SPEECH: “The architects of this murder are many:” Kwame Nkrumah on the killing of Patrice Lumumba, 1961
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 27 Apr 2022
Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba
Kwame Nkrumah’s 1961 speech on the assassination of Patrice Lumumba exposes the the international white supremacist cabal responsible for his death, and for the crisis of the Congo.
Today, it is common knowledge that the CIA had a hand in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democractic Republic of Congo. Yet when Lumumba was murdered on January 16, 1961, CIA complicity could not be directly ascertained. It was only in the following decades, with the slow release of classified documents and the confessions of figures such as CIA station chief Larry Devlin , that a portrait – one that is still incomplete – emerged of the agency’s sanguinary subversions in the Congo.
However, as Kwame Nkrumah stated in a Ghanian radio broadcast a month after Lumumba’s death, what was certainly known was that the architects of his murder were many. In the February 14th, 1961 broadcast, Nkrumah provided a timeline of Lumumba’s brief and fraught spell in power while cataloging the organizations and governments involved in his downfall and death. He lists an international white supremacist cabal that included the United Nations, NATO, Belgium and its military forces, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the Union Miniere and other foreign mining, industrial, and commercial interests, mercenaries from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and Joseph Kasavubu, the ceremonial president of the Congo, and Army Commander Joseph-Désiré Mobutu – later known as Mobutu Sese Seko.
For Nkrumah, the Congo situation represented “the first time in history that the legal ruler of a country has been done to death with the open connivance of a world organization in whom that ruler put his trust.” It also represented an emerging counter-revolution (what Nkrumah referred to as a “colonialist war”) against decolonization in Africa, whose goal was to preserve European and US interests and investments while dismantling African sovereignty and pan-African unity. In February 1966, five years after Nkrumah’s broadcast on the death of Lumumba, Nkrumah himself would fall victim to this counterrevolution, with many of the same interests, including the CIA , the architects of his overthrow.
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Pan-Africanist, was born on September 21, 1909 in Nkroful , in what was then the Gold Coast , was the first President and Prime Minister of independent Ghana, and died in exile Bucharest, Romania, on April 27, 1972.
“The architects of this murder are many”: On the Killing of Patrice Lumumba, February 14th, 1961
Kwame Nkrumah
Countrymen, African Freedom Fighters, Comrades and Friends: Somewhere in Katanga in the Congo – where and when we do not know – three of our brother freedom fighters have been done to death.
There have been killed Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, Maurice Mpolo, the Minister in his government who was elected from Katanga Province, and Joseph Okito, the Vice-President of the Congolese Senate.
About their end many things are uncertain, but one fact is crystal clear: they have been killed because the United Nations, whom Patrice Lumumba himself, as Prime Minister, had invited to the Congo to preserve law and order, not only failed to maintain that law and order, but also denied to the lawful Government of the Congo all other means of self-protection.
History records many occasions when rulers of States have been assassinated. The murder of Patrice Lumumba and his two colleagues, however, is unique in that this is the first time in history that the legal ruler of a country has been done to death with the open connivance of a world organization in whom that ruler put his trust.
These are the facts. Patrice Lumumba was appointed Prime Minister by the departing Belgian authorities because he was the leader of the parliamentary party with the largest representation and was the only member of a parliament who could obtain a majority in both the Senate and the Chamber.
Kasavubu was subsequently elected as the ceremonial Head of State but it was clearly agreed and understood that he should have no more authority or power than has the King of Belgians in Belgium. This fact, clearly written into the Constitution of the Congo, has been deliberately ignored and distorted by those who have sought for their own ends to give some appearance of legality to the military usurpers and the agents of Colonial rule who have illegally seized power in some parts of the Congo.
Shortly after independence, the Congolese army mutinied. Parice Lumumba nad his colleagues had to secure outside support from somewhere if they were to preserve the legal structure of the State.
In the interests of world peace, and in order to prevent the cold war being brought into Africa, Patrice Lumumba invited the United Nations to preserve law and order. The United Nations insisted that they should have the sole mandate to do this and that the legal Government of the Congo should not obtain that military assistance which would have otherwise been forthcoming from many other friendly African states.
However, instead of preserving law and order, the United Nations declared itself neutral between law and disorder, and refused to lend any assistance whatsoever to the legal Government in suppressing the mutineers who had set themselves up in power in Katanga and the South Kasai.
When, in order to move its troops against the rebels, the government of the Congo obtained some civilian aircraft and civilian motor vehicles from the Soviet Union, the colonialist powers at the United Nations raised a howl of rage while, at the same time, maintaining a discrete silence over the build-up of Belgian arms and actual Belgian military forces in the service of the rebels.
With a total disregard of the Constitution, which expressly provided that the President could not dismiss the Prime Minister unless there had been a vote of “no confidence” in the Parliament, Kasavubu illegally tried to remove Patrice Lumumba from office and to substitute another Government. When Lumumba wished to broadcast to the people, explaining what had happened, the United Nations, in the so-called interests of law and order, to prevent him by force from speaking.
They did not, however, use the same force to prevent the mutineers the Congolese Army from seizing power in Leopoldville and installing a completely illegal Government.
Despite the fact that one of the most important reasons for United Nations action was supposedly to see that all Belgian Forces were removed, the United Nations sat by while the so-called Katanga Government, which is entirely Belgian-controlled, imported aircraft and arms from Belgium and from other countries, such as South Africa, which have a vested interest in the suppression of African freedom. The United Nations connived at the setting up, in fact, of an independent Katanga State, though this is contrary to the Security Council’s own resolutions.
Finally, the United Nations, which could exert its authority to prevent Patrice Lumumba from broadcasting, was, so it pleaded, quite unable to prevent his arrest by mutineers or his transfer, through the use of airfields under United Nations control, into the hands of the Belgian-dominated Government of Katanga.
The United Nations is, on behalf of all its members, in control of the finances of the Congo. It is now two months ago since I personally wrote to Mr. [Dag] Hammarskjöld [the UN Secretary General] to ask him where the money came from which is being used to pay the soldiers in Mobutu’s illegal army. I am still awaiting an answer.
One thing is certain, however, this money does not come from the revenue of the Congo. It is supplied from outside by those who wish to restore colonialism in practice by maintaining in office a puppet regime entirely financially dependent upon them.
The time has come to speak plainly. The danger in the Congo is not so much the possibility of a civil war between Africans, but rather a colonialist war, in which the colonial and imperialist powers hide behind African puppet regimes.
At this very moment, North Katanga is being laid waste by military units under command of a regular officer of the Belgian army, Colonel Crevecoeur, armed with the most modern weapons, supplied by Belgium.
Recruiting offices have been opened in South Africa, in France, and elsewhere, and wages of over four hundred pounds a month are being offered to former German Fascist officers and to former collaborators of Hitler and Mussolini in other countries in order to persuade them to enlist in an unholy war against the African people.
Where, I ask again, does the money come from to pay all of this modern and expensive armament which is now being deployed against unarmed peasants and villagers?
The rulers of the United States, of the United Kingdom, of France, and of the other Powers who are militarily allied with Belgium, must answer these questions.
Why did they express so loudly their indignation when the Soviet Union placed at the disposal of the legal Government of the Congo civilian aircraft and civilian vehicles? Why are they so silent when their ally, Belgium, openly supplies military aircraft and armoured vehicles to the rebels?
Why is it that no single member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has on any occasion addressed to Belgium any public rebuke for the flagrant breaches of the Security Council Resolution in which Belgium is every day indulging? Alas, the architects of this murder are many.
In Ghana we realize the great financial stakes which some Great Powers have in the Union Miniere and in other industrial and commercial undertakings in the Congo.
I would, however, ask these Powers these questions: Do they really believe that, ultimately, they can safeguard their investments and their interests in the Congo by conniving at a brutal and savage colonialist war?
Do they realize that they are sacrificing African lives to continue in Africa the cold war at the very time when all powers, both great and small, should be concentrating on the abolition of colonialism and the establishment of world peace.
Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito have died because they put their faith in the United Nations and because they refused to allow themselves to be used as stooges or puppets for external interests.
There is still time for those who have supported this cruel colonialist war in the Congo to change their policy, but time is running out.
The cynical planning of the murder of Patrice Lumumba and his colleagues is a final lesson for us all . We cannot ignore the fact that this crime shows every evidence of the most careful preparation and timing. First there came the handing over of Patrice Lumumba and others to the Belgian-controlled authorities in Katanga.
Next there came the contemptuous refusal of these same authorities to allow the United Nations conciliation Committee any access to the prisoners. From this came the final proof that the United Nations would not effectively intervene to save the lives of the Prime Minister or his colleagues. This was followed by the formation of the so - called new Kasavubu Government and the formation of the so-called New Kasavubu Government and the warning by Belgium to Belgian nationals to leave those parts of the Congo controlled by the legal government.
Finally came the story so reminiscent of Nazi and Fascist technique—the false account of an attempt to escape and the death of the prisoners following upon it.
What are the next steps in this plan? The information before me now is that the Kasavubu-Mobutu group has planned an offensive against Orientale Province in an attempt to secure a quick military victory before the Security Council can deal with the matter.
My information is that this plan has been made with the full knowledge of the French and Belgian Governments and has their full support.
Let me issue a most serious warning: Any such action, unless immediately denounced by the other members of the Security Council, will have a profound effect on African relations with the Great Powers.
Our dear brothers, Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okita are dead, and I ask you all to join with me in mourning the loss which the whole African continent has sustainted through their cruel murder. But their spirit is not dead, nor are the things for which they stood; African freedom, the unity and independence of Africa, and the final and complete destruction of colonialism and imperialism.
The colonialists and imperialists have killed them, but what they cannot do is to kill the ideals which we still preach and for which they sacrificed their lives.
In the Africa of the future their names will live for ever-more.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/speec ... mumba-1961
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Africa and the Collective West after the Start of Russia’s Special Operation in Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 29, 2022
Oleg Pavlov
It was not yesterday that the US and EU countries, as well as the famous constellation (which in addition to the US includes the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) started a hybrid war against Russia, including on the African continent.
They started it back in 2012, when it became clear that Vladimir Putin was back in charge and that this did not mean anything good for the West. Moreover, there was the realization that the victory in the Cold War was not a final victory over Russia, which not only revived but also began to claim great power status.
This was particularly evident during the first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in October 2019 attended by representatives from all African states came, including 45 at the level of heads of state and government. The success of the summit was a “cold shower” for Western countries, which did not even make a serious effort to sabotage the event, apparently believing with their inherent arrogance that no one would come to the summit.
However, shortly after these events, Western countries began a feverish search to counter Moscow on the African front. It was rather chaotic at first, as the Western countries themselves did not have a deeply developed and coherent model of behavior at the time, and were oriented mainly towards countering the active policy of China’s infiltration on the continent.
But on February 24, 2022, everything changed. Russia’s operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine and protect the inhabitants of Donbass was perceived by the West (which rushed to accuse Moscow of “aggression”) as the last chance to save its fleeting monopoly in the military, political, financial and technological spheres. Moreover, in its usual mental matrix, it staked on a blitzkrieg and, by deafening everyone with furious Russophobic propaganda, on isolating Russia in the international arena with its subsequent liquidation as an actor and subject of international politics.
However, in the Arab-Muslim world and in Africa, this strategy has failed enormously. The African region, including its constituent Arab and Muslim countries, have refused to follow the footsteps of Western policies and have moved en masse (almost half the countries) away from condemning Russia in UN votes.
After the third vote, even more discouraging for the West, held on April 7 to block Russia’s continued participation in the Human Rights Council, with only ten African countries voting in favor of the document, the Western line on the Russian presence on the continent has hardened dramatically.
Although even before that, Western representatives, particularly from the US, had their hands full. As early as March, the frequency of US-African contacts, both direct and in video format, at the level of heads of state and ministers had increased considerably. More than 30 official meetings and phone calls took place. In March, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attended the Eighth High-level Dialogue Session of the African Union (AU) Commission and the US, and held talks with Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire Patrick Achi, Morocco’s Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra. He held video conferences with the President of Senegal Macky Sall, and the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa Naledi Pandor. There were meetings of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Akunna Cook, Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa David Satterfield with the leadership of Algeria, Ghana, Djibouti, Morocco, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Chad, Ethiopia, South Africa, African Union Commission, self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland.
Realizing that these contacts are not enough and do not lead to a complete blockade of Russia, Washington has stepped up preparations for the 14th Business Forum (Marrakesh, July 19-22, this year) and the second US-Africa summit (Washington, DC, tentatively September-October this year). Simultaneously, the US is trying by hook or by crook to “drag” the Ukrainian agenda into discussions at various African forums and is seeking (unsuccessfully so far) the consent of the African Union to hear Volodymyr Zelensky speak at one of its meetings, perhaps even at an AU Extraordinary Summit on Humanitarian Affairs, scheduled for May 25-28 in the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo. All these steps suggest a poorly concealed aim to disrupt the second Russian-African summit, initially planned for 2022.
This, of course, is not the end of the West’s anti-Russian activities in Africa. In addition to accusing Russia of allegedly “unprovoked aggression against peaceful Ukraine,” they attempt to widely implant into the political discourse and public consciousness in African countries the thesis that Moscow is responsible for the impending famine on the African continent, deliberately rearranging its causes and consequences.
Indeed, many African states are heavily dependent on Russian and Ukrainian grain supplies. Egypt, for example, by 85%. This is true of many other countries such as Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana. There is also a dependence on Russian potash and phosphate fertilizers, without which one cannot grow crops. However, Western countries, while making accusations against Moscow on this issue, forget to specify one important circumstance: the possible decline in grain supplies from Russia is primarily due to the unilateral and completely illegal sanctions imposed in circumvention of the UN, which are the main reason for the eventual problems with grain supplies. The second equally important reason is the large-scale supply of Western arms to Ukraine, which is designed to prolong the conflict and put Ukraine’s spring sowing campaign in doubt, if not disrupted.
Of course, the political efforts and information campaign to discredit Russia are only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, the collective West is also working assiduously to drive Russian companies out of the African market and replace them with its own, as well as to prevent Russian economic operators from gaining access to new major tenders and contracts. The truth is, these efforts harm Africans themselves, not just Russia. Moscow, for example, is the leader in the nuclear industry and the West has nothing even remotely comparable in terms of technology to offer its partners on the African continent. Therefore, by blocking Rosatom, the West is effectively preventing Africans from solving their energy problems in the most efficient way and starting large-scale industrialization, thereby preserving the continent’s neocolonial dependence on American and European products.
All these anti-Russian policies have recently become systematic and comprehensive, involving many components, from those mentioned above to attempts to curtail Russo-African military and technical cooperation to controlling the supply of valuable ores and metals, such as coltan tantalum or lithium.
The fight for the African continent seems to be just unfolding. And much depends on the African states themselves, their willingness to fight for their sovereignty and to break their neocolonial dependence on Western states.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/04/ ... n-ukraine/
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SouthAfrican CP, Let’s build maximum unity to tackle oligarchs and the manipulation of our basic wealth and resources to build a just, equal society
4/28/22 11:36 AM
Let’s build maximum unity to tackle oligarchs and the manipulation of our basic wealth and resources to build a just, equal society
SACP statement on the 28th anniversary of our 1994 breakthrough
South Africa has an oligarchy, whose members are wallowing in whopping amounts of monumental wealth. While heaping up multi-millions of rand in dividends and executive remuneration, the oligarchs intransigently deprive the workers, the downtrodden exploited in the economy, of any notable improvements in their terms of employment including wage increases. Here we are referring to the likes of Sibanye-Stillwater CEO, Neal Froneman, who the company paid an astronomical R300 million in 2021 as its annual report reveals.
The SACP expresses its unwavering support for the National Union of Mineworkers and for the co-operation it has forged in struggle with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, in pursuit of the common interests of the downtrodden at Sibanye-Stillwater. The two unions are leading a strike declared on 9 March 2022 by the workers, which has today entered its 47th day.
Under the leadership of Froneman, who without doubt wants millions for himself, as showed by his 2021 annual pay, Sibanye-Stillwater is offering the workers increases of merely 7.8 per cent to their peanut wages in year one, 7.2 per cent in year two and 6.8 per cent in year three of a three-year bargaining cycle starting in 2022. The workers have rejected the insult. They are continuing with their industrial action, actively confronting inequality in the distribution of production income.
Uncritical economists and commentators in the print media, on television screens, on radio, and on the internet say the workers are unreasonable and Froneman is the reasonable man. This is obviously gibberish to any standard of social justice. The workers who have had to embark on the strike at Sibanye-Stillwater will not in their entire hard-working life receive the multi-millions in rand value terms that the oligarch and his counterparts in other sectors received in just one year, 2021.
At MTN, which together with Vodacom makes up a duopoly in the mobile information and telecommunications technology (ICT) network sector, the CEO Ralph Mupita was paid R84.2 million in just one year, 2021. Like other behemoths in the ICT network sector in other parts of the world, the duopoly raked in huge amounts of profits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when many sectors were under lockdown and an increasing number of people worked from home, with digital connectivity and mobile data as key means of production. The ICT network behemoths drove up the cost of mobile data and other digital communication pathways, relying on their dominance. The auctioning of the high frequency broadband spectrum will deepen the Vodacom and MTN duopoly, its top two beneficiaries or capturers of the lion’s share.
The working-class and other progressive sections of our society need to deepen the struggle to achieve transformation in, de-monopolise and diversify the ICT network sector and every other sector of our economy. Another key developmental imperative in the ICT network sector is to bring down the cost of mobile data and digital connectivity. Just like water, the source of life, the high frequency broadband spectrum and mobile data are key means of production and are increasingly taking the centre stage in every economic activity and broader social transformation and development.
Compare the staggering personal acquisition of wealth by the oligarchs in the mining, information and telecommunications technology network sector, and in other sectors such as the banking sector and the pharmaceutical sector, with the likely elimination of the miserable R350 Social Relief of Distress grant—if the government will not extend it beyond the end of March 2023. This is a painful reality which must be challenged through workplace distributive and broader political struggles, including redistributive struggles.
Which is why, on this day, the 28th anniversary of our 1994 democratic breakthrough, the SACP reiterates its call that the government should extend the Social Relief of Distress grant beyond the end of March 2023 and gradually improve it to build a foundation for, and transform it into, a universal basic income grant.
In 1994, while others proclaimed, “Free at last!”, the SACP stressed the struggle had to continue, with the transition we achieved in that year a democratic breakthrough, a new basis for intensifying our uninterrupted struggle towards lasting freedom, complete social emancipation and a just, equal society. The position the SACP adopted is as relevant as ever, considering the lived experience of the masses 28 years later.
For sure, there are commendable gains benefitting millions of our people in housing, education, healthcare, social grants, electricity coverage, social infrastructure, and in other areas. However, there are two major problems.
The first problem is that South Africa has a population of 12.5 million active and discouraged work-seekers who are devastated by a long-term structural crisis of systemic unemployment and the failure of the neoliberal policy prescriptions. Together with millions of others, they are devastated by the crisis of social reproduction (the inability to support themselves because of the endemic crisis of capitalism) and the persisting high levels of poverty and inequality.
The second problem is that many of the post-1994 social gains are now under the real threat of erosion because of neoliberal policy prescriptions and state capture. The national electricity utility, Eskom, for example, has been weakened by both neoliberal macroeconomic policy orientation and state capture. Neoliberalism started first under the economic policy called GEAR, imposed in 1996. At the end of that decade, a White Paper on Energy was adopted under the neoliberal GEAR trajectory, depriving Eskom of investment in new, developmental power generation capacity to keep pace with the commendable massive electrification expansion of post-1994.
It is because of both neoliberalism and governance decay, mismanagement and looting under state capture that South Africa is frequently plunged into rolling nationwide load-shedding, did not build capacity for a just green transition and is facing frequent breakdowns in old power stations which are increasingly costly to maintain. The unfolding digital industrial revolution and trends in energy transition in the production process and products, such as the transition underway in the global automotive industry towards new energy vehicles, require a massive amount of consistently reliable power generation—sensitive to the environment. As things stand, South Africa is hamstrung by ailing, unreliable and insufficient power generation capacity. Needless to mention the failure to meet energy needs of the people and drive inclusive growth in the here and now.
To meet the economic and broader social transformation and development needs of the masses, we need to forge widest possible working-class unity and patriotic and left popular fronts, to tackle the manipulation of the basic wealth and resources of our country and exploitation by sections of individuals and elitist groupings, be they white or black. Intensifying the struggle against neoliberal and state capture networks and their agendas and safeguarding our policy space and democratic sovereignty are the integral strategic tasks of this just struggle.
The SACP calls on the working-class and progressive strata to unite against exploitation by the oligarchs and the crisis levels of mass poverty, unemployment, social reproduction and the inequality that the oligarchs are deepening. The oligarchs are deepening all these problems, including through retrenchments.
On this day, the 28th anniversary of our April 1994 democratic breakthrough, the SACP once again says: “A luta continua!”
http://solidnet.org/article/SouthAfrica ... l-society/
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Notes from Wartorn Ethiopia, Part II
April 28, 2022
By Ann Garrison – Apr 20, 2022
Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, is experiencing a building boom, which includes all the foreign embassies near the airport. The din of construction is non-stop on weekdays. Lots of sky high office buildings and condos underway.
Even the Embassy of Bangladesh is building new floors right across the street from my alleyway hotel. Mercedes drive in and out, and I wonder how such a poor country affords them, but Mercedes seem to be the ambassadorial vehicle of choice. Governments like Bangladesh, which don’t maintain embassies in many other countries, no doubt maintain them here because Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union, and with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam coming online, Ethiopia is emerging as a regional powerhouse, despite how much that dismays US policymakers.
The European Union embassy flies its flag behind a concrete wall topped with barbed-wire several blocks around the corner from where I’m staying. The Embassy of Bangladesh doesn’t take such elaborate precautions because, I imagine, they have no anxieties about sudden anti-Western outbursts.
Curiously, it seems as though a number of high-rise buildings have been partially constructed, then abandoned midway, and they’re unsightly to say the least. Last night I asked a new friend why and she said that Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) elites had begun building them, then had gone off to Mekelle and left them that way after being forced from power. She also showed me the small garden next to the condo building she lives in and said that she manages and defends it—the garden—against developers who want to build another high-rise on it.
With regard to the partially constructed buildings, someone else told me that the real problem is a shortage of cement.
Connecting via social media
To be in Addis, you wouldn’t think there was a war going unless you were watching television. I was invited onto several local television stations to talk about what I’d seen in IDP camps near the front lines in the north, US strategies for toppling the government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the pernicious sanctions legislation on the floors of both House and Senate, H.R. 6600 and S.B. 3199.
I count 10 foreign journalists, including two Canadians, one Russian, and one New Zealander based in Paris, who oppose the divide-and-conquer imperial pressures coming from the US and its allies. We’re so few that we’re asked to interview on Ethiopian outlets whenever any of us come here, and via Zoom from wherever we live.
We all write for dissident press, and these Ethiopians outlets, most of them state outlets, found us on social media. They commonly introduce me as a print, radio, and social media journalist. Last night I met a Le Monde Diplomatique reporter who had of course never heard of any outlets I write or produce radio for but knew me on Twitter.
House Resolution 6600 would make way for social media censorship
These connections made via social media explain the establishment’s desperate determination to control the narrative by controlling social media, as proposed in House Resolution 6600 , the brutal sanctions bill absurdly named the “Ethiopia Stabilization, Peace, and Democracy Act.”
This legislation, now on the House floor, resolves that, “The Secretary of State, in coordination with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the heads of other relevant federal departments and agencies” develop a strategy 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.”
In other words, they don’t want us talking to each other in an uncensored public forum, without the Western state and corporate media filters they’re accustomed to relying on. And it’s not just “social media content generated outside of the United States” that they’re worried about. Particularly effective activists and collective Twitter hubs created by the Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas have already been removed from Twitter altogether. One, Dr. Simon Tesfamariam, recounted his own Twitter ban and that of others here, calling for #NoMore Censorship of Africa’s Roving Digital Army of Peace.
The success of that digital army of peace is manifest in Ethiopian streets, from Lalibela to Dessie, and the capital Addis Ababa, where taxis sport the message #NoMore, sometimes with subheads like “Say No to Neocolonialism.” I know four of the founders of the viral #NoMore movement in the US, and two of them have been banned from Twitter.
I first saw #NoMore on one of the three-wheeled taxis known as bajaj in the mountain town of Lalibela, site of the rock-hewn Ethiopian Orthodox churches built by King Lalibela in the 12th century. I had gone straight to Lalibela from Addis, and when I shared my amazement at seeing “#NoMore” on the back of a bajaj there, photographer Jemal Countess told me, “Oh you’ll see a lot of those.” I briefly became preoccupied with getting a photograph of a bajaj with #NoMore emblazoned on the back until I realized that he was right. You see a lot of those, so there are lots of opportunities to take pictures.
More hashtag signage includes #GERD and #ItsMyDam, referring to the national hope invested in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which just came online though not at full power yet. The GERD promises to generate enough electricity for all of Ethiopia and some of its neighbors, ending the electricity poverty holding most African nations back.
It’s no wonder that the US wants to stop hashtags like #NoMore and #ItsMyDam from going viral but they aren’t hate speech and they aren’t inciting violence.
More next week.
https://orinocotribune.com/notes-from-w ... a-part-ii/