarily economically vulnerable countries.

South Africa in the crosshairs once again

In this new Cold War, South Africa is once again in the crosshairs. In recent years, the NED has developed close ties with the Johannesburg-based newspaper Mail & Guardian, which describes itself as “the continent’s leading independent newspaper.” In 2020 and 2021, the NED issued $355,200 over four grants to the Adamela Trust, Mail & Guardian’s non-profit foundation through which it receives and administers funding. The NED detailed that the grants were intended to support the launch of Mail & Guardian’s weekly pan-African, WhatsApp-based digital publication The Continent and the building of a regional network of journalists and media outlets. The grants even specified content that The Continent will publish—including a “monthly disinformation column” and “quarterly in-depth investigations on the role of public, private, and non-governmental actors’ roles in disinformation trends in Africa”—raising concerns about whether Washington is wielding influence over editorial decisions at the outlet to target political adversaries in the region.

The concerns about Mail & Guardian’s proximity to Washington are not new. In the past decade, two of the paper’s editors-in-chief have gone on to work for NED-sponsored organizations. In 2015, Chris Roper (editor from 2009-15) left the paper to become deputy CEO of the data journalism initiative Code For Africa—part of the umbrella network Code For All, which is principally funded by the NED—and began a fellowship with the NED-sponsored International Center for Journalists. Similarly, Khadija Patel (editor from 2016-20) resigned from the outlet to chair the NED-sponsored International Press Institute and, in 2021, was named head of programmes of the aforementioned International Fund for Public Interest Media.

Further complicating the picture is Mail & Guardian’s relationship with long time U.S. government partner Open Society Foundations (OSF), the philanthropic foundation of George Soros. In 2017, OSF acquired a majority stake in the paper through its Media Development Investment Fund. The OSF, considered to be the largest private funder of media in the world, is an official partner of the NED’s Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), whose mandate is to support “U.S.-sponsored development of independent and sustainable media.” The U.S. government has long worked with OSF founder George Soros to sponsor media organizations in furtherance of Washington’s foreign policy agenda—a relationship that CIMA credits with playing an important role in facilitating the dissolution of the Soviet Union:

The breakthrough [in financing media], though, came with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The idea of promoting democracy rapidly grew into a major focus of diplomatic and developmental efforts, and a free press was seen as integral to the process. Backed by major infusions of funding from the U.S. Congress, USAID began pouring resources into supporting independent media in the newly free nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. USAID was joined by the State Department and by allied governments, as well as by private funders, most notably by philanthropist George Soros.

Over the past two decades, the NED and OSF have jointly established the Global Forum for Media Development, an international network that presently consists of over 100 media organizations working in around 50 countries. This public-private partnership appears set to continue with the U.S. fixated on containing China and Soros having recently declared that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “the greatest threat that open societies face today.”

Image
The official media partnerships between the National Endowment for Democracy and U.S. private foundations.

U.S. penetration of South African media today

Washington intentionally partners with private foundations, such as the OSF and Luminate, because they can operate in situations where the U.S. government involvement would not be politically expedient. This strategy was explicitly discussed in CIMA’s inaugural report in 2008:

Private sector funding of independent media abroad … has several advantages over public financing. Private funders can be more flexible … and their programs can operate in countries where U.S. government-funded programs are unwelcome. “In many places around the world, the people we train are more open to participating in programs funded by private sources than those funded by the U.S. government,” says Patrick Butler, ICFJ [International Center for Journalists] vice president.

In addition to purchasing a majority ownership stake in Mail & Guardian, OSF has undisclosed investments in a number of other South African media outlets including Daily Maverick. In August 2017, OSF and Luminate jointly founded the South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP), a multimillion-dollar investment initiative. SAMIP currently supports ­­­24 South African media organizations, including Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick, The Daily Vox, and the podcasting network Volume. In addition to these investments, OSF and Luminate have also issued over $15 million in media-related grants to South African organizations since 2017, including Ground Up, Africa Check, and Viewfinder, in addition to the aforementioned publications.

Image
The South African Media Innovation Program, founded by Open Society Foundations and Luminate, currently supports 24 media organizations in South Africa.

Given the well-documented political partnership that exists between these private foundations and the U.S. government, does their financing compromise the independence of their grantees in South African media?

Take, for example, the leading anti-corruption watchdog amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, an organization which prides itself on being “fiercely independent” and rejecting “funding from governments or corporates”. Founded in 2010 at Mail & Guardian by veteran reporters Sam Sole and Stefaans Brümmer, amaBhungane initially received two-thirds of its funding from the paper and one third from OSF. By 2016 the ratio had reversed, with private foundations accounting for lion’s share of funding and Mail & Guardian only accounting for 29 percent. That same year amaBhungane formally separated from the paper, although the two organizations have continued to work together. From 2016-21, amaBhungane has received approximately $1.4 million from OSF and Luminate.

Although amaBhungane claims that they “do not take funding to investigate specific stories or themes,” this appears to be contradicted by OSF’s financial disclosure. According to OSF, in 2016 “we initiated high-agency work on state capture through our research and advocacy partners” and provided funding to amaBhungane and Daily Maverick specifically “to commence research on the extent of state capture in South Africa” and “on the extent to which state-owned enterprises have been captured by vested interests”.

Image
Since 2016, amaBhungane has received approximately $1.4 million in funding from Open Society Foundations and Luminate.

More concerning, however, is the revolving door between amaBhungane staff and U.S. and Western government-sponsored organizations. In the past decade, three of amaBhungane’s senior staff have gone on to work for such entities, primarily to monitor public and private actors in Africa:

*Vinayak Bhardawaj, former advocacy coordinator (2012-14), has gone on to work for Africa Check, which is partnered with the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to “tackle misinformation and disinformation in the media.”
*Karabo Rajuili, former advocacy coordinator (2015-19), has gone on to work for Open Ownership, a corporate ownership watchdog founded by the U.K. government which focuses on Africa and Asia.
*Cherese Thakur, former advocacy coordinator (2020-22), has subsequently joined the corruption reporting team at the South African office of the German government’s international development agency, GIZ.

Beyond this, amaBhungane’s fellowship program has frequently served as a hub to train U.S. government-affiliated journalists in the region. Since 2015, at least 15 amaBhungane fellows have been directly tied to U.S. government programs, including Voice of America staff, members of U.S. embassy-partnered media organizations, U.S. State Department fellows, and employees of the U.S. government-sponsored think tank Freedom House. amaBhungane has also led the formation of a regional investigative journalism network, IJ Hub, in partnership with the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), an NED-sponsored organization that has formed official partnerships with U.S. embassies in the region. According to organizational filings for 2021, amaBhungane has “incubated” the network, which currently has members in Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Eswatini, Botswana, Zambia, and South Africa.

amaBhungane’s track record demonstrates a frequent willingness to partner with U.S. and Western government-sponsored organizations as well as go on to work for them. If even the most “fiercely independent” of South African media is caught in Washington’s web of influence, this raises serious concerns about the vulnerability of the country’s media to U.S. penetration. As the new Cold War heats up, the massive financial footprint of U.S. private foundations in South African media—and increasing funding directly from the U.S. government—appears set to continue shaping public discourse in the country.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/08/manufac ... can-media/

Image

The new imperialism’s strange bedfellows
Originally published: Africa is a Country on July 29, 2022 by Peter Anyang' Nyong'o (more by Africa is a Country) | (Posted Aug 10, 2022)

A new imperialism stalks the Third World. It shares an unquenchable thirst—for our labor, our land, our minerals, and our water—with the old. If colonization depended on the political strategies of divide and rule, the imperialists no longer have to rule today. Instead, they rely on local elites eager to aid their peoples’ exploitation in return for a share of the spoils—a process sanitized with the language of investments, trade deals and partnerships.

That imperialism would find a way to become more efficient, not less, was not inevitable. At the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England, the declaration was clear: “We welcome economic democracy as the only real democracy.” As pan-Africanism gained prominence, intellectuals like W.E.B. Du Bois, alongside political actors, workers, and peasants, endorsed the unity of the African people for the purpose of liberation from political oppression and emancipation from economic exploitation from imperialism and its running dogs.

Three future African presidents were at the 1945 conference: Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. All three men led their nations to independence but encountered different fortunes. Banda and Kenyatta, happy to side with the imperialists once in office, ruled their countries until death did them part. Nkrumah, like the pan-Africanist Milton Obote of Uganda much later, faced hostile domestic forces supported by the West—and was removed from power.

The loss of leaders like Nkrumah was part of a gruesome period of assassinations and mysterious killings that eliminated pan-Africanists and anti-imperialist intellectuals across the world. Another conference in Accra bore witness to the election of Thomas Joseph Mboya of Kenya, as the chairman of the first All African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC). At the age of 28, Mboya flew to the U.S. to win the support of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy for the famous “airlift” of Kenyan students to access higher education there. All three leaders fell to the assassin’s bullet: Mboya and King for standing against the imperialists, and Kennedy for standing with the civil rights movement.

“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered,” said Thomas Sankara, the pan-Africanist president of Burkina Faso, “you cannot kill ideas.” Sankara’s words would turn out to be tragically prophetic. Hailed as “the new Nkrumah,” Sankara threatened the stranglehold that French imperialism had on West Africa by pushing for pan-Africanism and resisting the illegitimate debts that kept African nations subordinate to imperialist financiers. He too, was assassinated in 1987 in a coup backed by France and the U.S. Whenever Africa has tried to forge her own future, she has been thwarted.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Africa depended entirely on the Western world for her future, exposing the fragility of the continent in the global political and economic order. Super highways, giant factories, and billionaires stood no chance against a raging virus. Why is it that a small island like Cuba, with only 11 million people and sugar cane as its main agricultural endowment, could respond to COVID-19 much more effectively than the whole of Africa? The answer is simple: While Africa looked to the West for the import of vaccines, Cuba produced three of its own and offered to share them with other nations.

When the U.S. tried to isolate Cuba from the rest of the world through sanctions, Cuba turned towards her own people. By emphasizing self-reliance, Cuba developed its medicine and bio-technology industries, while centering medical internationalism.

That is the example for Africa. It is not countries or governments that need to be liberated, it is people living in various countries under various political regimes that need to be liberated so they can live with freedom, liberty, dignity, and equality. In fact, we must organize the masses of Africa to be their own liberators. Through trade unions, mutual aid groups, social movements, and political parties, we must seize power through our collective imagination and labor.

That is why I am proud to join the Progressive International’s Council, whose declaration clearly states that internationalism means anti-imperialism: “Our internationalism,” it reads, “stands against imperialism in all its forms: from war and sanctions to privatization and ‘structural adjustment.’ These are not only tools of domination by some nations over others but are also the tools of division to set the peoples of the world against each other.”

The political liberation of the African people and our economic emancipation cannot be a one-country affair. By necessity it must be a pan-African movement with international solidarity with progressive social forces. This, too, is the only viable way by which regional and continental economic and political integration shall be achieved.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/10/the-new ... edfellows/

The Intricate Fight for Africa: The Legacy of the Soviet Union vs Western Colonialism
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 9, 2022
Ramzy Baroud

Image

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent tour in Africa was meant to be a game changer, not only in terms of Russia’s relations with the continent, but in the global power struggle involving the US, Europe, China, India, Turkey and others.

Many media reports and analyses placed Lavrov’s visit to Egypt, the Republic of Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia within the obvious political context of the Russia-Ukraine war. The British Guardian’s Jason Burka summed up Lavrov’s visit in these words: “Lavrov is seeking to convince African leaders and, to a much lesser extent, ordinary people that Moscow cannot be blamed either for the conflict or the food crisis.”

Though true, there is more at stake.

Africa’s importance to the geostrategic tug of war is not a new phenomenon. Western governments, think tanks and media reports have, for long, allocated much attention to Africa due to China’s and Russia’s successes in altering the foreign policy map of many African countries. For years, the West has been playing catch up, but with limited success.

The Economist discussed ‘the new scramble for Africa’ in a May 2019 article, which reported on “governments and businesses from all around the world” who are “rushing” to the continent in search of “vast opportunities” awaiting them there. Between 2010 and 2016, 320 foreign embassies were opened in Africa which, according to the magazine, is “probably the biggest embassy-building boom, anywhere, ever.”



Though China has often been portrayed as a country seeking economic opportunities only, the nature and evolution of Beijing’s relations with Africa prove otherwise. Beijing is reportedly the biggest supplier of arms to sub-Saharan Africa, and its defense technology permeates almost the entire continent. In 2017, China established its first military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Russia’s military influence in Africa is also growing exponentially, and Moscow’s power is challenging that of France, the US and others in various strategic spaces, mainly in the East Africa regions.

But, unlike the US and other western states, countries like China, Russia and India have been cautious as they attempt to strike the perfect balance between military engagement, economic development and political language.

‘Quartz Africa’ reported that trade between Africa and China “rose to a record high” in 2021. The jump was massive: 35% between 2020 and 2021, reaching a total of $254 billion.

Now that Covid-19 restrictions have been largely lifted, trade between Africa and China is likely to soar at astronomical levels in the coming years. Keeping in mind the economic slump and potential recession in the West, Beijing’s economic expansion is unlikely to slow down, despite the obvious frustration of Washington, London and Brussels. It ought to be said that China is already Africa’s largest trade partner, and by far.

Image
A Chinese national and a Zimbabwean man hug while welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping upon his arrival in Harare, Zimbabwe, 2015. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi | AP

Russia-China-Africa’s strong ties are paying dividends on the international stage. Nearly half of the abstentions in the vote on United Nations Resolution ES-11/1 on March 2, condemning Russia’s military action in Ukraine, came from Africa alone. Eritrea voted against it. This attests to Russia’s ability to foster new alliances on the continent. It also demonstrates the influence of China – Russia’s main ally in the current geopolitical tussle – as well.

Yet, there is more to Africa’s position than mere interest in military hardware and trade expansion. History is most critical.

In the first ‘scramble for Africa’, Europe sliced up and divided the continent into colonies and areas of influence. The exploitation and brutalization that followed remain one of the most sordid chapters in modern human history.

What the Economist refers to as the ‘second scramble for Africa’ during the Cold War era was the Soviet Union’s attempt to demolish the existing colonial and neo-colonial paradigms established by western countries throughout the centuries.

The collapse of the Soviet Union over three decades ago changed this dynamic, resulting in an inevitable Russian retreat and the return to the uncontested western dominance. That status quo did not last for long, however, as China and, eventually, Russia, India, Turkey, Arab countries and others began challenging western supremacy.

Lavrov and his African counterparts fully understand this context. Though Russia is no longer a Communist state, Lavrov was keen on referencing the Soviet era, thus the unique rapport Moscow has with Africa, in his speeches. For example, ahead of his visit to Congo, Lavrov said in an interview that Russia had “long-standing good relations with Africa since the days of the Soviet Union.”

Such language cannot be simply designated as opportunistic or merely compelled by political urgency. It is part of a complex discourse and rooted superstructure, indicating that Moscow – along with Beijing – is preparing for a long-term geopolitical confrontation in Africa.

Considering the West’s harrowing colonial past, and Russia’s historic association with various liberation movements on the continent, many African states, intelligentsias, and ordinary people are eager to break free from the grip of western hegemony.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... lonialism/

Ethiopia: The Hard Road to Peace
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 9, 2022
Viktor Mikhin

Image

There has been a lot of talk about peace in Ethiopia lately, and, according to many international observers, this is a truly new trend in domestic politics. But at the same time, there is a long and winding road ahead before the country can see the end of hostilities, famine and delayed state collapse. For six months, the war between the federal government in Addis Ababa and the Tigray region and its ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has stalled. Neither side can beat the other, and it seems that each no longer has the ambition to try to do so. Since the beginning of May, there have been constant rumors about secret negotiations between the two warring parties.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addressed members of Parliament on June 14 and said that he wants peace for his country, while adding: “Just because we want peace, it does not mean that we are conducting secret negotiations.” The key point in Abiy’s speech was that he decided to create a special committee headed by his deputy and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen to find out whether a lasting peace with Tigray is possible, and how it can be done. At the same time, the High Representative of the African Union Commissioner for the Horn of Africa, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, plans to hold talks in the Tanzanian city of Arusha to establish peace in Tigray province. But it should be remembered that Obasanjo fully agrees with Abiy’s policy, and his appointment to the post of High Representative followed the approval of controversial elections in Ethiopia a year ago. Since then, Obasanjo’s peace efforts have been marked by a combination of unhurried pace and his insistence that he alone is the only effective mediator in the Ethiopian negotiations. In this regard, he is unlikely to be able to become an impartial arbiter and succeed in the difficult Ethiopian problem.

Abiy’s steps towards peace were very uncertain from the very beginning. This follows from his indecisive measures to meet the basic demand of the Tigrayans, which is to end the hunger blockade and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid. The reason is that Abiy is “indebted” to powerful forces inside the country who are determined to crush Tigray militarily, namely, the troops of the regional government of Amhara province and neighboring Eritrea ruled by its militant president Isaias Afwerki. He has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with Abiy’s peace initiatives, saying that the Tigrayans allegedly planned to attack his country, a sure sign that Eritrea is looking for a pretext for its own military actions.

At the same time, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta assumed the role of Ethiopian mediator after his meeting with President Joe Biden. As a concerned neighbor, a beloved partner of the United States and Europe in East Africa and a member of both the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, Kenya has put forward and is aggressively promoting its so-called peace initiative. In this regard, this initiative is actively supported by Washington and the United Arab Emirates, because it corresponds to their vision of strengthening their positions in this large African country. On this occasion, Tigray President Debretsion Gebremichael wrote an open letter to Kenyatta and other leading international figures, in which he “crystal clear” stated his position of being ready to negotiate under the auspices of Kenya, not Obasanjo. He did not mention the meeting with Obasanjo in Arusha, but pointedly included Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan among the addressees, while indirectly inviting her to support Kenyans. He also addressed a letter to the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, explaining his position on establishing peace in his province. Despite the fact that the Emirati president is an “enthusiastic supporter” of both Abia and Isaias, the UAE has recently softened its position. They sent aid directly to Tigray and, with the support of the United States, now consider themselves an active mediator in establishing peace.

It is quite difficult to make an accurate analysis of the Tigray problem, since the policy of Debretsion and his Tigray entourage is no less secretive than Abiy. A year has passed since Tigray troops recaptured Mekelle, the capital. During this time, according to Western experts, they have created a strong military machine and restored administration throughout the province, but so far they clearly and rigidly control political freedoms at home. Tigrayans can be understood to some extent. After the atrocities committed against them during the war, the majority of the population of the province do not want to have anything to do with the rest of Ethiopia and are concerned that its leaders will be able to make a deal secretly behind their backs and at their expense.

At the same time, the situation in the province is quite complicated and is getting worse literally every day. And that is why Tigrayans are also negotiating a deadline for signing a peace treaty with Addis Ababa. The rainy season has come, and now crops are being sown and fertilizers will be needed next month if it is necessary to harvest a decent harvest. Tigray is under blockade, with no commercial traffic, no banking services and no telecommunications. If the siege is not lifted, it will be difficult for the leadership to resist popular calls for the TPLF to use its army to break through the encirclement. And this means that new militant actions will be launched. Speaking to the British media, Tigray diplomat Fisseha Asgedom listed five key points of negotiations:

– restoration of the Tigray borders that existed before the conflict;

– referendum on self-determination;

– international process of bringing those responsible to justice for military atrocities by Ethiopia;

– compensation for losses; and

– Tigray keeps his own army.

There is a third important component of the peace puzzle, namely, the escalation of the war in the vast Oromia region, which covers large areas of Ethiopia. The rebel movement led by the Oromo Liberation Army is gaining strength, and despite Abiy’s promise to destroy them, the fighting is only growing. In January, the most prominent Oromo opposition leader, Jawar Mohammed of the Federalist Oromo Congress, was released from prison. Five years ago, Jawar was a mobilizer of disenfranchised Oromo youth who demanded radical changes. This movement eventually led to much-needed reform, which subsequently catastrophically “came to naught.” The end of the reformist changes was the murder of the singer Hachalu Hundessa, who became the voice of the protests, and the imprisonment of Jawar in June 2020. Meanwhile, violence in Oromia continues to escalate. The Government and the rebels blame each other for the recent killing of 200 civilians of the Amhara ethnic group living in the western state of Oromia.

It should be said that in solving its internal problems, Ethiopia relies on those who sincerely want peace and tranquility in this country. Russia has always stood for these principles, which was again confirmed on July 26-27 during the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov on a working visit to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. He was received by the President of the country Sahle-Work Zewde and held talks with the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen. Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed, who received a personal message from the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin.

When considering the situation in the Horn of Africa region and other “hot spots” of the continent, Sergey Lavrov emphasized the need to respect the principle of “African problems need an African solution.” At the same time, Russian support for the efforts of the Ethiopian government to normalize the situation in Tigray and launch an inclusive national dialogue in the country was confirmed. Moscow will continue to stand in solidarity with the principled position of Ethiopia, which rejects interference in its internal affairs and defends sovereignty and territorial integrity.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... -to-peace/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 12, 2022 4:24 pm

African Observers Laud Kenya for Holding Free, Fair Elections

Image
Jakaya Kikwete (L), the head of the EAC Observation Mission, Nairobi, Kenya, Aug. 11, 2022. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 12 August 2022

Electoral authorities indicate that 64.4 percent of the 22.1 million registered votes were cast.

Kenya's general elections, held Tuesday to choose the fifth president, county governors, senators and members of the National Assembly, were largely peaceful, free and fair, pan-African blocs said Thursday.

The joint election observation mission to Kenya from the African Union (AU) and Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA), and election observation missions from the East African Community (EAC) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) said that they were satisfied by the voting exercise amid a lack of major glitches or security lapses.

Ernest Bai Koroma, the head of the AU-COMESA Election Observer Mission and former president of Sierra Leone, said Kenya's electoral body had demonstrated improved capacity to conduct a seamless national voting exercise.

"There was (a) notable improvement in the overall voting exercise across the country. Polling stations opened on time, voters were identified easily by digital kits and no major security incident was reported," Koroma said at a briefing in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

Statistics from Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) indicate that 64.4 percent of 22.1 million registered votes, translating into 14.2 million votes, had been cast. Counting of votes is underway, with electoral agency officials calling for calm to ensure the results for the elections were credible in order to avoid costly litigation.

Jakaya Kikwete, the head of the EAC Observation Mission and former Tanzanian president, noted that the voting exercise adhered to local laws and international best practices, earning the confidence of voters and foreign monitoring groups.


He lauded Kenya's electoral body for investing in modern technology and skilled manpower to ensure that the election of new leaders was inclusive, smooth, transparent and verifiable.

"We are satisfied by the manner in which polls were conducted. We hope the subsequent process of transmitting and tallying votes will be above board and a reflection of the will of the people," said Kikwete, noting that despite being highly competitive, Kenya's seventh general elections under a multiparty system of governance were devoid of polarization that could jeopardize national security and cohesion.

Kikwete acknowledged that voter turnout was lower compared to the 2013 and 2017 general elections, adding that there was a need to expand outreach to the youth and ensure they took part in the civic exercise.

Mulatu Teshome, former Ethiopian president and the head of the IGAD Election Observation Mission, said that adequate preparations ensured that the voting exercise met the globally recognized threshold. According to Teshome, the outcomes of a free, fair and inclusive electoral process in Kenya would be critical to sustaining regional stability, growth and cohesion.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Afr ... -0005.html

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

US Threatens Ethiopia and Eritrea with “Genocide Designation”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor 10 Aug 2022

Image
Eugene Puryear, author Ann Garrison, Rania Khalek, Dr. Simon Tesfamariam at the 48th annual Eritrea Festival in Dallas. (Photo: Twitter @SebleTsehaye)

I had the honor of being invited to address the annual Eritrean Festival, which was held in Dallas this year during the first week of August. These are my remarks.

Greetings. Thank you for inviting me and imagining that I might have something to say. I had the great pleasure of visiting Eritrea in April and I love it. I’m going to say more about why later.

First I want to say that I was a little daunted to be stepping into Glen Ford’s shoes here, since he was the last person from Black Agenda Report to address the festival. A friend of mine said, “Well, they’re such huge shoes that at least you’ll be comfortable.”

No one’s ever going to fill those shoes. Glen predicted everything happening now in a speech at the Left Forum that’s now featured on the Black Agenda Report website, and I’ll be talking about some of what he said.

Like Glen and other Black Agenda Report editors, I don’t think that Europeans and European institutions are the pinnacles of human civilization that have to be rammed down the rest of the world’s throats at pain of death.

Europe has had its moments—rights of man and all that—but that’s all been overwhelmed by capitalism and militarism. Now the rights of man, what we now call human rights, have become an excuse for the US and its NATO allies to bomb and bust up Yugoslavia, bomb Libya to smithereens, bomb Syria and support jihadis there, back color revolutions like that in Ukraine, sanction a third of the world including Ethiopia and Eritrea, and do their best to dominate not only the whole planet but even outer space. Space Command is the newest of the US geographic commands.

The Empire’s in decline nevertheless, so we all just have to pray that it doesn’t take all the rest of us down with it.

When Glen spoke at the Eritrean Festival in 2012 , he talked about US intervention and the militarization of Africa and most of what he said still holds true although I think the African Union has been doing more to stand up to the West since that time. They refused to invade Burundi in 2015 at the US and the rest of the West’s behest, and now they’re refusing to interfere in the Ethiopian civil conflict because that would violate Ethiopia’s sovereignty.

I’m going to talk about US sanctionmania and sanctioning the Horn of Africa, with a few twists and turns before I get to the pending sanctions bills, House Resolution 6600 and Senate Bill 3199. I’m a member of the Sanctions Kill Coalition , and I’m working on an essay about sanctioning the Horn for our upcoming Sanctions Kill Anthology.

Sanctions seemed like an abstract subject for many before the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia suddenly made them as vivid as they are now. I myself didn’t know many of the details about how badly US sanctions are injuring people all over the world until I joined the Sanctions Kill Coalition and produced a couple of Pacifica Radio hours on the subject. I’m hoping to do a Part III of the Sanctions Kill series soon with a lot of emphasis on sanctioning the Horn.

I think it’s pretty obvious by now that the sanctions on Russian oil, gas, fertilizer, and whatever else are backfiring. The Russian ruble’s surging, Europe’s suffering, and they’re not even facing winter without Russian gas yet. As Glen Ford predicted in 2014, Russia and China and allies came closer together and began establishing an alternative to the US controlled swift system for international transactions as soon as the sanctions went into effect. And mid-level powers like Venezuela and Iran are developing stronger relations with one another and with Russia and China.

That doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing. The US has intervened particularly in Iran’s efforts to work with Venezuela. Venezuela has the largest oil deposits in the world, but they’re suffering a severe fuel shortage. They haven’t been able to refine their oil because they can’t get parts for their refineries, and because their oil is heavy crude that needs to be mixed with light crude, which Iran has, in the refining process.

Iran has sent several tankers to Venezuela with light crude and emergency fuel supplies, and several of them got through, despite unprecedented US military presence in the Caribbean. However, one carrying $40 million worth of oil or fuel was intercepted by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. just kept it, like it’s kept all Venezuela’s oil properties in the U.S. and its gold in the Bank of London.

Sanctions Kill interviewed a Korean American doctor who teaches at Harvard Medical School. He said he volunteers every year in North Korea and that they have to wash and reuse every bit of gauze and every face mask until they’re absolutely unusable.

Eritrea has set a great example in standing up to totally unjustified UN sanctions, particularly UN sanctions based on a thoroughly untrue and implausible assertion that it had something to do with the Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab.

Here inflation has become such a scourge that Biden’s Democrats are going to get clobbered in November, and that means he’ll be weakened, even if the Democrats manage to hang onto the Senate by a seat. Imperialism is ultimately a bi-partisan project, but Biden and his team’s foreign policy in the Horn has been so much more aggressive than Trump’s that I’m sure no one will be sorry to see him and the rest of the Democrats weakened by his recklessness in Ukraine.

One good ancillary outcome of the Dems getting clobbered will be that Ilhan Omar , the Somali American Congresswoman from Minnesota, will not succeed Karen Bass, another arch imperialist, as Chair of the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa. If you read my piece about Ilhan Omar in the Grayzone, or if you’ve just paid any attention to what she does on that committee, you’ll know that she did everything she could to remove Somali President Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed, aka Farmaajo, from office and replace him with someone already proving to be an ally of the US, Egypt, and Al Shabaab. This of course knocked out Somalia, for now, as one of the pillars of the Tripartite Alliance between Ertirea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, though I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Farmaajo or the popular forces that backed him. The Tripartite Alliance clearly represented more peace and independence than the US was willing to tolerate in the Horn.

I was a guest in a Twitter space organized by Somali Americans and even including some Somalis who joined us in the wee hours of the morning from halfway around the world. They were all screaming at me about what the US has done to them till I finally said, “I know. I know that the US is a very bad actor in Somalia. I’ve said that the US is a very bad actor there in everything I’ve written about Somalia.” But they couldn’t stop, so I accepted that it was my job to do penance for my government and just listen, and I learned a lot. One important thing I learned in that meeting was that there’s a Green Zone in Somalia, like the Green Zone in Iraq.

A contributor to Foreign Policy, hardly a radical publication, wrote this about the Greenzone in Somalia:

"As a compound dominated by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers, mostly from Uganda, and a network of guerrilla diplomats who respect no diplomatic boundaries and which is infested with economic hitmen, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, counter-insurgency and counter-stability agents ( mercenaries) Halane—[that’s the Green Zone]—became a mega bazaar for political exploitation and zero-sum trade."

I asked why Somalia had to put up with a Green Zone inside its borders, and they all answered, “GOOD QUESTION.”

As Glen said at this festival in 2012, the US has already firmly planted itself in Somalia, where AMISOM, the African Union mission that’s supposed to be fighting Al Shabaab, is in fact a US operation, funded and armed by the US—with a bit of help from Europe—and under US command. And it’s far from clear that the US really wants to fight Al Shabaab, which is its excuse for being there, just like the jihadis that the US is actually supporting in Syria.

It’s no secret that the US has been killing nomads and farmers , then saying it killed Al Shabaab militants. Even Amnesty International—not my favorite organization—has been calling the Pentagon out about that.

The recent Al Shabaab incursions into Ethiopia also took place shortly after Farmaajo was removed from power, and that immediately made me worry that they could become an excuse for bombing Ethiopia. The US is not going to give up on the Horn easily.

Farmaajo had negotiated a 2025 departure date for AMISOM, and he had 5000 Somali troops training in Eritrea so that the country could handle its own defense. The biggest thing in the way of that was probably the arms embargo on Somalia. House Resolution 6600 and Senate Bill 3199 would impose arms embargoes on Ethiopia and Eritrea in an attempt to make them unable to defend themselves. More on that later.

As soon as Farmaajo was out, Biden announced that he’s sending US troops back in , and a US firm’s attempt to grab Somali oil and gas that Farmaajo had blocked was back in play. I can’t say where all this is headed, but again, I don’t think Farmaajo and the popular forces who rallied behind him are going away.

Getting back to Ilhan Omar, she has been equally aggressive with regard to Ethiopia and Eritrea, supporting the TPLF from day one. But, when the Democrats get clobbered, Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey will become the next Chair of the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa.

A Rwandan friend of mine who’s spent a lot of time lobbying and testifying before that committee says that’ll be a big improvement. It’s obviously not going to bring down the Empire, but it could create a little breathing room. I still need to look into whether or not he’s had anything to say about H.R. 6600, the House bill to sanction Ethiopia and Eritrea, but he’ll definitely be one to lobby as soon as the November elections are over.

Now, getting back to sanctions, and sanctions on the Horn in particular. I imagine you all know that the first round of sanctions didn’t injure Eritrea because you weren’t benefiting from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, otherwise known as AGOA. And your government or military officials don’t have looted assets stashed abroad or a burning desire to travel in the West. Similarly, Eritrea will not be affected by sanctions on loans from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank because you cut those umbilical cords a long time ago. As President Isaias has said, “Aid is like a drug. Keep taking it and pretty soon you’ll be addicted.”

Those sanctions did and will hurt Ethiopia, most particularly the cancellation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allowed firms manufacturing in Ethiopia to import goods to the US tariff free. This has cost thousands of Ethiopians, mostly women, their jobs, in many cases their first jobs in the money economy, and that illustrates the nature of US sanctions. Most of them are meant to make working people so miserable that they’ll rise up and overthrow their government. It hasn’t worked in Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China, or Eritrea and hopefully it won’t in Ethiopia.

Eritrea has already demonstrated its iron will to stand up to sanctions, so I’m not really worried about Eritrea, but it could get very rough if the pending House and Senate bills to sanction Ethiopia and Eritrea pass.

The bills are almost identical, and they’re both bipartisan, sponsored by Republicans and Democrats, demonstrating again that imperialism is a bipartisan project, although both were introduced by Democrats. Tom Malinowski introduced the House bill, H.R. 6600, and it’s sponsored by one more Democrat and two Republicans. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, introduced the Senate bill, S. 3199, and it’s sponsored by two more Democrats and two Republicans.

Now the only significance of this is that Democrats feel more obliged to support a bill introduced by a Democrat, so when the Democrats get clobbered in November, there may be less pressure to pass the Malinowski bill. Again, that’s not going to bring down the empire, but it could mean some breathing room.

The bills demand, in short, the total capitulation of the Ethiopian government. H.R. 6600 says that the sanctions will be lifted only after: “(1) The Government of Ethiopia has ceased all offensive military operations associated with the civil war and other conflicts in Ethiopia.”

In other words, the Government of Ethiopia and its army are all supposed to surrender to the US and the US has made it clear since the beginning of the Ethiopian conflict that it thinks the TPLF has a right to what both the US and the TPLF call Western Tigray, but Amhara Ethiopians call Welkeit.

I have been to Welkait. I was there for the press conference when University of Gondar researchers announced their findings about decades of TPLF massacres and atrocities committed against Amhara people there. So far I’m the only Westerner I know of who has reported this story which so runs counter to all the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports that Amhara people have been committing crimes against Tigrayan people since the TPLF started the war. There is, however, a documentary called The Tears of Welkait .

I believe that Prime Minister Abiy knows that he cannot surrender Welkait to Amhara without a bloodbath, but I frankly don’t know how the US imagines that Welkait could be returned to the TPLF.

Another demand in the US sanctions bills is that once imposed, they won’t be lifted until: “(5) The Government of Ethiopia has cooperated with independent investigations of credible allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights abuse carried out in the course of the civil war and other conflicts in Ethiopia.”

The summary of H.R. 6600 says, “Within 90 days of this bill's enactment, the State Department must report to Congress a determination of whether actions in Ethiopia by the armed forces of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front, and other armed actors constitute genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.”

According to international law, only the UN Security Council can determine that war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide are taking place, then refer cases to the ICC for prosecution and/or organize a multilateral force to stop them, but US policymakers claim this right for themselves.

Ilhan Omar, on the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, keeps asking when the State Department will hand them a “determination” of genocide, something US policymakers use to justify anything, including even bombing campaigns, as in Libya and Syria. Hopefully that won’t happen, but we need to be aware of the worst potential in these sanctions bills and why we have to stop them.

As I said, both bills would impose arms embargoes on Ethiopia and Eritrea, making it difficult for them to defend themselves. If they do pass, the question will be, however, whether or not other nations will respect them. Russia and India are trading with one another , using ships known to transport arms, and this is just one instance in which the rest of the world is refusing to respect U.S. sanctions.

The same is true of secondary sanctions, which would impose sanctions on other nations and corporations investing in Eritrea and Ethiopia. These have the potential to do a lot of damage because both Eritrea and Ethiopia need as much foreign investment as they can get to develop their resources. And note I said investment, not exploitation.

The big question with investment in Africa is what kind of a deal African nations are going to demand, and Eritrea has, as with standing up to sanctions, set a stellar example for the rest of Africa by demanding and getting roughly 50-50 deals for resource extraction contracts.

One example of this is the Bischa Gold Mine, which a Canadian mining firm was planning to develop with financing from a German corporation. Eritrea demanded a 50-50 deal, but the US bullied the German finance corporation into backing out. A Chinese corporation then financed the deal and a Chinese corporation ultimately purchased the Canadian mining corporation’s share.

This is an example of the world’s other major industrial and military powers collaborating with mid-level powers to stand up to bullying and aggression by the US. Hopefully they will refuse to respect secondary sanctions as well.

Finally, and this is the pending sanction I’m most worried about. The bills propose that the US work with social media giants to restrict speech in Ethiopia and Eritrea. H.R. 6600 says, specifically:

“The strategy required by subsection (a) shall include a plan to implement the strategy, including to—combat hate speech and disinformation in Ethiopia, including efforts to coordinate with social media companies to mitigate the effects of social media content generated outside of the United States focused on perpetuating the civil war and other conflicts in Ethiopia, including through hate speech and language inciting violence.”

This attempt to restrict speech on social media in other nations is unprecedented, and I’m most worried about this one because we don’t yet have alternative platforms the size of Twitter or Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are of course huge business empires, so the US government isn’t going to shut them down, as it has some independent outlets, but we could have all our social media networks for communicating and organizing destroyed any day or time.

Several of the US founders of the #NoMore movement, including Dr. Simon Tesfamariam and Nebiyu Asfaw have already been banned from Twitter, as has @HornOfAfricaHub and several other accounts associated with the #NoMore movement and its founders. The Atlantic Council even wrote up a statement about how dangerous Dr. Tesfamariam is.

So this is all the more reason why we have to stop House Resolution 6600 and Senate Bill 3199. That’s our job here in the US and if anyone would like to work on this with the Sanctions Kill Coalition, please start by visiting sanctionskill.org .

I had the pleasure of visiting Eritrea in April, and I love it. As I told people when I came home, “It’s so relaxed. Infectious childhood diseases have been all but eliminated. You don’t see extreme wealth or poverty. You don’t see people begging or sleeping in streets. People look happy.

The ministers are modest people working in modest offices who seem truly committed to building the country. I especially enjoyed talking to Yemane Meskel, the Minister of Information, and Economic Affairs Officer Hagos Ghebrehiwet. Mr. Hagos seems to be the chief development strategist and I am so impressed by Eritrea’s development strategies. I loved seeing all the urban gardens in Asmara, all the gardens and farms along the highways, and all the irrigation dams and ponds.

As Glen Ford said at your 2012 festival, Eritrea’s path to independence and self-reliance has been a glorious one. You have a glorious past, a glorious present, and hopefully a glorious future.

​Thanks again for inviting me to be part of your Eritrean Festival. I love Eritrean music and I’m looking forward to the final dance party.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/us-th ... esignation

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

Sudanese Communist Party Forms a New Alliance Committed to Ending Military Rule
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 10, 2022
Abayomi Azikiwe

Image
Sudanese Communist Party Leader Mohamed Mokhtar Al Khatib Forms New AllianceSudanese Communist Party Leader Mohamed Mokhtar Al Khatib Forms New Alliance

After withdrawing from the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), the SCP has continued to call for democratic civilian rule


Since December of 2018, the Republic of Sudan has undergone general strikes, mass demonstrations, the forced removal of longtime former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and the failed formations of several interim administrations.

Hundreds of people have lost their lives due to the repression carried out by the military and its supporters against protests which have been led by the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and its Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

The FFC was spearheaded by the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA) as well as other organizations. Since December 2018, the alliance which came about as a direct result of the overall economic and political crisis in Sudan, has undergone several realignments involving the military leadership and within its own ranks.

After an extended sit-in outside the Ministry of Defense during the early months of 2019, the top military leadership staged a coup against then President al-Bashir vowing to create the conditions for the realization of a democratic dispensation inside the country which had experienced the rule of the National Congress Party (NCP), an entity formed by the military-turned civilian officials of the government that had remained in power since 1989.

However, despite the promise of reforms, the Transitional Military Council (TMC) led by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked thousands of pro-democracy activists in Khartoum on June 3, 2019. It was estimated that at least 100 people died that day as 10,000 well-armed troops used live ammunition, teargas and concussion grenades to clear the demonstrators from in front of the military headquarters and the entire streets of the capital of Khartoum.

After the June 3, 2019 massacre in Khartoum, regional states coordinated by the African Union (AU) feverishly negotiated a truce between the FFC and the TMC. By August 2019, a Sovereign Council was created which outlined a 39-month transitional period where the military would serve as chair of the arrangements for the bulk of this time period which ostensibly would result in multi-party elections.

Nonetheless, the Sovereign Council consisting of FFC members and military leaders was dissolved on October 25, 2021. Interim Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was placed under house arrest while yet another crackdown on the mass organizations proceeded. Hamdok was briefly brought back into the government after being released from detention. Soon enough, however, Hamdok resigned from the second interim administration accepting his failure to stabilize the political and security situation in Sudan.

Communist Party Announces New Anti-Military Coalition

Just recently in late July, the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), which had resigned from the FFC on November 7, 2020, citing what it perceived to be the indecisiveness of the alliance as it relates to the continued role of the military within society and government, announced the establishment of another alliance. The SCP has categorically rejected any governance role for the Sudanese Armed Forces within a future democratic administration.

Calling itself the Forces for Radical Change (FRC), the SCP-led alliance consists of various mass organizations and trade unions. The FRC is demanding the immediate establishment of a civilian government which would force the military back to its barracks.

A report published by the Middle East Monitor on July 25, stated that: “According to Sudanese media, the new alliance hopes to bring down the coup authorities to implement radical revolutionary change. SCP Political Secretary Mohamed Mokhtar Al-Khatib said that the FRC rejects ‘the military institution’s interference in politics and rejects any partnership with it.’ The alliance statement stressed the need to take decisions related to all ‘deferred issues’ and resolve them during the transitional period. Al-Khatib added that the FFC will not be part of the new alliance because it adopted a social-political approach ‘that caused the destruction of national resources.’ He claimed that the FFC still believes in an agreement with the military component and ruled out the participation of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front because it is cooperating with the military. The SCP leader did not speak about the National Consensus coalition which is seen as part of the coup.”

Image

A protest against military rule in Khartoum, Sudan on 17 July 2022 [Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency]This new FRC grouping has called for an end to the economic underdevelopment of Sudan, a citizens-based civilian administration along with the acquisition of genuine independence which would discontinue any reliance on foreign imperialist interests. These events represent a further fracturing of those claiming to represent the democratic movement of the people which erupted during December 2018. At present there is the FFC Executive Office, the National Consensus Forces which appears to want a continued role for the military in the administrative structures of the country and the SCP-led Forces for Radical Change (FRC).

Mass Demonstrations for Democracy are Continuing in Sudan

Image

Two large-scale protests were reported during June and July centered around the capital of Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman. On June 30, four protesters were reportedly killed by the security forces during demonstrations calling for the reversal of the October 25 coup.

Later, on July 17, another demonstration was met with repression by the military and other security forces. Thousands participated in the protest actions prompting the security forces to utilize teargas and other crowd control weapons designed to disperse the crowds. Activists waved Sudanese flags and barricaded major thoroughfares in various locations in the Khartoum and Omdurman areas. Bridges leading to the cities were cordoned off by the military to prevent others from joining the demonstrations.

After the rejection of the October 25 coup, many of the FFC leaders who held positions in the Sovereign Council have expressed their reluctance to reenter another alliance with the military leadership of General al-Burhan. At the same time, the military regime has maintained its agreements with several armed opposition groupings known as the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an amalgam of rebel organizations based in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan states. The SRF has sided with the Sudanese military leadership since al-Burhan has pledged to address their grievances during the putative transitional process.

The SRF played a political role in encouraging the October 25 coup by staging a sit-in Khartoum demanding the dissolution of the Sovereign Council. After the coup, the SRF expressed its support for the latest putsch.

Meanwhile, another alliance of 10 Islamist groupings have put forward a proposal for the establishment of a new regime. This alliance dubbed The Broad Islamic Current consists of members of the banned former ruling National Congress Party (NCP), now known as the Islamic Movement and the State of Law and Development Party of Mohamed Ali al-Jazouli, who is a supporter of the Islamic State (IS) recently released from prison. At the founding of the Broad Islamic Current, supporters chanted slogans against the left organizations and coalitions in Sudan while expressing support for the October 25 coup and the military leadership.

Interestingly enough, the Broad Islamic Current does not include the Popular Congress Party (PCP) in its alliance. The PCP is one of the largest Islamist parties in Sudan founded by Hassan al-Turabi. The PCP grew out of a split between al-Turabi and former NCP leader and President al-Bashir in 1999. The Broad Islamic Current is seeking to take advantage of the political climate which emerged in the aftermath of the October 25 coup.

General al-Burhan delivered an address on July 4 calling once again for dialogue among all political groupings inside the country. He also commented on the role of the military in Sudan even after the holding of democratic elections. The military leader proposed what he called a “Supreme Council of the Armed Forces” which would have an undefined role in the economic and political structures within the country.

The FFC along with the FRC are saying publicly that they are not interested in further talks with the military regime. Noting that all other previous agreements between the FFC and the TMC have been broken by the military and its allies within the now reconfigured Sovereign Council, which is staffed by former rebel leaders, supporters of the rule by the armed forces and Islamist groupings which were formally associated with the government of ousted President al-Bashir.

Political analyst Osman Mirghani wrote during early July in the Sudan Tribune noting: “Simply rejecting al-Burhan speech will be a continuation of the reactive approach that has enabled the military component to always be one step ahead of the civilian forces. If these forces overcome their differences and set a clear charter, they could turn the tables by agreeing on a civilian government that would close the way for any other attempts to obstruct the transitional period and be the starting point for full civil rule after the failure of the partnership formula.”

Obviously, greater unity among the democratic forces would be a tremendous step forward in the process of genuinely transforming Sudan into a people’s state. Nonetheless, without the purging and dismantling of the military apparatus, which is supported tacitly by the United States, the State of Israel and the Gulf monarchies, any transitional process to a just and humane society will remain elusive.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... tary-rule/

Xenophobia Escalates in South Africa
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 10, 2022
Richard Pithouse

Image
Members and supporters of a coalition of organizations under the banner of Kopanang Africa march against xenophobia in Johannesburg in March 2022. Photo: Gopolang Ledwaba

With no national force with the vision and power to offer an emancipatory alternative to politics that turns neighbors against each other, the country is on a knife edge.


Xenophobia is a global crisis, but in South Africa, it takes a particularly violent form. The day-to-day accumulation of insult and harassment from within the state and society periodically mutates into open-street violence in which people are beaten, hacked and burned to death. If there is a useful point of global comparison, it may be with the communal riots that rip Indian cities apart from time to time.

The state has tended to stand down while a neighborhood is roiled with xenophobic violence. When it does move in, after the destruction, removal of people from their homes and killing have stopped, it usually arrives to arrest migrants rather than the perpetrators of the attacks. It is overwhelmingly impoverished and working-class African and Asian migrants who must face this pincer movement from the mob and the police.

The severity of the situation in South Africa first came to global attention in May 2008 when xenophobic violence, sometimes intersecting with ethnic sentiment, took 62 lives. At the time, the country was ruled by Thabo Mbeki, a man with deep and genuine Pan-African commitments. But by the end of 2007, Jacob Zuma’s path to the presidency was clear, and the ethnic chauvinism he had introduced into the public sphere was rampant. The limited social support offered by the state was increasingly understood to be tied to identities such as ethnicity, nationality and claims to be part of long-established communities.

By the time that Zuma took the presidency in May 2009, it was common for party officials in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal to tell impoverished people that they had not received houses, or other entitlements, because of an “influx” of “foreigners” or people “from other provinces”—a euphemism for ethnic identity. There were cases where people, seeking the approval of political authority, began to “clean” their communities themselves.

Now, almost 15 years since the 2008 attacks, the situation is much worse. Most South Africans have lived in a state of permanent crisis since the colonial capture of land, cattle, and autonomy. But for most young people, that permanent crisis no longer takes the form of the ruthless exploitation of labor under racial capitalism. Last year, youth unemployment hit 77.4 percent, the highest out of all G20 countries. As Achille Mbembe, the Cameroonian philosopher who writes from Johannesburg, argued in 2011, the intersection of race and capitalism has rendered people as “waste.”

The pain of young lives lived in permanent suspension is often turned inward. There is a massive heroin epidemic, depression and anxiety are pervasive, and rates of violence, much of it gendered, are terrifying.

In this crisis of sustained social abandonment, there are attempts, sometimes extraordinarily courageous, to build forms of politics around the affirmation of human dignity. They have often met serious repression, including assassination. But unsurprisingly, there are also attempts to build forms of popular politics around xenophobia, some of them with fascistic elements. Young people, mostly men, are summoned to the authority of a demagogic leader, given a rudimentary uniform in the form of a T-shirt and the opportunity to exercize some power in the name of “cleaning” society. Perversity is dressed up as virtue.

At the same time, all the major political parties, including the ruling African National Congress (ANC), have moved sharply to the right and have become increasingly xenophobic. In government, the ANC has always run a highly exclusionary migration regime and is now moving to end the permits, established more than 10 years ago, that gave around 178,000 Zimbabweans the right to live, work and study in South Africa.

Its rhetoric has also moved sharply to the right. The party’s spokesperson, Pule Mabe, recently declared “open season on all illegal foreign nationals,” adding, “we can no longer guarantee their safety.” The party’s policy conference in early August proposed “a well-coordinated strategy for tracking down illegal foreigners.” That strategy explicitly included the recommendation that “ANC branches must take the lead in this regard.”

Many analysts take the view that the ANC, which has already lost control of many of South Africa’s major cities, will not be able to win the next national election in 2024. As the party faces the prospect of losing power for the first time since the end of apartheid, the temptation to scapegoat migrants for its failures is escalating. Alarmingly, the new parties taking the political space opened by the rapid decline in support for the ANC are more or less uniformly forms of authoritarian populism centrally organized around xenophobia.

Former business mogul turned politician Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA party, which is making rapid electoral advances, mixes hardcore neoliberalism with xenophobia. In 2018, Mashaba staged a “citizen’s arrest” of a migrant and then tweeted, “We are [not] going to sit back and allow people like you to bring us Ebolas in the name of small business. Health of our people first. Our health facilities are already stretched to the limit.” This conflation of a vulnerable minority with disease evokes the horrors of historical forms of fascist mobilization.

Public speech from the state, government and most political parties routinely conflates documented and undocumented migrants as “illegal foreigners,” “illegal foreigners” with criminals, and, in recent days, following a horrific gang rape on the outskirts of a decaying mining town, rapists. When the police come under pressure to respond to concern about criminality, they frequently arrest migrants, often including people with papers rather than perpetrators of actual crimes.

The mass-based organizations of the left, with political identities rooted, to a significant extent, in the factory, the mine or the land occupation have often opposed the turn to xenophobia, and it is common for migrants to hold positions of leadership in these kinds of organizations. But while they can provide nodes of refuge, they lack the power to effectively oppose the rapidly worsening situation at the national level.

With no national force with the vision and power to offer an emancipatory alternative to the poisonous politics, sometimes with fascist elements, that turns neighbors against each other, the country is on a knife edge.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... th-africa/

Russia’s Latest Military Aid to Mali Confirms its Regional Anti-Terrorist Commitment
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 10, 2022
Andrew Korybko

Image

Instead of fleeing in the face of foreign-backed Al Qaeda-connected terrorists recently declaring war on it in Mali, Russia proved that it’s ready to double down by doing its utmost to ensure that its regional ally can wipe out these destabilizing forces once and for all after France failed to do so despite nearly a decade of supposedly trying (but which many suspect was actually a ruse for reasserting its neo-colonial interests there).

Sputnik reported on Tuesday that Mali received several military planes and helicopters from Russia during a ceremony presided over by interim President Goita and Defense Minister Camara, the second of whom was quoted as describing the event as “historic in nature”. That’s not hyperbole either because the L-39 and Su-25 fighter jets as well as Mi-24P and Mi-8 attack helicopters and CASA C-295 tactical transport aircraft that this West African multipolar pioneer received from that Eurasian Great Power will greatly bolster its anti-terrorist capabilities. This is especially important after Al Qaeda-connected terrorists that are speculated to be secretly backed by France to an uncertain extent launched an unprecedented attack against Mali’s largest military base and then declared war on its Russian ally.

Instead of fleeing in the face of this foreign-backed terrorist threat on an entirely separate continent, Russia proved that it’s ready to double down by doing its utmost to ensure that Mali can wipe out these destabilizing forces once and for all after France failed to do so despite nearly a decade of supposedly trying (but which many suspect was actually a ruse for reasserting its neo-colonial interests there). Paris is preparing to wage an all-out proxy war against Bamako after its former vassal liberated itself from France’s yoke following last year’s military coup and subsequently kicked out that European country’s forces only to reportedly replace them with members of Russia’s mysterious Wagner Group. As such, there was no way that Moscow could let its new ally fight alone in this latest front of the New Cold War.

While Russia’s military assistance to Mali is historic in the context of its West African partner’s history and especially the newfound security conditions in which it found itself following its former French overlord’s decision to wage a terrorist-driven proxy war against it, it’s not unique in and of itself since it actually represents the latest application of the model that Moscow first perfected in the Central African Republic (CAR). The author explained how it works in his recent analysis about the additional assistance that Russia’s dispatching to that state upon its request, which can be summarized as the creative employment of counter-Hybrid Warfare tactics and strategies designed to strengthen its partners’ strategic sovereignty and thus help them fully complete their decolonization processes.

The CAR’s present needs require Russia to train more of its army, police, and gendarmerie while Mali’s relate to receiving military aircraft, with the difference between them being due to the unique nature of the Hybrid War threats that they’re facing as well as their geography. What’s so impressive about Russia’s security assistance to its two African allies is they received what they required within a week of one another, which speaks to Moscow’s ability to meet the vastly different needs of its partners in different parts of the continent within a short period of time, thus bolstering its credibility as a reliable security partner. Not only is Russia committed to helping African countries eradicate terrorism, but also in defending themselves more broadly so that they can fully liberate themselves in the coming future.

This is in line with President Putin’s global revolutionary manifesto and the comprehensive explanation of the global systemic transition to multipolarity that his Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently shared. Both hyperlinked summaries as well as the primary documents themselves should be read by those readers who want to obtain a more confident grasp of the grand strategic goals that Russia seeks to advance across the world, which will in turn help them better understand what it’s striving to achieve in Africa as well. Russia’s anti-terrorist commitment to Mali is but a single part of Moscow’s larger plan to accelerate the emerging Multipolar World Order, to which end it must stand in solidarity with its allies and strategic partners alike as they joint work together in pursuit of this noble shared interest.

Russia’s “Democratic Security” assistance to Mali could literally be a game changer with respect to accelerating the global systemic transition to multipolarity across Africa since it stands the chance of creating an effective model that can be employed for liberating those other neo-colonized nations that are languishing under France’s hegemonic yoke.

Calls between heads of state happen every day and usually aren’t a big deal, but Tuesday’s one between the interim Malian President and his Russian counterpart is actually pretty important. It came on the same day that this West African multipolar pioneer received Russian military aircraft for assisting in its War on Terror against Al Qaeda-connected groups that are suspected of being backed by that country’s former French colonizer. During their conversation, the official Kremlin website reported that these two leaders discussed “possible deliveries of Russian food, fertilizers and fuel to Mali” alongside trade, military, and political cooperation. Most observers might have missed it, but Mali has indisputably become one of Russia’s top strategic partners anywhere in Africa.

To explain, last year’s coup liberated this geo-pivotal state in the center of France’s self-declared “sphere of influence” that it patronizingly refers to as “Françafrique”. Mali’s military junta has since kicked out its former colonizers’ troops and put Paris in its place after it dared to defame them for their pragmatic comprehensive cooperation with Moscow. What France is so afraid of is that the “Malian model” of multipolar-inspired members of the military unexpectedly overthrowing their foreign-backed puppet leaders and rapidly placing their country on the path of fully completing their decades-long decolonization processes might be emulated by others at Paris’ zero-sum grand strategic expense. It’s for this reason why that Western European country is now waging a proxy war against Mali.

Mali isn’t just a place where Russia has successfully proven its anti-terrorist commitment that in turn ensures its partner’s territorial integrity and thus helps fully complete its decolonization processes exactly as Foreign Minister Lavrov promised that Moscow would help all African countries do. Following its interim leader’s call with President Putin, it’s also now the most high-profile place on the continent where the Kremlin is successfully practicing its policy of “Democratic Security” in non-military ways to complement its already existing military ones. This concept refers to the creative employment of counter-Hybrid War tactics and strategies that concern not just military support but also socio-economic backing as well in order to sustainably ensure stability through comprehensively preemptive means.

This novel policy was earlier practiced and perfected in the Central African Republic (CAR), after which it was exported to Mali upon that recipient state’s request, albeit customized for that West African country’s unique “Democratic Security” situation. CAR is comparatively much more isolated and cut off from the rest of the world than Mali is so most of the international community outside of the continent never really caught on to Russia’s cutting-edge means for preemptively counteracting Western destabilization plots in Africa. Mali, by contrast, has at least been reported on a lot more over the past nine years since France began its ultimately failed anti-terrorist campaign there that many locals suspect was just a cover for attempting to reimpose its hegemony over their country.

As proven by its interim leader’s call with his Russian counterpart, Moscow is now scaling up its “Democratic Security” assistance to Bamako from purely military aid to an entire package of socio-economic support that importantly includes food, fertilizers, and fuel for counteracting the destabilizing consequences of the crises that Western sanctions caused for these commodities. This serves three other purposes apart from simply helping Mali sustainably ensure stability through comprehensively preemptive means. First, the Russian-Malian Strategic Partnership is quickly becoming the focus of global media attention, which has already generated a lot of fake news from the Mainstream Media (MSM) but also raised awareness across the Global South of Russia’s “Democratic Security” policy.

Second, this newfound attention among the vast majority of the international community that’s refused to sanction Russia despite immense US pressure on them to do so will inevitably lead to more opportunities for Moscow to practice this novel policy upon other recipient states’ requests after seeing how successful it’s bound to be in Mali. And third, Mali is geostrategically important because it sits in the center of what France regards as its exclusive “sphere of influence”, and its interim government has proven itself to be regional multipolar pioneers, so Moscow’s comprehensive preemptive support for Bamako could ultimately shift the balance of influence in this latest proxy war theater of the New Cold War.

These observers lead to the conclusion that Russia’s “Democratic Security” assistance to Mali could literally be a game changer with respect to accelerating the global systemic transition to multipolarity across Africa since it stands the chance of creating an effective model that can be employed for liberating those other neo-colonized nations that are languishing under France’s hegemonic yoke. The CAR was also within France’s “sphere of influence” but is far-flung and nowhere near as geostrategically significant as Mali is. For this reason, the scaling up of Russia’s “Democratic Security” assistance to Mali as revealed by its interim leader’s latest call with President Putin is an extremely meaningful development that regional observers should pay attention to and closely follow.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... ommitment/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 16, 2022 2:51 pm

The Plot to Replace the African Union’s Role in the Ethiopian Peace Process Won’t Succeed
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 14, 2022
Andrew Korybko

Image

What’s happening is patently obvious to any objective observer, and it’s that the US and EU are trying to finagle themselves into the Ethiopian peace process by hook or by crook in order to preserve some of their zero-sum hegemonic interests in that country through their TPLF proxies.

The latest Hybrid War plot against Ethiopia is to replace the African Union’s (AU) role in its peace process, which Foreign Ministry Spokesman Meles Alem said on Friday is “totally unacceptable.” He encouraged all responsible stakeholders to support its efforts in full coordination with that continental body and the federal government but decried any attempts to subvert the AU. Alem’s remarks came after the EU and US envoys visited Tigray and infamously took a selfie with a terrorist leader. They also followed the fake news that he debunked on the same day as his statement regarding the AU supposedly accommodating those Western forces’ desire to join the bloc’s negotiating team.

What’s happening is patently obvious to any objective observer, and it’s that the US and EU are trying to finagle themselves into the Ethiopian peace process by hook or by crook in order to preserve some of their zero-sum hegemonic interests in that country through their TPLF proxies. That terrorist group’s offensive from November 2020 failed to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government or “Bosnify” its administrative setup, and the US-led West’s backup plan of relying on Al Shabaab to that end will certainly also fall flat too. Instead of abandoning its policy of meddling, the US is now trying to go about it in a different way through fake news and the creation of parallel processes.

The first-mentioned tactic is meant to discredit the AU and provoke distrust about its intentions among average Ethiopians in the hopes that they’ll pressure their government into falling for the plot to replace that bloc with the second tactic connected to the US’ creation of the aforesaid parallel processes. That plot is doomed to fail though since this targeted civilization-state’s leadership is well aware of what’s going on as confirmed by Friday’s press conference. Under no circumstances will Addis allow anyone to subvert the AU’s role in the peace process, nor for it to become a fait accompli that it must engage with parallel Western-controlled proxies meant to advance other’s interests at its expense.

Reviewing the sequence of events leading up to the US-led TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia and everything that subsequently transpired, the American modus operandi becomes a lot clearer. Washington pressured Addis to choose between it and Beijing in the New Cold War, but that Horn of Africa leader wisely picked the third path of principled neutrality, which was why the US punished it. The combination of terrorism, sanctions, and information warfare failed to depose its democratically elected government though, which is why America is now trying to meddle in its peace process by discrediting the AU while creating an alternative process under its own influence to replace that bloc’s role

With this insight in mind, it can therefore be said that it’s the US and not Ethiopia that’s on the backfoot after being forced on the strategic defensive following that target society’s people coming together in patriotic solidarity to defend their civilization-state against their former partner’s Hybrid War onslaught. Washington’s terrorist proxies were beaten back and remain contained to the northern part of the country, while that declining unipolar hegemon failed to divide and rule the rest of its cosmopolitan population like it expected to do in provoking a Color Revolution as its primary backup plan in that scenario. Since that plot has also been defeated, the last-ditch effort is now to hijack the peace process.

Nearly two years ago after the US-led TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia went hot, Washington assumed that it would successfully reassert its declining unipolar hegemony over that Horn of Africa state within weeks, but that didn’t happen, nor did their terrorist proxies’ offensive last year result in that outcome either. Al Shabaab is incapable of replacing the role that the TPLF was destined to play in this scheme, and the combination of other Hybrid War means like sanctions and information warfare only further unified the Ethiopian people instead of divided them. The writing is therefore on the wall that this latest plot will also similarly fail.

Putting it all together, the US is panicking after its destabilization campaign in the Horn of Africa counterproductively resulted in accelerating the decline of its hegemony there. Far from subjugating Ethiopia and the wider region to unipolarity, all that it did was embolden them to embrace the global systemic transition to multipolarity more enthusiastically than ever before. In hindsight, the US-led TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia can be seen as a geostrategic game changer that enabled its targeted civilization-state to prove the strength of its sovereignty and establish its credentials as one of Africa’s indisputable multipolar leaders.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... t-succeed/

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

Chadian troops kill ten Boko Haram terrorists

Image
In the Lake Chad region, the army has been fighting since 2015 against the faction of the Nigerian group Boko Haram affiliated with the Islamic State organization. | Photo: EFE
Published 15 August 2022

Despite the death of its leader Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram continues to carry out attacks against the civilian population.

At least ten fighters of the Boko Haram group, as well as two Chadian soldiers, were killed in an attack by terrorists in the surroundings of the town of Bol (west), according to the head of the military junta that has led Chad since April 2021. , Mahamat Idriss Déby.

According to Déby's version, troops from the 25th Brigade, Operation Hadin Kai, would have killed four fighters of the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), including Modu Tafjid, a bomb maker in the village of Kumala along the Maiduguri-Damboa highway, Borno state.

"This is a telling reminder that the terrorist threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorists operating in the area is still real and demands constant vigilance," Déby said.


ISWAP fighters ambushed troops who, along with the Civilian Joint Task Force, repelled the attack.

The version itself refers to ISWAP fighters detonating an explosive in one of the troops' patrol vehicles, followed by gunshots.

Déby said that "Modu Tafjid, an improvised explosive device specialist who led the attack and three others were killed after the fight, while several other terrorists escaped with gunshot wounds."


The events come days after many Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters were killed in a Nigerian Air Force airstrike in Bama of Borno.

Lake Chad, a marshy area of ​​islets, the scene of frequent terrorist attacks and serves as a refuge for the Nigerian group Boko Haram and its offshoot since 2015, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), which often attack armies from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/ataque-t ... -0009.html

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

Sierra Leone’s president threatens further crackdown on protesters after security forces kill 21

Even as his own government’s data shows record rise in consumer prices, President Julius Maad Bio described the protests against the soaring cost of living crisis as an insurrection and vowed to “crack down hard”

August 16, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

Image
(Photo: The News Guru)

An uneasy calm looms over Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown and other several other parts of the country after the curfew imposed since Wednesday was lifted on Saturday, August 13. The 12-hour curfew had been imposed after security forces killed 21 people during a crackdown on anti-government protests against a sharp increase in the cost of living. Six police officers are also reported to have died in the clashes.

While mourning the death of the police personnel and “other citizens who were violently killed,” President Julius Maad Bio in his address on Saturday evaded acknowledging that the “other citizens” killed by the police were protesters. Describing the protest as an “insurrection [which] was pre-meditated, well-planned, financed, and executed with shocking brutality,” President Bio accused the protesters of using “terror.”

While “some unavoidable inconveniences” may be caused to “peaceful citizens,” he added ominously, “be assured that my Government will crack down hard on violent insurrectionists, their collaborators, their sponsors, and their supporters.”

He also indicated in his speech who might be regarded as “their supporters,” saying that “It was also not a nationwide protest. The unrest occurred only in some parts of Makeni, Binkolo, Magburaka, Kamakwie, Lungi, Western Rural, Eastern Freetown, and towards PZ in Freetown.”

Bio also blamed the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), which has a majority of seats in the parliament and holds the mayor’s office in Freetown where most of the protests took place.

“APC is also very neoliberal, elitist and patrimonial,” like the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and most others in the country, Sierra Leonean journalist Jonathan Kamara (name changed) told Peoples Dispatch.

The APC has no alternative program to the policies pursued by the SLPP-government, Kamara asserted. In fact, he added, “the opposition parties have issued statements distancing themselves from the protest. It was people mobilizing without leadership or organized structures. While the opposition may benefit from it, they were not the one to organize it.”

Bio nevertheless attributed the protests to the opposition and announced a crackdown. A day before his speech, when the curfew hours began on the evening of Friday, over a hundred make-shift stalls for street vendors in Freetown’s open market on Abacha Street were demolished.


“All vendors in this market are known to be supporters of the APC,” Kamara said. The Freetown City Council has clarified that it did not carry out the demolition. “The Mayor of Freetown took to social media to oppose it. The question is, since no civilians were out on the streets during the curfew at night, who carried out the demolition? It has to be either the security forces or the APC’s militias,” Kamara said.

By putting together “old army renegades, members of the civil defense groups which were created during the civil war and party thugs,” President Bio, a former army-man himself, has maintained a militia known as the “Soldier team,” Kamara said. “They carry weapons. They don’t wear a uniform, but are dressed in tactical gear.”

With the elections coming up next year, Kamara expressed concerns that if the government persist in crackdowns and attacks on protesters and opposition – especially the APC which has a parliamentary majority – Sierra Leone might be destabilized by a spiral of violence.

“Many were hoping the President in his address would acknowledge the economic crisis, reassure the protesters and de-escalate” the potential descent into violence, he said. But Bio chose to threaten the protesters and the opposition and declare a crackdown instead.

Bio claimed in his speech that “This was not a protest against the high cost of living occasioned by the ongoing global economic crisis.” However, according to his own government’s latest data, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has nearly doubled from April 2018 – when he became the president – to June this year.

The World Bank’s USD 40 million grant to “provide consumption support” and generate “youth employment” has done little to arrest this trend. In fact, it was after this grant in March that the highest month-on-month CPI increase since 2018 was registered for consecutive months. From July onwards, Stats Sierra Leone stopped publishing monthly CPI reports on its website.

While Bio blamed the “global economic crisis” for the rising prices, data presented in the June CPI report shows that consistent rise in consumer prices had begun at least from 2018, well before the war in Ukraine or even the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is not a question of the global financial crisis. That of course has a role in accelerating the problem. But what has the government been doing to cushion the impact on the poor, while the president continues to spend millions of dollars on frivolous foreign trips he makes, including with his family.? When the cost of fuel and food went up tremendously, the government tried to frame it as an external problem,” Kamara said.

While Bio stressed in his speech that his government had reduced the fuel prices twice last month, Kamara pointed out that it was insignificant compared to the three fuel price hikes in the two preceding months of May and June.

“A few months ago, teachers were threatening to go on strike” demanding a pay hike to keep up with the rising prices. “They came to the negotiating table and concessions were made to avert the strike. Doctors went on a two-day strike only two weeks before this protest,” he said.

The protest against price rise had originally been planned for August 8. However, heavy deployment of security forces all over the country prevented it. “But on August 10, they were taken unaware when many people in several neighborhoods of Freetown and elsewhere came out in protest without prior announcement. Other people started joining them,” Kamara said.


“Since this government came to power in 2018, there have been repeated incidents of protests that have been met with police heavy-handedness and crackdown. This has time and again led to loss of civilian lives. But 21 civilians being killed in a crackdown on protests in one single day had never happened in recent years,” he noted.

“This is also the first time in many years that police officers were killed in protests,” he said, adding, “but it had been building up to this because there has never been any accountability when security forces kill civilians.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/16/ ... s-kill-21/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 20, 2022 2:22 pm

In remembering Malibongwe Mdazo, the struggle to organize mineworkers must intensify

On the anniversary of the assassination of Malibongwe Mdazo, South African trade union activist Vuyolwethu Toli writes on the importance of continuing his work

August 17, 2022 by Vuyolwethu Toli

Image
Malibongwe Mdazo marching alongside workers during the strike in the platinum belt. Over 7000 workers had downed tools at the time. Photo: NUMSA

August 19, 2022 marks one year since the brutal assassination of our Comrade Malibongwe Mdazo while he was on organizational duty for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). Executed in broad daylight by a hail of bullets, Mdazo died outside the office of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in Rustenburg. He had been attending a verification process at the CCMA in pursuit of organizational rights and decent working conditions for mineworkers. A prominent song, chanted loudly in isiXhosa at his funeral in Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape of South Africa said:

Kuyoze kube nini na? (For how long?)

Kuyoze kube nini na, siphila impilo ebuhlungu? (For how long must we live in suffering?)

Khanyisa weMdazo kubemhlophe, siphila impilo ebuhlungu (Mdazo shine light on us so that our path is clear, as we live in suffering)

In remembering Mdazo, we also commemorate ten years since the 2012 Marikana massacre where 34 mineworkers were mercilessly gunned down by the South African Police Service (SAPS) for demanding a living wage. We also observe the anniversary of the 1946 African Mineworkers Union strike which saw 75,000-100,000 mineworkers down tools in the demand for better wages and living conditions. Equally we mark the assassination of Mahlomola Hlothoane, a NUMSA shop steward at Reagetswe contractor in Rustenburg. Murdered in June this year at his home, Mahlomola, like Mdazo, assisted NUMSA in coordinating recruitment and organizing at Impala Platinum Mine (Implats).

Mdazo was a volunteer recruiter for NUMSA in the platinum belt of South Africa’s North West Province. His work included recruiting and organizing workers employed by contractors at Implats. He was attracted to NUMSA on the basis of the Union’s track record and consistent struggle credentials in fighting against exploitation and inhumane working conditions in all sectors it organizes.

Mdazo’s contribution in recruiting and organizing thousands of mineworkers for NUMSA in the platinum belt was rooted in his uncompromising principles and values. He embodied the just demand that workers deserved a living wage and dignified standard of living.

Mineworkers who work in South Africa’s gold, platinum, chrome and diamond mines are recruited through a brutal migrant labor system. Hugh Masekela’s world-renowned song ‘Stimela’ highlights how mineworkers travel by train from the rural hinterlands of Southern Africa – from Mozambique to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, and beyond. South Africa’s economy is built on the blood and sweat of black and African labor through an arrangement engineered by the colonial, apartheid system of separate development. Stripped of their land and dignity, mineworkers from South Africa’s former Bantustans and throughout the SADC region were forced to look for economic greener pastures in strategic sectors of South Africa’s economy. Working conditions in the belly of the earth are appalling and unsafe, often resulting in permanent illness and even death.

Against this backdrop, Mdazo sought to spread the gospel of NUMSA whose aims and objectives, as enshrined in the Union’s Constitution, include among others championing workers’ rights, democracy, solidarity, and safe working conditions. For Mdazo, these aims were in sync with his commitment to improving and fundamentally transforming the lives of mineworkers. While their sweat and blood produce a plentitude of profits for the mine CEOs and shareholders, they earn a pittance – mere crumbs falling from the tables of rich mine bosses.

Many workers who work for mining companies are employed through contractors who, in essence, serve the same function as labor brokers. This arrangement has created a value chain, wherein mining companies acquire labor power through various recruitment agencies who call themselves contractors – a standard practice for many mining companies. For Implats at least three contractors namely Newrak, Reagetswe, and Triple M serve as conveyor belts, delivering workers for exploitation. The parasitic nature of employment through contractors is clearly visible through the massive pay gap between a Rock Drill Operator (RDO) directly employed by Implats, and an RDO employed through a recruitment agency. RDO’s working for Implats earn a minimum of R17,000 per month with benefits like medical aid and a pension fund, whereas an RDO employed through contractors earns no more than R5,000 per month with no benefits. Crass differences continue to exist despite South Africa’s Employment Equity Act No.55, legislation promulgated in 1998, that declared there must be equal pay for work of equal value.

With Mdazo and his comrades leading the recruitment drive of mineworkers in Rustenburg, it was routine that on at least two Sundays each month, workers received feedback from their leaders and organizers on progress with recruitment and NUMSA getting recognized by Implats. These report back sessions would start at 9am. Thousands of workers would gather at Implats’ Shaft 9 and Shaft 6 to receive an update. Through song, mineworkers would uplift their morale and militant discipline for the battles ahead. Mdazo was crucial in setting up all logistics required for these meetings. Loyal and dedicated to the cause of workers, he would call us on a Saturday evening to make sure we were on course for the following day’s program. Again, he would call in the early hours of Sunday morning to check if we were up on time to deliver reports as the traveling distance between Johannesburg and Rustenburg is about 2 hours’ drive. Working with him, we had to understand workers’ time to be prioritized and respected.

During the report back meetings, Mdazo’s dynamism and versatility in recruitment and organizing was always out in full force. In football, we would call him a utility player, and in cricket, we call him an all-rounder as he rolled up his sleeves in making sure thousands of comrades come together to listen attentively to reports from their organizers. Mdazo would be seen together with workers in NUMSA’s regalia, lifting his knobkerrie high in the sky, and with emotion leading comrades in song. He was unwavering in his belief that NUMSA will one day take over the entire platinum belt. This optimism and fidelity to NUMSA was not accidental or fanatic. It was his belief in the working class, in organizing, in trade unions, and in democracy which led him to this conclusion. To affirm this he led this song in boosting his fellow comrades confidence:

Sifung’isibhozo, iyhoo haa (We are making an oath)

iNUMSA izophatha, iyhoo haa (That NUMSA will takeover)

Mdazo was laid to rest on September 4, 2021, at his home in Mqanduli, near Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape. Acknowledged as a comrade, brother, father, husband, respected member of his community, volunteer, and organizer – Mdazo was humble and respected by everyone around him, from a mineworker to elders in his rural, village community. A large contingent of mineworkers traveled approximately 1000km by bus to ensure a proper sendoff for their comrade and leader. The funeral service itself was reminiscent of the days when Mdazo would organize thousands of mineworkers to gather in the open fields of Rustenburg near railway lines to give report backs. Mineworkers covered in their NUMSA regalia with the words ‘Hamba kahle qabane’ (Farewell comrade) led songs celebrating his life.

Image
NUMSA members pay their last respect at the funeral service of their comrade, Malibongwe Mdazo who was buried in Qhogi, Mqanduli, Eastern Cape. Mdazo was murdered outside the CCMA on 19 August where he died on the spot. Photo: New Frame

The tears of Mdazo’s comrades, family, and community must, like his life, not be in vain. The struggle to transform South Africa’s economy is as relevant today as it was in 1955 when the Freedom Charter articulated mineworkers’ struggle saying, “the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”.

In NUMSA’s 11th National Congress held in Cape Town recently, NUMSA General Secretary, Irvin Jim, acknowledged Mdazo’s immense contribution to the struggle. In his Secretariat Report, presented to approximately 1000 delegates, he said the following:

“The 11th National Congress must rise and salute sacrifices of many comrades in Rustenburg who took it upon themselves to build NUMSA in the mining industry across the platinum belt. This noble struggle of workers exercising their right to freedom of association led to us a Union losing the life of our courageous, revolutionary volunteer, a cadre and activist of NUMSA, comrade Malibongwe Mdazo.”

In honor of Mdazo’s legacy, we must continue the fight for a South Africa free of oppression and economic exploitation. To remember this giant of NUMSA’s recruitment drive in the platinum belt is to continue the fight for organizational rights and ensuring the yoke and chains of capitalist exploitation in the mining industry become a thing of the past through a decisive class struggle. If we do not take the baton from Mdazo and continue the fight, then many generations of young people from the rural hinterlands of Southern Africa will continue to serve as a bedrock and buffer of the super exploitative mining industry as cheap labor. Mdazo would want us to continue to fight until we destroy capitalism and usher in socialism. He would want us to struggle to ensure that workers share in the wealth of the country.

One year later Mdazo shines as a light and beacon of hope for all metalworkers and workers in general. Indeed, we are the metal that will not bend.

Vuyolwethu Toli is NUMSA’s Regional Education Officer in its Jack Charles Bezuidenhout Region. He is writing in his personal capacity.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/17/ ... intensify/

Thousands of workers on strike at South Africa’s Impala Platinum mines

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) went on strike at the Impala Platinum mines in Rustenburg this week. Among the key demands raised by the workers is an end to exploitation by labor contractors

June 24, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

Image

Over 4,000 contract workers launched an indefinite strike on Monday, June 20, at the Impala Platinum mines in Rustenburg in South Africa’s North West province. The action was organized by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). Strike notices were issued to three companies contracted to provide services to Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats) – Reagetswe Mining Group, Triple M Mining, and Newrak Mining.


One of the key issues raised by the striking workers is their exploitation by labor brokers (otherwise known as contractors), including a severe pay disparity. According to NUMSA, a rock drill operator (RDO) employed on a permanent basis by Implats can earn R17,000 (USD 1,062). However, an RDO employed by contractors is paid only R5,000 (approximately USD 312). According to NUMSA, these contract companies have grossly exploited workers while Implats has “shamefully washed its hands of the situation.”

As part of the ongoing strike, NUMSA has called for a ban on labor brokers.


The union stated in a press release that the strike at Reagetswe and Triple M was prompted by the management’s refusal to recognize NUMSA as a bargaining agent. Both companies have refused to engage in the bargaining process, including on the wage demands submitted by NUMSA. Reagetswe and Triple M have also refused to adhere to an order issued by the Labour Court directing them to carry out a verification to confirm NUMSA as the majority union.

NUMSA has argued that it meets the necessary threshold and has been chosen by the workers to represent them. “Management must stop interfering in the constitutional right of workers to choose which union will represent them. Once we have secured organizational rights, our members want to conclude a collective agreement based on other additional demands including wage increases, benefits, and other demands,” NUMSA said in a statement.

Soon after the strike began, Reagetswe Mining approached the Labor Court in Johannesburg in an attempt to block the action. The Court issued a temporary interdict on June 21 pending a final order on the status of the strike.


Reagetswe argued that a closed shop agreement it had signed with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) in 2014 was binding even on non-parties, including NUMSA members. NUMSA claims that Reagetswe signed another agreement with the AMCU in October 2021 “after they realized that NUMSA was demanding to negotiate salaries for its members.”

The company is now claiming that this second agreement is also binding and, as such, NUMSA members are prevented from embarking on a strike precisely because of the existence of these agreements.

NUMSA argued in court that the closed shop agreement had expired. Moreover, as per the Labor Relations Act (LRA), ballots are supposed to be held every three years to determine if workers are opposed to the closed shop agreement. NUMSA stated that no such ballot had been conducted in recent years.

It further argued that the Reagetswe management is aware that NUMSA represents 1,200 out of the 1,400 workers it employs. Despite this, the management has continued to sign agreements with the AMCU even though it is no longer the majority union. NUMSA accused the company of refusing to conduct a verification which will confirm its majority.

Given that the Court sided with Reagetswe, the strike has been temporarily interdicted. However, NUMSA stated that it hopes to return to court to prevent this order from being made permanent. Meanwhile, the strike is still active at Triple M and Newrak.

Based out of Johannesburg, Implats is the second largest producer of platinum in the world. Workers at its contracted mines have long been demanding decent wages and benefits. These include a housing allowance and medical aid. In June 2021, NUMSA organized 7,000 workers across five companies at Implats – including Reagetswe, Triple M, and Newrak. The effort was led by NUMSA organizer Malibongwe Mdazo. On August 19, he was killed in a brazen public assassination outside the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration. NUMSA had stated that Mdazo’s murder was the result of him recruiting workers at Implats, and that “his work was the reason his life was taken.”

At the time, NUMSA had approached the labor dispute resolution body over the five companies’ refusal to recognize the union’s claims of having majority membership. On the day that Mdazo was killed, the Commission was in the process of verifying NUMSA’s membership forms to determine if it had enough members to be recognized by Newrak.

While NUMSA is now a recognized union at Newrak, the company’s management has refused to grant access to the workplace. It has also been barred from representing members or holding meetings at the site. NUMSA claims that Implats does not want the union at the workplace. “We condemn Implats for interfering in the right of workers to be represented by the union of their choice,” NUMSA stated.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/06/24/ ... num-mines/

********

Africans Strategize in Washington Against Western-Backed Leaders
ORINOCO TRIBUNE2 AUGUST 19, 2022

Image
On left: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. On right: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Background: National Unity Platform presidential candidate Bobi Wine. Toward Freedom. File photo.

By Julie Varughese – Aug 16, 2022

West wants to change regimes for itself.

Silver Spring, Maryland – The United States and its European allies only care about human-rights violations when it benefits them.

That’s what a few dozen members of the Horn of Africa and East Africa diaspora agreed upon as they gathered August 13 outside Washington, D.C.

A regional conference of the National Unity Platform, a political party in Uganda, brought together members of the country’s diaspora from the New York City and Washington metro areas to strategize on how to tackle U.S. meddling that props up leaders.

“The West wants to change regimes for itself, not for Africans—we remember Libya,” said Dr. Berhanu T. Taye, chair of the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus (GLEAN) and member of the Ethiopian American Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC). He was referring to the 2011 U.S./NATO invasion that turned the most prosperous African country into a war zone that hosts slave markets.

‘Aid an instrument of western neocolonialism’
While the conference’s theme was “Democracy & Security In East Africa & the Horn of Africa,” a series of protests the group staged the day prior was called, “No to Neo-Colonial African Dictators.”

Neocolonialism refers to the stage of colonialism in which a colonial power continues to control a country or a nation of people by supporting the rise to leadership of those within the oppressed nation who serve the colonial master. This continues the process of extracting material wealth for the benefit of the colonial powers. Loan programs through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are seen as tools to subjugate and profit off oppressed countries.

Taye referred to Western aid as “opium.” He encouraged conference attendees to get better organized for the struggle. “Aid is not only an instrument of Western neocolonialism, but of underdevelopment.”

The party’s regional conference included attendees and speakers from countries outside East Africa and the Horn of Africa, including Chad, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau.

Some party members and attendees from other countries expressed frustration with non-governmental organizations and the U.S. government not taking their concerns seriously.

“The likes of [Ugandan President Yoweri] Museveni and [Rwandan President Paul] Kagame… would not be able to do what they do without the backing of the United States and the United Kingdom,” said Maurice Carney, who spoke remotely to the audience via Zoom. Carney is founder and executive director of U.S.-based nonprofit organization Friends of the Congo.

Among the violations the group denounced were Museveni’s government being partly responsible for destabilizing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by sending arms and proxy fighters.

Meeting notes from an August 8 convening of the United Nations Security Council show officials pointing out the Ugandan government’s support for a Daesh affiliate group.

The violence in the DRC has internally displaced 5.6 million Congolese, while 990,000 take shelter across the African continent. In February, the International Court of Justice ordered Uganda to pay $325 million in reparations to the DRC.

‘Billions go out the back door’
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Trade Administration encourages U.S. companies to do business in the DRC, citing “tens of trillions of dollars” in mineral wealth.

“The DRC is one of the most blessed places on Earth,” said Taye. “Sadly, the agents in the neighborhood—Kagame and Museveni—are facilitating the looting of Congo for the West.”

Non-governmental organization Global Witness reported in April that 90 percent of minerals coming out of one DRC mining area were shown to have come from mines that did not meet security and human-rights standards. Companies relying on minerals from such mines include U.S.-based Apple, Intel and Tesla.

“Aid that comes in the front door with tens of millions of dollars is a mirage,” Carney said. The United States has disbursed $618 billion in aid to Uganda since 2001. “Billions go out the back door in the form of extractions [of resources].”

‘Africa is going to be punished’
Conference moderator Joseph Senyonjo said the NUPUSA (the party’s U.S. arm) has attempted to engage U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“She has done nothing,” he said.

Senyonjo added Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) has been unhelpful. Meeks chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has introduced a U.S. House bill that would punish African countries for bypassing U.S. sanctions on Russia. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an August 5 speech in Ghana that U.S. sanctions are not to blame for the global wheat shortage, all while threatening action if African countries buy Russian fossil fuels. However, cutting off Russia from the SWIFT global payments system prevents it from trading wheat, a major Russian export.

What does that mean for African countries that have relied on Russia for 32 percent of their wheat imports?

“Africa is going to be punished,” Senyonjo told conference attendees.

‘We can’t be timid’
Netfa Freeman, the keynote speaker, warned attendees of approaching the U.S. government from a weak position and with the intent of appealing to the conscience. He said the United States cannot recognize human rights because it was built by violating the human rights of the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. Now, it holds one-fifth of the world’s prisoners, including the longest-held political prisoners in the world.

“Convincing them cannot be the goal,” said Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action, a grassroots organization based in southeast Washington. He also is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee and hosts a local radio program.

Freeman added officials such as Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd mirror the comprador class that holds power in various African countries. A comprador appears to independently operate as a leader, but answers to colonial powers.

Freeman encouraged conference attendees to widen the scope of their solidarity to include Afro-descendants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, for example, because they, too, suffer under U.S. sanctions and threats of invasion. He connected events that took place during the same timeframe on the continent—the assassination of DRC Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the driving into exile of Ghanian Prime Minister and President Kwame Nkrumah—with the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Internationalism is the Achilles’ heel of U.S. imperialism,” Freeman said.

Freeman added the struggle must be waged against the system, not against individual leaders.

“We can’t be timid. We don’t ask for anything. We demand.”

https://orinocotribune.com/africans-str ... d-leaders/

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

UN Fund Injects $10 Million to Help Somalia Cope With Drought

Image
Horn of Africa children get humanitarian aid, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @newvisionwire

For the first time since 2017, famine-like conditions have been declared in the country, with 7.8 million people living in acutely food insecure.

On Friday, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths released US$10 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to ramp up emergency aid in Somalia, which is looking into the abyss after its worst drought in 40 years.

For the first time since 2017, famine-like conditions have been declared in the country, with 213,000 people living in famine-like conditions and 7.8 million people acutely food insecure.

"The clock is running down for people in Somalia. If we don't step up in force now, it'll run out and the malnourished children are likely to die first," warned the UN humanitarian chief.

"This new funding will help humanitarian agencies get supplies and staff in place as soon as humanly possible to help avert a further catastrophe in Somalia. But it is no solution. We need all hands on deck and all resources mobilized to prevent famine," Griffiths said.

Over 1 million Somalis have been displaced by the drought since 2021, and 1.5 million children under age 5 are malnourished. They include 386,400 who will require emergency nutrition treatment to survive. Humanitarians have reached over 4 million people with CERF funds in the first half of the year, and they continue to scale up to prevent the worst.


With this latest funding, CERF has allocated a total of US$41 million to the drought response in Somalia this year. Funding has backed food and nutrition interventions and delivered health, water and sanitation, protection, shelter and education to people in need.

The hunger crisis extends across the Horn of Africa. More than 21 million people across eastern Ethiopia, northern Kenya and Somalia are facing high levels of acute food insecurity following four consecutive failed rainy seasons. A fifth failed rainy season is predicted in the coming months, which will escalate needs.

Somalia urgently needs assistance to save lives and avert famine, but it also needs substantial investments in livelihoods, infrastructure development and climate adaptation to build resilience to future climate shocks.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UN- ... -0008.html

Nigeria's Electricity Workers Pause Strike for Two Weeks

Image
Protest in front of the Transmission Company, Abuja, Nigeria, Aug. 17, 2022. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 19 August 2022

The strike was suspended after a meeting with government negotiators led by Labor Minister Chris Ngige on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Nigerian electricity workers suspended a nationwide strike that began Wednesday, causing blackouts and worsening power supply in parts of the most populous African country.

Joe Ajaero, secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), said that the strike was suspended for two weeks after a meeting with government negotiators led by Labor Minister Chris Ngige late Wednesday.

"The government has promised to resolve the issues raised by the union within two weeks. If our demands are not met, the strike will resume," Ajaero, adding that the union and the government had agreed to set up a bipartite committee to analyze the issues raised by the electricity workers.

The NUEE said that it had withdrawn its services at the headquarters of the Transmission Company in Abuja, calling for payment of outstanding arrears owed to workers, reversal of promotion interviews for acting principal managers, among other long-pending issues.


The strike, following a two-week ultimatum by the NUEE, was in line with a directive of the union's national leadership. Transmission stations were picketed Wednesday to disrupt the electricity supply.

Parts of the country began to bear the brunt of power blackouts due to the strike Wednesday. Ajaero said electricity would be restored across the nation from Thursday.

Power Minister Abubakar Aliyu said that the government was working to resolve the crisis, adding that consultations were ongoing among critical stakeholders in the power sector to address the issue and restore supply.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nig ... -0005.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10587
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Africa

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 26, 2022 2:16 pm

“A fearless leader”: South African shack-dwellers’ leader, Lindokuhle Mnguni, assassinated in Durban

Chairperson of the eKhenana commune of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), who was out of prison on bail, was gunned down at his home two days before he was to appear in court. This is the third murder of AbM leaders in eKhenana commune in Cato Crest this year.

August 23, 2022 by Pavan Kulkarni

Image
Lindokuhle Mnguni, chairperson of eKhenana commune of Abahlali baseMjondolo. Photo: Siya Mbhele

28-year-old Lindokuhle Mnguni, the twice imprisoned chairperson of the eKhenana commune of South African shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), was gunned down at his home in Cato Crest, Durban, at around 1:30 a.m on Saturday, August 20.

“Two gunmen smashed his shack’s window with a spade, kicked down the door and opened fire into his home. His partner, who was with him at the time, was also shot. She remains hospitalized after undergoing a surgery. She is fighting for her life,” Thapelo Mohapi, AbM general secretary told Peoples Dispatch.

Mnguni was out of prison on bail at the time of his assassination, two days before he was to appear in court to defend himself from murder charge on Monday, August 22. According to eyewitnesses, his two assassins were part of the hit-squad that on March 8 had killed his co-defendant, AbM eKhenana branch’s deputy chairperson Ayanda Ngila, who was also on bail after having been charged for the same murder.

“There were four defendants in this case. After they killed Ngila, there were only three, and now there are only two alive after Mnguni’s murder,” Mohapi said. They are the branch’s secretary Maphiwe Gasela, a mother in her mid-20s, and 34-year old Lando Tshazi, chairperson of its youth league.

Ngila, Mnguni and Tshazi had first been arrested in March 2021 and charged with a murder. Subsequently, in May that year, Gasela, along with another branch member Siniko Miya and AbM’s national vice-president George Bonono, were arrested and charged of conspiring to murder witnesses against Ngila, Mnguni and Tshazi.

All charges were dropped after it was proven in court that the witnesses of the police had provided false testimonies. Only months after their release in the end of September 2021, Ngila, Mnguni and Tszhazi, along with Gasela, were arrested again in January 2022 and charged with another murder. They were released on bail by the end of February after the police were once again unable to show any evidence to make their case.

They were given heroes’ welcome at the AbM’s general assembly in the eKhenana commune on March 6. Members at the gathering danced, hummed and cheered in chorus as Lindokule Mnguni sang a song of resistance he had composed in prison.

@abahlali_abm's Lindokule Mnguni at the General Assembly at the eKhenana Commune, home after his second period in prison on trumped up charges. He composed this song in prison.

Videos via Abahlali baseMjondolo on Facebook pic.twitter.com/6U4X7CvgxW

— Peoples Dispatch (@peoplesdispatch) March 8, 2022

Then came the hitmen
After the assembly had concluded, Ntokozo Ngubane, one of police’s false witnesses in the previous murder charge, and her brother Khaya Ngbane, led goons into an attack on the commune members. Siniko Miya, who had been imprisoned in the fabricated case last year, was attacked with an ax. Two days later, Khaya Ngubane, along with three other gunmen he led, assassinated Ngila, according to eyewitnesses.

After Khaya’s arrest, his father Samson Ngubane, who is allegedly a local leader of the ruling ANC interested in dragging the commune land into the real estate market, had threatened AbM members in the premises of Durban court that “there will be bloodshed in eKhenana”.

This was stated by Nokuthula Mabaso – a mother of four who was a key witness to Ngila’s murder – in the affidavit she had prepared to oppose Khaya Ngubane’s bail on May 6. An evening before, Mabaso was also gunned down. Samson Ngubane and his brother were arrested for her murder on July 26.

Following her murder, Mohapi said, it had become evident that there was danger to the lives of Mnguni, Tshazi and Gasela. The police had roped them, along with Ngila, into a second murder case they are unable to substantiate, seven months after making arrests this January.

“So we had moved them from the commune to a safehouse,” he said. “But on Saturday, they had come to the commune to work on its poultry farm and vegetable garden” – among the key projects which make eKhenana AbM’s landmark accomplishment.

Since its inception in 2005, AbM has been occupying lands and building shacks with the collective labor of its own members to house the urban poor. These shacks are also self-connected to water and electricity supply, without help or permission from the government.

eKhenana is one such occupation with 3,000 shacks. Since it was established in Cato Crest in 2018, its residents have come under attack several times by goons as well as by police and armed private security personnel who accompanied the several illegal demolition drives by the ANC-ruled local municipality.

Resisting these attacks which were only increasing during the COVID-induced lockdown despite a moratorium on evictions, the members of eKhenana not only managed to keep the land they had occupied but also started a vegetable garden, poultry farm and a tuck shop to sell fast food. These profitably-run communal projects provided a key source of nutrition and generated incomes that were used to address the needs of the community members.

By thus demonstrating to the urban poor that it is possible to organize to live with dignity, without having to depend on the ruling party’s patronage, the militant shack-dwellers’ movement has invoked the wrath of the ANC, AbM argues. Ayanda Ngila fell to bullets in the vegetable garden while working on fixing the irrigation pipes in March. The eyewitness of his murder, Mabaso, who had since taken charge of leading these projects, was also killed in May.

Image
Three members of the eKhenana commune in Cato Crest have been assassinated in the last six months. Photo: Siya Mbhele

Work on these communal enterprises had since come to a halt. Residents have been living in fear as gunmen have allegedly been frequenting the commune and opening fire in the air at night. Under these circumstances, residents had resolved at a meeting in July to close down the tuck shop as it was an easy target for gunmen. It was, however, resolved in the same meeting that the vegetable garden and poultry farm had to be revived.

To contribute their labor to this work, Mnguni, Tshazi and Gasela had come out of their safehouse to the commune on Saturday. “They fenced the poultry, plowed the garden and planted spinach and cabbage. Gasela then left in the afternoon, but Mnguni and Tshazi decided to stay back for a meeting in the evening to discuss the way forward for these projects. It went on till eleven at night,” Mohapi said.

“When the two gunmen broke into the occupation after midnight, they first went to the community hall. On finding no one there, they broke into the shacks of Tshazi and Miya. But they had slept in other shacks, and were saved,” he said. “But Lindokuhle had made the mistake of going back to his own shack to sleep. They found him and killed him.”

‘Socialism or Death!’
His murder came as no surprise. Describing him as “a fearless leader” who always “stood for his community”, AbM said in its statement, “Mnguni knew that he had chosen to live and struggle in the shadow of death. He made it very clear, in his calm and gentle way, that he had chosen socialism or death.”

For Mnguni, no talk of socialism was real without the struggle for the collective ownership of land. “Our forefathers, our grandparents were promised that if they struggle and defeat apathied regime…they will reach socialism…[that] everyone will have access to land, because [the ANC] knew the impoverished wanted to have access to land. But what happened after 1994?” he asked while addressing a forum at The Forge in June. “If we say we want to bring socialism, [and] yet land is not on top of the table, we will forever languish in poverty,” he warned.

“In our country we have many people who call themselves socialists, communists. When you say, please show me what you have done…they will give you only ideas…But this is not rocket science. When you say you are a socialist the problem that you want to solve is the problem of poverty…But you can’t solve it just by relying on ideas. We need action [for collective ownership of land],” he insisted. “When poor people commit themselves to politics, they don’t commit themselves to mere ideas… we join politics because we have problems we want to solve.”

A voracious reader of Marx, Fanon, Freire, Biko and Malcom X from a young age, Mnguni was never the one to shy away from sharp-witted retorts to the elite intellectuals, teaching socialism down to the poor. Mohapi recollected Mnguni’s unshakable confidence that “the working class, the poor have brains, and can study, teach each other and produce their own intellectuals.”

It was with this vision of Mnguni that the Frantz Fanon political school was set up at eKhenana in late 2019, Mohapi said. Functioning since 2020, it provides training to run communal projects and also imparts political education. “The Communist Manifesto was studied line by line in the Frantz Fanon school,” AbM said in its statement.

“People who call themselves liberators should stop wasting their energy on educating us about how poor we are,” Mnguni added in his address. “We, as the working class, know we are poor. What we need is action.”

In the 17 years of this action by AbM on the frontlines of the South African poor majority’s struggle for land, Mnguni became the 24th leader it has lost to assassination. “We knew the price we had to pay,” he had said last month.

Remembering his conversations with Ayanda Ngila in prison, he had added, “We used to talk a lot about death because we knew that someday luck won’t be on our side. They will kill us. We even said, ‘it is socialism or death!’…because we can’t really continue living in these inhumane conditions.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/23/ ... in-durban/

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

Blinken Returns Empty Handed from Africa Tour
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 24, 2022
Abayomi Azikiwe

Image
Us Imperialism In Africa And Middle East Graphic By CwlUs Imperialism In Africa And Middle East Graphic By Cwl

Secretary of States travelled to three countries seeking to undermine the influence of China and Russia


United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited three African Union (AU) member-states during early August in an attempt to enhance the presence of Washington on the continent.

This tour came amid an escalation of tensions between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China in regard to their relations with Washington.

Blinken first visited the Republic of South Africa where he had a joint meeting with Naledi Pandor, his diplomatic counterpart. Pandor reiterated the views of the African National Congress (ANC) government which has refused to denounce Moscow over its special military operation in Ukraine.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has stated that the U.S. should encourage a diplomatic resolution to the war in Ukraine. This view is at extreme variance with that of the administration of President Joe Biden which has sent billions of dollars in military equipment and other support aimed at continuing the war.

Biden and Secretary of State Lloyd Austin have called for the weakening and removal of the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration has imposed unprecedented draconian sanctions against Moscow, forcing U.S.-based firms to leave the country and making it even more difficult for nations around the world to conduct trade with Russia.

Historically during the period of the Soviet Union, the socialist state supported the national liberation movements and progressive governments on the continent during the 1950s through the 1980s. Those states in Eastern Europe which were allied with the Soviets also participated in providing scholarships, military training and joint economic projects.

As hundreds of U.S.-based corporations and the Pentagon provided direct economic, intelligence and military support to the racist apartheid system prior to the democratic breakthrough of April 1994, the socialist countries including the Soviet Union, the Comecon sector, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, among others, were diplomatically and materially bolstering the struggle to win independence and non-capitalist development.

Since the ascendancy of the ANC to power in South Africa in May 1994, successive administrations have sought to rebuild and sustain normal relations with Washington and its allies. However, there are issues which have continued to divide Pretoria and Washington.

Ukraine is not the only point of disagreement involving geopolitical positions. South Africa has remained a staunch proponent of Palestinian liberation along with calls for the departure of the Kingdom of Morocco which has occupied the Western Sahara for more than four decades. In contrast, the administrations in the U.S. since 1948 have provided unconditional diplomatic, material, military and public relations support to the State of Israel. In regard to the Western Sahara question, the previous administration of President Donald Trump recognized the “sovereignty” of Morocco over the political, military and economic control of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the provisional government representing the Western Sahara, previously a colony of Spain until the 1970s.

In an article authored by Elliot Smith published by CNBC, it notes that: “The underlying purpose of the trip — Blinken’s second since President Joe Biden’s administration took office — will be to try to contain Russian and Chinese geopolitical influence on the continent, according to Alex Vines, director of the Africa program at Chatham House. ‘South Africa is a country which doesn’t have a good relationship with the United States. The party of government, the African National Congress, regularly issues declaration communiques criticizing the United States, and so the effort there is how to improve the relationship and at least have a more constructive dialog with South Africa,’ Vines told CNBC on Monday (Aug. 8). He suggested that this is the reason why South Africa is Blinken’s first port of call, and that particular attention will be paid to aligning the two countries’ perspectives on Russia’s war in Ukraine. ‘There’s a big difference between how Pretoria sees the Russia-Ukraine issue, and Washington,’ Vines added.” (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/08/echoes- ... uence.html)

Beyond an emphasis on the economic trade between the two countries, there was no progress in regard to convincing South Africa to move closer to Washington’s policies toward Palestine and Ukraine. Pretoria is a member of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit which meets on a regular basis to enhance diplomatic and economic cooperation independent of the complete domination of Washington and Wall Street.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the U.S. Legacy of Imperialism

After leaving South Africa, Blinken landed in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. This visit came just weeks after the attempts by the former colonial power of Belgium to recalibrate relations with the Congolese government.

When the DRC gained independence in June 1960, the U.S. and Belgium worked closely together to overthrow the administration of revolutionary Pan-Africanist leader Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who was later assassinated in January of 1961. The remains of Lumumba were just returned from Brussels after more than sixty years.

Blinken expressed his concern over rising conflict on the border between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, also a former Belgian colony. In the east of the DRC, the rebel M23 organization has reportedly increased their attacks which have impacted civilians. The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces of more than 17,000 soldiers in the DRC known as MONUSCO, has drawn the ire of the civilian population in recent months due to the worsening security situation.

According to the DRC mission statement it emphasizes: “MONUSCO took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation – the United Nations Organization Mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) – on 1 July 2010. It was done in accordance with Security Council resolution 1925 of 28 May to reflect the new phase reached in the country. The new mission has been authorized to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate relating, among other things, to the protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the Government of the DRC in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts.” (https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/monusco)

However, demonstrations led by local residents in and around Goma erupted in recent weeks demanding the withdrawal of the MONUSCO forces which are largely composed of soldiers from numerous African and Asian states. A report published by the New Humanitarian said of the situation in eastern DRC: “Prior to the protests, MONUSCO had drawn up a withdrawal plan that envisaged a 2024 departure date contingent on security improvements in DRC. But the upswell of anger has led the Congolese government to announce it is re-evaluating that plan.
The current protests come amid a rebellion by the M23 armed group that has captured parts of the eastern province of North Kivu. Protesters say MONUSCO has shown inaction and failed to clearly acknowledge alleged Rwandans backing for the group.” (https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news ... acekeeping)

Blinken in his talks with DRC President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi indicated that the U.S. was concerned about the continuing instability in the eastern region and would raise the issue with neighboring Rwanda. Although Rwanda has denied that it is supporting the M23 rebel groupings, this issue became the central focus of interactions during the last leg of the Blinken tour.

Rwandan Press Criticizes White House Africa Policy

Even prior to the arrival of Blinken to Kigali, the state media in Rwanda had published an open letter penned scholars from the continent and North America to the U.S. Secretary of State related to the situation on the border with Eastern DRC as well as the prosecution and imprisonment Paul Rusesabagina, who the government accuses of supporting rebel groups in opposition to the administration of President Paul Kagame. Rusesabagina was the subject of the U.S. film “Hotel Rwanda” that portrayed the businessman as being sympathetic to the victims of the 1994 genocide.

The New Times said of the letter to Blinken: “Regarding the crisis in Eastern DR Congo, they invite him to adopt a holistic approach considering the political, economic, and socio-cultural ramifications of the Congolese situation. On the case of Mr. Rusesabagina, the African and U.S. scholars remind the Secretary of State that the lives of Rwandan citizens matter as much of those of American citizens.” (https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/2019 ... te-blinken)

A week after Blinken’s departure from Rwanda, Veronica Mbaye wrote in the New Times pointing out the contradictory character of Washington’s foreign policy saying: “Whatever residue of faith persisted after George Bush lied about mass destruction weapons existing in oil-rich Iraq, as an excuse to invade the country and cause decades-long instability, was exhausted during the Barack Obama years. Obama, who ran a successful campaign by feigning an impeccable moral core (which I suppose Americans did want to see in him to prove they were not racist) positioned himself as anti-war, only to line the pockets of gun lobbyists and drop bombs on innocent Syrian children when elected. As Antony Blinken will recall, having served as Obama’s close aide for years, the Obama Administration orchestrated the assassination of an African leader on African soil, despite the full awareness that it would send Libya and the entire region into deathly, dehumanizing turmoil. So frankly, I am dazed and amazed that a single American, State official or not, would think their act is convincing when claiming to have the interests of the Africans they so casually kill at heart.” (https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/383/ ... -with-love)

Therefore, the Blinken second Africa tour passed with no fanfare in the U.S. corporate and government-controlled media. These developments are indicative of the failure of U.S. imperialism to shift its foreign policy orientation to meet the contemporary issues of the 21st century.

From Bush, Obama, Trump to Biden, Washington has maintained its commitment to world hegemony over the majority of the people now living within the oppressed nations and geo-political regions. It is up to the African workers, farmers and youth in alliance with the international proletariat to bring into existence a world devoid of inequality and economic exploitation.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... rica-tour/

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

Labor Court in South Africa dismisses contempt of court application against NUMSA

The application sought to have the union’s 11th National Congress be declared null and void and called for the arrest and imprisonment of NUMSA national leaders, Irvin Jim and Andrew Chirwa

August 25, 2022 by Tanupriya Singh

Image
NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim addresses the 11th National Congress (Photo: NUMSA)

Following protracted legal proceedings, the Johannesburg Labor Court on Tuesday, August 23, dismissed the contempt of court application against the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). Judge Andre van Niekerk issued the ruling on an urgent application filed by the union’s former second deputy president, Ruth Ntlokotse.

The matter focused on the circumstances surrounding NUMSA’s 11th National Congress, which was held in Cape Town at the end of July. The Labor Court heard Ntlokotse’s application on August 19, where she alleged that the congress had proceeded in violation of an interdict issued by Judge Graham Moshoana on July 23.

Over a week prior to this interdict ruling, NUMSA had announced on July 13 that Ntlokotse had been suspended pending a fair disciplinary process. During a press conference, General Secretary Irvin Jim stated that the union’s Special Central Committee had determined that Ntlokotse had “undermined the organization and its unity,” and “defined [herself] outside the collective leadership of the NOBs [NUMSA National Office Bearers]…”

Five members of the National Executive Committee were also suspended.

On July 18, Ntlokotse approached the Labor Court to have her suspension, and that of 30 other NUMSA members, overturned, or have the (then) upcoming National Congress be halted until the nature of the suspensions had been clarified.

Judge Moshoana ruled in favor of Ntlokotse, declaring the suspensions to be “unconstitutional, invalid, and unenforceable in law.” The ruling also extended to the decision of the NUMSA leadership to place the Mpumalanga Regional Council under ‘administration’, which meant that it would be unable to participate in the National Congress.

Speaking to SABC News on August 24, Jim stated that the decision regarding Mpumalanga had been “politicized.” He said that the Mpumalanga Regional Council had collapsed (or failed to convene) twice. The absence of a properly constituted regional executive committee which had a mandate would raise a series of issues, Jim explained.

In the July 23 interdict order, Judge Moshoana ruled that the National Congress would be suspended “until NUMSA complied with its own constitution.”

Threats to trade union democracy
On July 27, NUMSA announced that it would proceed with the National Congress and that the meeting would be officially convened that very day. The union stated that pursuant to Judge Moshoana’s judgement, it had issued a 48-hour notice to convene a Special Central Committee meeting on July 26 to take the necessary steps to comply with the court’s order.


NUMSA claimed that postponing the congress was not a viable option given that many delegates had already flown into Cape Town to attend the meeting, and the total wasted costs would amount to around R39 million (USD 2.29 million). The statement added that the Central Committee had taken “due cognisance of the adverse impact the cancellation of Congress would have on NUMSA as a democratic institution.” The union’s leadership must be elected by workers every four years. NUMSA was unable to convene a congress (and elections) in 2021 due to COVID-19 related restrictions.


The statement further noted that “Whilst the Special Central Committee resolved to lodge an appeal against the judgement of the Honourable [Justice] Moshoana …it nevertheless also resolved that it will be prudent to take all steps possible to ensure that NUMSA acts within the “four corners of its constitution” and in accordance with the content of the judgement.”

The committee adopted various resolutions to address the issues, including the absence of the term “precautionary suspension” in the Constitution, which had resulted in the Labor Court overturning the suspensions. The committee also decided that no suspensions would be reimposed, and that the previously suspended individuals, including Ntlokotse, would be permitted to attend the congress and exercise their right to vote and to be nominated and elected for office (all without prejudice to NUMSA proceeding with the appropriate disciplinary action).

A credentials committee was also set up to issue accreditations, in line with the court’s ruling.

The union reiterated that the congress was able to proceed in full compliance with the court order. It added that this was being done “irrespective of the fact that the judgement had been suspended as a consequence of the filing of NUMSA’s application for leave to appeal against said judgement.”

The statement also raised concerns about “rogue individuals” with “their anti-worker, NUMSA-bashing program” acting in “pursuit of an external agenda in collaboration with forces who have been operating in the shadows.” It accused such forces of attacking and attempting to “weaken and fragment the unity within NUMSA” with the objective of eliminating those in the leadership they regarded as “constituting a threat to their counter revolutionary agendas.”

Following the first day of the congress, NUMSA announced that a new leadership was elected, and that all candidates had been nominated unopposed by all regions.


NUMSA’s urgent leave to appeal was heard by Judge Moshoana on the evening of July 27 and rejected the next day. NUMSA responded by saying that it would file a leave to appeal application and petition directly to the Labor Appeals Court for direct access. It sought to set aside the whole judgement and order handed down by Justice Moshoana.

In another statement dated July 30, NUMSA said that the congress had been able to proceed as it had taken the steps to rectify the constitutional defects outlined in Judge Moshoana’s ruling. It added that the leave to appeal was a “separate issue about NUMSA disagreeing with the court order and wanting to challenge the precedent it is currently setting.” However, “until such time is set aside on appeal, NUMSA will continue to comply with the court order…”

The union also added that despite the suspensions being lifted, none of the regional office-bearers or Ntlokotse participated in the elections.

Battle in the courts
In the meantime, Ntlokotse filed an urgent application asking the Labor Court to declare the congress null and void, including the elections of the office-bearers and all the decisions that had been taken. The application went further, calling upon the court to issue a warrant for the arrest of NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim and President Andrew Chirwa on charges of contempt of court, and called for their imprisonment for 30 days.

After an initial postponement, the hearing was held on August 19.


Finally, on August 23, Judge Van Niekerk announced the verdict dismissing the contempt of court application. He declared: “In so far as the applicant contends that the resolutions adopted by the special meeting of central committee and the reconvening of the national congress on 27 July 2022, all constitute breaches of the court order and thus acts of contempt of court, it does not seem to me that a decision to taken to postpone the commencement of the national congress until such times as the union fully complied with its constitution, constitutes a breach of the order.”

“On the contrary, it is indicative of compliance with the order,”Judge Van Niekerk said, adding, “I am not persuaded that the applicant has established a breach of the order beyond a reasonable doubt.”

NUMSA welcomed the ruling, stating, “We are vindicated by this judgement. We will continue to defend the union and its decisions.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/25/ ... nst-numsa/

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

AFRICA'S ROLE IN THE NEW COLD WAR
Andrew Koribko

20 Aug 2022 , 11:41 am .

Image
The West supports neo-colonial hegemony in Africa while Russia supports its liberation (Photo: Shutterstock)

The Western media, led by the United States, hardly spoke of Africa, aside from scaremongering about its alleged perennial instability; however, today the narrative is shifting towards a debate about his role in what many have begun to call the New Cold War. This global struggle is not between capitalism and communism, as in the old Cold War, but can be simplified as the 1% of the West led by the United States that clings to unipolarity against the Global South led by the BRICS that promotes the multipolarity.

Unipolarity refers to the belief that only one country or group of them, such as Western developed economies (which in this context also includes Japan as part of the G7 ), should dominate international relations, while multipolarity believes that all countries must be treated equally. The former briefly came into force after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union in 1991, while the latter began to emerge after the disastrous US-led Western invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Africa abruptly appeared on the radar of Western public opinion after its governments conspired to destroy Libya in 2011, but soon faded from their consciousness as the media focused more on the Syrian conflict that began that same year. and then in the Ukrainian one that started in 2014. However, the latest phase of the Ukrainian conflict triggered by Russia's special military operation has made the West pay more attention to Africa again.

Despite the fact that just over half of their countries voted to condemn Russia's UN special operation, none of them complied with US pressure to sanction it. In addition, the president of the African Union, Macky Sall, agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his visit in early June, that Western sanctions against his country, led by Washington, were responsible for the worsening of the food crisis. world, which actually owes its origin to events prior to the Ukrainian conflict, such as the covid-19 pandemic, etc.

In recent weeks there has been a lot of diplomatic activity in Africa. The head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, recently traveled to the continent to convince her countries that President Sall was wrong and that the West is right to blame Russia. of this impending humanitarian crisis. Soon after, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited four countries , during which he convincingly countered the false narrative about him. French President Emmanuel Macron also visited Africa at the time to rant about Russia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also just completed a trip there, leading many observers to conclude that there is now a raging struggle for influence raging across the continent, exactly as happened before during the old Cold War. . Unlike then, the competition is not between ideologies, but between the ideal model of international relations: the 1% of the West, led by the United States, defends unipolarity, while the Global South, led by the BRICS, supports multipolarity .


Returning to the issue of Africa's role in the New Cold War, there are several reasons why it is gaining more and more prominence and is becoming an arena of competition between Russia and the West. First of all, its more than 50 countries make up an impressive voting bloc at the UN, so it follows that Moscow and its rivals want them to support their interpretations, whatever they may be, to show the rest of the international community that such a or what number of States support their views.

Second, Africa is expected to experience rapid population growth over the next century, which may translate into huge market potential. Third, this may contribute to some countries like Ethiopia , Nigeria, and South Africa actually becoming major countries with far-reaching influence on their own landmass and possibly even beyond. Fourth, major countries like Russia and its Western rivals have an interest in establishing strategic partnerships with their emerging counterparts ahead of time.

And finally, the last reason comes down to the ideological basis of the New Cold War regarding the spread of the worldview of each party in Africa. To explain it, the 1% led by the United States wants to maintain its neo-imperial hegemony over the countries it considers to be within its self-declared "sphere of influence", while the Global South led by the BRICS (in this context represented by Russia) wants to help them fully complete its decolonization processes, as Foreign Minister Lavrov recently promised.

These great long-term strategic objectives are incompatible with each other, since the first consists in perpetuating servitude in the current conditions, while the second consists in freeing foreign nations from this pernicious hegemonic influence. In reality, it is the 1%, and not the Global South as the Western media claims, that uses corruption as a weapon and wages proxy wars to advance their interests in Africa that makes them extremely dangerous.

Nonetheless, Africa is destined to play a leading role in the world's systemic transition to multipolarity , even though some countries may find it difficult to free themselves completely from the neo-colonial yoke of the West. Therefore, it can be said that the importance of the continent in the New Cold War is that of being the scene of a new national liberation movement inspired by its predecessor of the Old Cold War. As then, the West supports colonial hegemony while Russia supports true freedom.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/el ... uerra-fria

Google Translator

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

France's Macron Visits Algeria to Ease Tension

Image
French President Emmanuel Macron (L) & Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune (R), Aug. 25, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @menaaffairscom

Published 26 August 2022 (1 hours 48 minutes ago)

Algiers and Paris have failed to normalize their ties, as the two nations are still unable to settle the issues regarding their past that include France's colonial rule of Algeria.

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Algeria for a three-day visit aimed at easing the strained ties and boosting cooperation. He was welcomed upon his arrival at the Algiers International Airport by his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

At a joint press conference held in Algiers, Tebboune and Macron agreed to give a new impetus to bilateral relations by surmounting "the memory issue," referring to France's 132-year-long colonial rule of the North African country, before opening new horizons for strategic cooperation.

During their meeting, the two leaders also discussed ways for boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech, cultural, and economic sectors to improve the business climate. The Algerian president confirmed that senior officials from both countries will exchange visits to continue dialogue and enhance cooperation. For his part, Macron said the two countries had to overcome their "painful past" by discussing all "taboo issues" relating to the colonial period.

The French president noted his talks with Tebboune focused on boosting cooperation on fields of economy, innovation, startups, culture, sports and more. They also talked about the situation in the Sahel region. Macron hailed Algeria's efforts in establishing peace in Mali through a peace agreement signed in Algiers between Mali's pro-government armed groups and rebel groups.


During Macron's visit, a number of meetings will be held between officials and entrepreneurs from both sides. As France expects to ensure more natural gas supply after the European Union sanctioned Russian gas following the Russia-Ukraine crisis, energy cooperation between France and Algeria will be high on the agenda.

France is one of the biggest investors outside of the oil and gas sector in Algeria. About 500 French companies in Algeria employ almost 40,000 people directly. However, Algiers and Paris have failed to normalize their ties, as the two nations are still unable to settle the issues regarding their past that include France's colonial rule of the North African country.

Bilateral ties were hit by a diplomatic rift in September last year after France decided to reduce the number of visas granted to Algerian officials, and Macron's critical remarks against Algeria. Macron criticized the "political-military system" in Algeria for rewriting Algerian history and fomenting "hatred" toward France.

In response, Algiers recalled its ambassador to France and closed its airspace to French military aircraft. After months of diplomatic crisis, the two countries decided to resume political dialogue in December last year.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Fra ... -0001.html

Because the Algerians have every reason to love and trust the French...NOT! But they no doubt had to put up with the slimy little frog because of the 'post-colonial' financial arrangements which they suffer.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply