Ndugu zangu,
I have posted the following articles, so that their contents can be taken into consideration in this discussion:
Barrack Obama’s three misdeeds in Africa by CADTM
Global Research, July 21, 2009
Article authored by
Emilie Tamadaho Atchaca (Benin), Solange Koné (Ivory Coast), Jean Victor Lemvo (Congo Brazzaville), Damien Millet (France), Luc Mukendi and Victor Nzuzi (Congo Kinshasa), Sophie Perchellet (France), Aminata Barry Touré (Mali), Eric Toussaint (Belgium), Ibrahim Yacouba (Niger)[1]After the G8 summit in Italy, US President Barack Obama flew off to Africa with a so-called gift: an envelope of 20 billion dollars to distribute over 3 years, so that “generous” donors in the rich countries could “help” reduce world hunger. While the promise to eradicate hunger has been made on a regular basis since 1970, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a report last month indicating that the number of undernourished people has passed the one billion point, that is 100 million more over the past year. At the same time, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) sounded the alarm bell and announced that it had to cut rations distributed in Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, North Korea and Kenya (Obama’s paternal family’s home country), principally due to the reduction in contributions from the US, its main donor[2].
Beyond the effect of President Obama’s announcement, the latest in a long list of good intentions that have done nothing to improve the current situation, it is worth recalling that the 20 billion dollar aid figure over 3 years amounts to less than 2% of the sums the US spent in 2008-2009 to save the bankers and insurers responsible for the crisis.
After extending a hand to the “Muslim friends” in his Cairo speech (while continuing to destabilise the Middle East region behind the scenes), after a hand held out to the “Russian friends” (while maintaining his stance on the Eastern European anti-missile shield), now Obama is extending a hand to the “African friends” (while keeping his neocolonial cap firmly atop his head).
When Obama lets the rich countries off the hook Obama’s long address in Accra , Ghana , follows up on a series of meetings with his counterparts abroad. Under the pretext of setting new bases for US relations with the rest of the world, once again Obama has excelled in the art of advocating openness and change, while continuing to implement his forerunners’ disastrous policies[3].
From the outset, he stated that it was “up to Africans to determine Africa ’s future”. And yet, while everyone can agree with this statement that makes perfect sense on the face of it, in reality this is not always put into practice, and the G8 countries over the past half-century have played a key role in depriving African peoples of their sovereignty. Obama doesn’t fail to remind us “I have the blood of Africa within me”, as if this automatically provided more strength and legitimacy to his message. In any case the message was clearly conveyed: the colonialism their ancestors were victims of should no longer provide excuses for Africans. This is very similar to the speech French President Nicolas Sarkozy pronounced in Dakar a few months after his election. But Sarkozy’s speech sparked a wave of well-deserved protest, and so far Obama has miraculously averted such a response… But now we will do what it takes to end this injustice!
Straight off, Obama let the Western world off the hook for the current state of the African continent’s development. Declaring, “development depends upon good governance” and “that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans”[4], he starts out from the false observation that the poverty plaguing Africa is primarily due to poor governance or the free choices of African leaders. In short, it is Africans’ fault. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
With affirmations such as “the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants”[5], President Obama is downplaying the rich countries’ central role in the course Africa has taken. And in particular the role of the major international financial institutions, starting from IMF and the World Bank, which are powerful instruments of the great powers’ domination organizing the subjection of the peoples of the South. This is done via structural adjustment policies (end to subsidies for staple goods, drastic cuts in public spending, privatisation of public companies, market liberalization, etc.) that make it impossible to meet basic needs, spread deep poverty at breakneck speed, increase inequalities and make the worst horrors possible.
When Obama compares incomparable situationsTo back up his statements, Obama compared Africa to South Korea . Firstly, he explained that fifty years ago, “when my father travelled to the United States from Kenya to study, at that time the per capita income and Gross Domestic Product of Kenya was higher than South Korea's”, before he added: “There had been some talk about the legacies of colonialism and other policies by wealthier nations, and without in any way diminishing that history, the point I made was that the South Korean government, working with the private sector and civil society, was able to create a set of institutions that provided transparency and accountability[6]. Regular and attentive readers of CADTM publications choked on that one!
This is because South Korea ’s supposed economic success[7] came about despite the recommendations imposed by the World Bank on most other developing countries. After the Second World War and up until 1961, the military dictatorship in power in South Korea benefited from significant donations from the United States , totalling the sum of 3.1 billion dollars. This is more than all World Bank loans to the other Third-World countries during the same period! Thanks to these donations, South Korea did not have to go into debt for 17 years (1945-1961). External borrowing only became significant from the end of the 1970s, once Korea ’s industrialisation was well under way.
So everything started out in Korea through an iron-fisted dictatorship that implemented a statist and highly protectionist policy. Washington set up this dictatorship in the wake of the Second World War. The State imposed a radical agrarian reform under which big Japanese landowners were expropriated without compensation. The peasants took on ownership of small plots of land (equivalent to up to 3 hectares per family) and the State expropriated the surplus crops, formerly pocketed by Japanese landowners when Korea was a Nippon colony. The land reform set stringent restrictions on the peasantry. The State set prices and production quotas, not allowing for the free play of market forces.
From 1961 to 1979, the World Bank backed Park Chung Hee’s military dictatorship although Korea refused to follow the Bank’s development model. At the time, the state was planning the country’s economic development with an iron fist. Continuing to implement a policy of industrialisation by substitution for imports and the overexploitation of the working class were two ingredients in the country’s economic success. The World Bank did back Chun Doo Whan’s dictatorship (1980-1987) although the Bank’s recommendations were not always followed (particularly in terms of restructuring the automotive sector).
Thus when Obama declared, “the South Korean government, working with the private sector and civil society, was able to create a set of institutions that provided transparency and accountability”[8] he failed to mention that the private sector was clearly guided by the State and the Korean dictatorship “dialogued” with civil society by guns and cannons. The history of South Korea from 1945 until the early 1980s was marked by massacres and brutal repression.
It is also important to refresh Barack Obama’s memory as he refers to the Zimbabwean example to illustrate Africans’ failure and comparing it to the South Korean model. The year Zimbabwe achieved independence (1980) was marked by popular uprisings against the South Korean military dictatorship. These were crushed in blood; more than 500 civilians were killed by the military with Washington ’s backing[9]. At this time, and since 1945, the South Korean armed forces were put under a joint US-Korean command, itself under the control of the commander-in-chief of United States forces in South Korea . The massacres perpetrated by the South Korean army in May 1980 were completed by a massive repression in the following months. According to an official report dated 9 February 1981 , over 57,000 people were arrested during the “Social Purification Campaign” underway since the summer of 1980. Almost 39,000 of these people were sent to military camps for “physical and psychological re-education”. In February 1981, the dictator Chun Doo Hwan was received at the White House by the new United States President, Ronald Reagan. Is this the example Obama wants to offer to the people of Zimbabwe and other African countries?
Korea’s geostrategic position was one of its major assets until the end of the 1980s, enabling it to avert IMF and World Bank control. But in the 1990s, the entire geopolitical situation was in disarray following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Washington ’s attitude towards allied dictatorships shifted gradually, accepting to support civil governments. Between 1945 and 1992, South Korea lived under a military regime with Washington ’s blessing. The first civil opponent elected to the presidency in an open election was Kim Youngsam, who accepted the Washington Consensus and implemented a clearly neoliberal agenda (elimination of tariff barriers, multiple privatisations, liberalization of capital movements), plunging South Korea into the 1997-1998 South-East Asian economic crisis. In the meantime, South Korea was able to achieve an industrialisation the rich countries refused in Africa ’s case. We can thereby understand to what extent the South Korean model is unconvincing and can’t be reproduced everywhere.
Moreover, South Korea ’s relative lack of natural resources paradoxically favoured its development because the country avoided transnational corporations’ resource lust. The United States viewed Korea as a strategic zone from a military standpoint, facing the USSR bloc, not as crucial sources of supplies (as were Nigeria , Angola and Congo-Kinshasa). If Korea had major reserves of oil or other strategic raw materials, Washington would not have allowed it the same elbowroom to develop a powerful industrial complex. The United States are not prepared to deliberately foster the emergence of powerful competitors with both major natural reserves and diversified industries.
When Obama pardons capitalism for its misdeedsAs for the current economic crisis, Obama spoke out against the irresponsible risk-taking of a few, sparking a recession that has swept the world. Thus, he conveys the impression that this crisis was caused by the irresponsibility of a handful of individuals whose excesses plunged the world into recession. This analysis eclipses the responsibility of those who have imposed financial deregulation for almost thirty years, above all the United States . It would be more precise to underline the productivist capitalist development model, painfully imposed by the countries of the North, as the source of the many crises underway. These are not merely economic crises, but also food, migratory, social, environmental and climate crises.
All these crises originate with decisions made by imperialist governments in the North, and above all the United States government which controls both the IMF and World Bank, so it can impose conditionalities favourable to its interests and those of its major firms. Since the early 1960s, when most African countries achieved “independence”, IMF and the World Bank have been a kind of Trojan horse to promote the appropriation of natural resources and defend creditors’ interests. By supporting dictatorships in many corners of the world, (Mobutu in Zaire, Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile and so many others), then by forcing the implementation of harsh antisocial policies, successive Western governments have never allowed for the guarantee of basic human rights throughout the world. Expressions such as “right to self determination”, “democracy”, “economic and political rights” are not realities in Africa , contrary to the crushing weight of debt repayments and the pleas of the starving.
When will African emancipation come? Africa was broken by the devastating slave trade system in the context of the triangular international trade established by Europe and its settlers in the Americas from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Then it was held in trusteeship by European colonialism from the end of the 19th century until independence. Thereafter, Africa has been held in dependency through the mechanism of the debt and public development aid. After African countries achieved independence, they were handed over to potentates (Mobutu, Bongo, Eyadema, Amin Dada, Bokassa, Biya…) most of whom were protected by the European capitals and by Washington . Several important African leaders who sought autonomous development that would promote their peoples were assassinated on the orders of Paris , Brussels , London or Washington (Patrice Lumumba in 1961, Sylvanus Olympio in 1963, Thomas Sankara in 1987…). The African ruling classes and the political regimes they established have a very clear share in the responsibility for Africa ’s litany of misfortunes. Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe is one of these. Today, the peoples of Africa are directly affected by the effects of the world crisis whose epicentre is in Washington and Wall Street, revealing that capitalism is up against an impasse unacceptable for peoples. Barack Obama’s African origins are a godsend for businesses in his country defending very specific economic interests in the exploitation of Africa ’s resources. This is a reality that Obama sweeps away with the back of his hand, as he continues a paternalistic and moralising path in order to convince Africans not to undertake the struggle for meaningful independence and real development, finally guaranteeing the full satisfaction of human needs.
Translated by Maria Gatti.
[1] Emilie Tamadaho Atchaca is president of CADD Benin, Solange Koné is a women’s rights activist in Ivory Coast, Jean Victor Lemvo - Solidaire- Pointe Noire (Congo Brazzaville), Damien Millet is the CADTM France spokesperson, Luc Mukendi is the coordinator of AMSEL / CADTM LUBUMBASHI, Victor Nzuzi is a farmer, coordinator of GRAPR and NAD Kinshasa, Sophie Perchellet is a researcher at CADTM Belgium , Aminata Barry Touré is president of CAD-Mali/Coordinator of the Peoples’ Forum, Eric Toussaint is president of CADTM Belgium, Ibrahim Yacouba is a trade unionist in Niger. All are members of the international CADTM network, www.cadtm.org [2] See the Financial Times (FT) 12 June 2009. According to FT, Burham Philbrook, the US Undersecretary of State for Agriculture declared that Washington could not guarantee funding of WFP at the level of 2008, during which the United States had brought 2 billion dollars to the WFP budget. Also according to FT, Philbrook suggested that WFP had to reduce its aid although he knew perfectly well that the number of hungry people increased in 2009.
[3] This continuity is also visible in Obama’s failure to take action in the putsch in Honduras . While denouncing it, he lets matters slide. Furthermore, the Pentagon is very close to the putschists. The latter would not remain in power if the Pentagon gave them the order to withdraw.
[4]
www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE56711G20090711 [5]
www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=165220 [6] From Obama’s statement at the G8 Summit in L’Aquila .
[7] See Eric Toussaint , World Bank: A Critical Primer, Pluto-Between the Lines-David Philip, London-Toronto-Cape Town, 2007, chapter 11, “South Korea: the miracle unmasked”. Online:
www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article1847 [8]
seoul.usembassy.gov/pres_071009.html [9] Eric Toussaint, chapter 11, “ South Korea: the miracle unmasked”, p. 117.
SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14467 ---
Obama And U.S. Policy Towards Africaby Horace Campbell
Global Research, January 18, 2009
Pambazuka News - 2009-01-15
As Obama takes over the presidency of the United States, Horace Campbell contextualizes an Obama presidency in the realities of Africa and the ongoing global finance crisis. He argues that "capitalism should not be reconstituted and rebuilt on the backs and bodies of Africans." For Campbell, the crisis is not simply a cyclical crisis of capitalism; it is a fundamental shift in the global political and economic order. In light of this fast changing world, Campbell is also interested in the possibilities and our responsibilities in bringing about change in and for Africa.
Writing at the end of September 2008, the chief policy adviser to the candidate Senator Barack Obama spelt out the foreign policy goals as they related to Africa in this way:
"Barack Obama understands Africa, and understands its importance to the United States. Today, in this new century, he understands that to strengthen our common security, we must invest in our common humanity and, in this way, restore American leadership in the world.
"As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has engaged on many African issues. He has worked to end genocide in Darfur, to pass legislation to promote stability and the holding of elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to bring a war criminal to justice in Liberia and to develop a coherent strategy for stabilizing Somalia."
From this broad outline the adviser (who had been trained in one of the elite African Studies Centers in the United States) went on to outline three goals of the candidate:
One is to accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy.
A second is to enhance the peace and security of African states.
And a third is to strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa.
THE REALITYThe contradictions between the goals and the stated strategic objective of "investing in a shared humanity" brings to the fore the tensions and contradictions between the campaign of Senator Obama and the mindset of the thinking behind achieving goals for the United States and for the peoples of Africa. Between the time of the statement of this adviser in September and the elections in November, the realities of the global capitalist crisis had become very clear for the citizens of the United States. Citizens of Africa were always aware of the exploitation, hunger and death that came with capitalist relations of production. When Julius Nyerere had called for a revolution embedded in the African values of Ujamaa and self reliance, there was a political and ideological war against the peoples of Tanzania and any society in Africa that dared to be independent. Nationalization of the people's wealth to ensure equal opportunities was rubbished by US policymakers.
Yet, in ten weeks between September and November 2008, the US government moved to nationalize banks, insurance companies and to invest billions of dollars (to bail out) the automobile industry. When the campaign ended and Senator Obama became President-elect Obama, it became clearer that neo-liberalism was dead or was dying. Neo-conservatives and the gurus of market fundamentalism were on the retreat, but in the Obama transition, there was no real break from the old mindset of US policymakers in relation to Africa. From the names and institutions that appeared in the transition process it was clear that the transition to an Obama Presidency will not, in the short term, reflect the kind of change that was promised in the election campaign. Instead of a future of sustainable peace and transformation, one saw a re-emergence and recycling of the same militarists such as Susan Rice emerging as a top official of the US foreign policy establishment. Lawrence Summers, who wrote the memo that it was more economical to dump toxic waste in Third World Countries, emerged as a major economic adviser.
A clear reading of five subject areas with international relations components in the transition team process indicates that Africa in general is likely to be a minor area of focus in their research process. These areas are:
1. State Department and Foreign Policy
2. International Economic Policy (USAID, World Bank, IMF, Treasury, Commerce, US Trade, OPIC, Ex-IM Bank, Agriculture)
3. Health/Human Services (HIV-AIDS)
4. National Security (DoD, AFRICOM and War on terror)
5. Energy (African oil)
In terms of operation, the team took its findings from each department and developed the Obama's administration's first internal white papers for each branch of government. Outside groups and entities with long-term interest in African resources were also submitting white papers on individual subjects into the transition team process. Hence, the final papers of the transition represented a product of both internal research and external contributions.
WHO TRAINED THESE POLICYMAKERS?From the website of the transition process and the public relations web page of the Obama, one can see that the individuals and organizations that have been involved in the formulation of foreign and domestic policies were the same ones complicit in the think tanks, corporations, governmental agencies and Universities that devalued the lives of Africa. Of the eight major teams for the transition, this author zeroed in on the five areas of the transition that were directly related to the formulation of US policy under Obama.
The same lack of confidence that there will be a changed relationship with Africa emerges from the Cabinet choices that have been made by Barack Obama subsequent to the clarification of the road from transition to assuming power. Not even the African Americans who are touted to be the internal brains trust inspire confidence that there will be a change. The New York Time has reported that three persons- Valerie Jarrett, Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Eric Whitaker- are the closest advisers of Barack Obama.
While transition team operatives maintained that US policy towards Africa was at present a low priority (insofar as the US is preoccupied with the crisis of the economy and the questions of war and peace in Iraq and Afghanistan) there is no let up on the ground in Africa in the promotion of US 'national interests' through the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Treasury Department, the Department of Energy and a multitude of groups who are supporting AID projects. The day-to-day operations of the US bureaucrats continue to promote the neo-conservative and neo-liberal policies of the western imperial ideation system.
Examples of where these policies are being pursued include: The full speed attempt to militarize Africa under the guise of the so called war on terror. This is manifest in the transition pledge to continue the establishment of the US Africa Command and a US led international naval force off the coast of Somalia.
The second area where this is clear is that despite the fact that neo-liberalism and the market fundamentalism has been discredited in the USA, these policies are still being promoted by the IMF, the World bank and the host of US agencies that are now operating in Africa. In September 2008, when this global capitalist crisis was becoming evident to the world, Alan Greenspan testified before Congress. He said, "I have found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact."
What Greenspan was politely saying was that the thinking behind the neoconservative oriented economic policies that had been promoted in the United States and overseas is wrong. During the hearing, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), was not satisfied by the use of the word 'flaw.' Waxman wanted a stronger term. He then asked Greenspan to clarify his words:
"In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working," Waxman said.
"Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan replied. "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."
This admission that for forty years the underlying assumptions, rationales and thinking which served as the foundation of the economic policies of the United States in the USA and overseas was wrong, must be discussed at every level in Africa. Will African governments be comfortable with accepting this statement that they were being bullied into adopting wrong policies? Or will African intellectuals, trade unionists, policy makers and ordinary citizens redouble the efforts to end the domination of the International Financial Institutions over the lives of the people?
Obama's policy towards Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) particularly regarding medicines will be important. Already, Democrats in the Congress led by Charles Rangel have said that the USG should not put the interests of IPR holders in US trade agreements, over the human health interests in poor nations.
Will Obama push that position further or will he fight against it?
It now devolves to the oppressed in Africa to join forces with others in the Global South to push for the dismantling of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The dollar as the currency of World Trade is coming to the end of an inglorious period. It is not in the interests of the people of Africa for the Euro and for the European Union to be the beneficiary of the collapse of US capitalism. It is the task of Africans to work for the overthrow of capitalism in Africa and beyond. Capitalism should not be reconstituted and rebuilt on the backs and bodies of Africans. This crisis is not simply a cyclical crisis of capitalism; it is a fundamental shift in the global political and economic order.
While progressive African peoples at home and abroad were excited about the election of Barack Obama, it was clear that the alternatives to US government policies for Africa had to emerge from the combined efforts of the social forces within Africa who had a vested interest in making a break with the plunder and looting of Africa. From the actions and activities of the dominant groups in the United States that interact with the elites of Africa, the emphasis is on the 'strategic' resources of Africa, without a real consideration for the quality of lives of the people. Walter Rodney had identified this class of Africans who were allies of imperialism in the book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Since the era of neo-liberalism and IMF structural adjustment, the conception of 'underdevelopment' and 'exploitation' has been replaced by the language of 'donor agencies' partners for development and 'democratic governance.' The brightest from the institutions of higher learning were seduced into the multi billion dollar aid sector called the 'humanitarian' and 'non-governmental organization' sector. Many of these international NGO workers in Africa are now caught at a crossroads where there is fear that 'donor funds' will be drying up because of the global capitalist crisis.
It is urgent that the progressives on both sides of the Atlantic call for a full exposure of the 'other flawed' policies of the United States such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Under the Bush administration the apartheid health policies associated with the conservative ideas about reproductive rights have been trumpeted as a success in Africa. So tenacious has been the propaganda about the health policies of the Bush administration in Africa that even within the Obama transition there is an acceptance that the PEPFAR of Bush has been beneficial for Africa. For those who want to continue to accept propaganda that "the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), holds a unique place in the history of public health for its size and scope," I would only want to urge a read of the book, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.
Health and peace are inextricably linked in all parts of the world, The African traditional healers, cultural workers and caregivers are joining the mass of 6 billion citizens of the planet earth who are calling for investment in caring, not killing. It is a major contradiction to trumpet the support for the recovery of health delivery services in Africa while supporting the remilitarization of Africa.
Will progressives accept that the US policies were' flawed' or symbolic of the structural relations of US imperialism in Africa? One of the by-products of the neo-liberal discourse was the reality that the understanding of imperial exploitation and plunder had been replaced by the new 'humanitarian imperialism' that was presented behind the international non-governmental infrastructure. Can the Obama administration justify an Economic Recovery program for the United States of over US $700 billion while advocating the use of 'market forces' to shelter the plunder of African resources?
OBAMA MUST REPUDIATE THE PLANNED US AFRICA COMMANDIf the economic and diplomatic policies of the USA prior to Barack Obama had been 'flawed', then one needs an appropriate formulation to properly describe the US security policies towards Africa. In December 2008, Larry Devlin joined the ancestors. Before he departed this land, Devlin wrote a book entitled, Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir 1960-1967. This was a book celebrating the role played by Devlin while he was the Chief of the Station of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There was no remorse in this book about the role of the United States in the destabilization of the Congo subsequent to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the support for Mobutu for thirty five years. If anything, Devlin was celebrating the work of the US military and economic agencies. In his logic, everything that the US did during the Cold War was justified in the name of fighting communism.
This logic of Devlin is the same logic of the intellectual institutions of the United States. Peace and conflict resolution centers abound in order to promote the distorted logic of Larry Devlin or other writers who then complain about state failure in Africa. Progressive African Intellectuals must begin to document the criminal actions that perpetuated war and instability in every region of Africa. Not only did the USA support destruction and apartheid under this logic, but today there is support for private military contractors who are operating to protect the oil companies that are polluting Africa's rivers and communities.
Today the peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are reaping the full harvest of the long term investment in militarism and destruction. Yet, instead of a full retreat from the history of military engagement, the members of the US foreign policy establishment continue to call for the establishment of the US Africa Command. It would appear from the public statements of those around the Obama team that the question of change does not apply to Africa and Africans.
RESIST AFRICOM AT HOME AND ABROADThis is not to suggest that there are no forces within the United States working to dismantle the plans for the US Africa Command. There is such a force within the broad alliance of activists who are pledged to ensure that the Obama administration abandon the plans for the Africa Command. Thus far, the Resist Africom forces in the United States have not been able to achieve their objective of scrapping the Africa command, but the work to end militarism in Africa is tied up with the domestic opposition to militarism and the prison industrial complex in America.
It should be repeated that the foreign policy of a state is a reflection of the domestic political structures of the state. Up to the present, the domestic policy of the United States has been to oppress and exploit Africans and peoples of color. It then stands to reason that one could not expect the foreign policy of the United States toward Africa to be different from the domestic policy of institutionalized racism.
From the period of the transatlantic slave trade, the leaders of the United States have viewed Africa as a treasure trove to be plundered. In this enterprise of looting and plunder, the US experts on Africa thus far had an alliance with the rulers in Africa. This intervention is to link with those forces in Africa who want to turn the global capitalist crisis into an opportunity for strengthening the social classes in Africa with a vested interest in making a break with the traditions of looting. Every region of the world now sees Africa as the place where there are real resources. Hence China, India, the European Union, Brazil and the United States have all embarked on new ventures to "accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy."
IMPERIAL RIVALRIES IN AFRICAThe irony is that each of these societies seeks to embark on larger economies of scale while working to undermine efforts at continental unity among the peoples of Africa. The leaders of the European Union have been the most active in their plans to intensify the exploitation of Africa. From North Africa, France promises to further weaken and divide Africa with a planned Mediterranean Union. Libya opposes this plan by France and, in order to compete with France, the USA is strengthening its ties with Libya. Progressives in the Pan-African world must oppose the French plan, but they must also oppose the opportunism and cynicism of the US foreign policy 'forward planners.' Cooperation and competition between the USA and Europe is intended to weaken the African Union. In the past, US policy makers have identified client states such as South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda as partners. It is in the interest of the peoples of Africa and the peoples of the United States that a government that wants to move beyond the imperial past engage with the continent as a whole and strengthen the progressive forces who arre working for the establishment of the African Union.
In the past year, there have been open editorial campaigns for the US and the EU to form an alliance against China in Africa. Centers for strategic studies in the USA continue to blow hot and cold as to whether the USA should cooperate with China in Africa or confront China in Africa.
It is well known that capitalist competition leads to war. In the present crisis of global capitalism, there are policymakers in both the United States and Europe who are overtly calling for a military confrontation in Africa. The frontline for this proposed war against China is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In this enterprise of seeking a pretext for war, the western imperialists have willing allies in Eastern Africa in both Rwanda and Uganda. Thus far, the drumbeat for this confrontation is being hidden under the call for the expansion of the United Nations monitoring forces in the DRC.
Sustainable peace in Africa and a transformation of the militarized institutions that have been established in Africa since the colonial era requires a break with the old US security policies. This author has joined in the forces of peace who are working to build a new Pan Africa peace infrastructure for Africans and peace loving peoples all over the world. Such an infrastructure project must break with the pre-occupation with strategic minerals and energy that is based on the extraction of petroleum resources. Peace and transformation in Africa is inseparable from a break with environmental destruction in Africa. Just as how there is now an understanding in the USA that the society needs an Economic Recovery program that is based on the 'Green collar economy', there is also an understanding in Africa that African economic transformation must be built around the provision of food, clothing, shelter and health care for the peoples of Africa.
REPARATIONS AND JUSTICEIt is on the question of reparations and the building of a strong Union of the peoples of Africa where the progressive forces in the United States will have to pressure the new Obama administration to support reparations and sustainable peace in Africa. Already, Bishop Desmond Tutu has called on Obama to apologize on behalf of the American state to the peoples of Iraq for the invasion and destruction caused by the neo-conservatives of the past Bush administration. This author wants to support that call for reparations along with calling on representatives such as John Conyers to revive the legislation for reparations and reparative justice. On the website of one of the most senior lawmakers in the USA there is the declaration that:
In January of 1989, Mr. Conyers first introduced the bill H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. He has reintroduced H.R. 40 every Congress since 1989, and will continue to do so until it's passed into law.
This author is calling on all progressives to join in the call to extend this assertion by Conyers so that, in the short run, the government of the United States re-engages with the process of the World Conference against Racism, when it convenes in Geneva in April 2009.
FAILURE, FLAWS OR CRIMES IN AFRICAIt is now clear from the transition team of Obama that there is no new thinking on Africa. On the web site of the Obama election campaign, the adviser on Africa boasted that Obama:
"As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has engaged on many African issues. He has worked to end genocide in Darfur, to pass legislation to promote stability and the holding of elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to bring a war criminal to justice in Liberia and to develop a coherent strategy for stabilizing Somalia."
Who will be able to educate the Obama Presidency that the road to peace in Darfur and in the DRC is linked to demilitarization globally? Obama cannot continue the duplicity of the Bush administration that continues to have security and intelligence sharing with the government of the Sudan while maintaining that it is working to end the genocide in Darfur. Peace in Africa and demilitarization in the United States are two sides of the same coin.
Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan immigrant. His father met an early demise from the deformed politics of division and manipulation in Kenya. Obama is going into the White House with a keen sense of the realities of the impoverishment of the people of Africa. It is the same Obama who understands that change can only come through organization. After all it was Senator Obama who campaigned on a pledge:
"I don't want to just end the war," he said early this year. "I want to end the mindset that got us into war."
Africans at home and abroad must inspire a new mindset so that all of the differing agencies, foundations and academic institutions in the USA can move to a new vision of relating to Africans as full human beings. By every measure, the victory of Obama is historic. Obama will either be a great President moving the society beyond the traditions of militarism and support for dictators or be another imperial President who happens to have a father from Kenya. The choice is not up to Obama. The choice is dependent on the extent to which the progressive forces use the opening provided by the election of Obama to bring about the change we want.
Horace Campbell, is professor of African American studies at Syracuse University, and author of Rasta and Resistance, from Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney, and Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation.SOURCE:www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/53257---
Africa: U.S. Military Holds War Games on Nigeria, Somalia by Daniel Volman
Global Research, August 15, 2009
- In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers, "Unified Quest 2008" brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games: the Rand Corporation and Booz-Allen.
- The list of options for the Nigeria scenario ranged from diplomatic pressure to military action, with or without the aid of European and African nations. One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days....
- Among scenarios examined during the game were the possibility of direct American military intervention involving some 20,000 U.S. troops in order to "secure the oil," and the question of how to handle possible splits between factions within the Nigerian government. The game ended without military intervention because one of the rival factions executed a successful coup and formed a new government that sought stability.
- When General Ward appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, he cited America's growing dependence on African oil as a priority issue for Africom and went on to proclaim that combating terrorism would be "Africom's number one theater-wide goal." He barely mentioned development, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping or conflict resolution.In May 2008, the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, hosted "Unified Quest 2008," the army's annual war games to test the American military's ability to deal with the kind of crises that it might face in the near future. "Unified Quest 2008" was especially noteworthy because it was the first time the war games included African scenarios as part of the Pentagon's plan to create a new military command for the continent: the Africa Command or Africom. No representatives of Africom were at the war games, but Africom officers were in close communication throughout the event.
The five-day war games were designed to look at what crises might erupt in different parts of the world in five to 25 years and how the United States might handle them. In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers, "Unified Quest 2008" brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games: the Rand Corporation and Booz-Allen.
One of the four scenarios that were war-gamed was a test of how Africom could respond to a crisis in Somalia — set in 2025 — caused by escalating insurgency and piracy. Unfortunately, no information on the details of the scenario is available.
Far more information is available on the other scenario — set in 2013 — which was a test of how Africom could respond to a crisis in Nigeria in which the Nigerian government is near collapse, and rival factions and rebels are fighting for control of the oil fields of the Niger Delta and vying for power in the country which is the sixth largest supplier of America's oil imports.
The list of options for the Nigeria scenario ranged from diplomatic pressure to military action, with or without the aid of European and African nations. One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days, which even he thought was undesirable.
As the game progressed, according to former U.S. ambassador David Lyon, it became clear that the government of Nigeria was a large part of the problem. As he put it, "we have a circle of elites [the government of Nigeria] who have seized resources and are trying to perpetuate themselves. Their interests are not exactly those of the people."
Furthermore, according to U.S. Army Major Robert Thornton, an officer with the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, "it became apparent that it was actually green (the host nation government) which had the initiative, and that any blue [the U.S. government and its allies] actions within the frame were contingent upon what green was willing to tolerate and accommodate."
Among scenarios examined during the game were the possibility of direct American military intervention involving some 20,000 U.S. troops in order to "secure the oil," and the question of how to handle possible splits between factions within the Nigerian government. The game ended without military intervention because one of the rival factions executed a successful coup and formed a new government that sought stability.
The recommendations which the participants drew up for the Army's Chief of Staff, General George Casey, do not appear to be publicly available, so we don't know exactly what the participants finally concluded. But we do know that since the war games took place in the midst of the presidential election campaign, General Casey decided to brief both John McCain and Barack Obama on its results.
The African Security Research Project has prepared reports providing detailed information on the creation, missions, and activities of Africom. In particular, they reveal that neither the commander of Africom, General William Ward, nor his deputy, Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, are under any illusions about the purpose of the new command.
Thus, when General Ward appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, he cited America's growing dependence on African oil as a priority issue for Africom and went on to proclaim that combating terrorism would be "Africom's number one theater-wide goal." He barely mentioned development, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping or conflict resolution.
And in a presentation by Vice Admiral Moeller at an Africom conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008 and subsequently posted on the web by the Pentagon, he declared that protecting "the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market" was one of Africom's "guiding principles" and specifically cited "oil disruption," "terrorism," and the "growing influence" of China as major "challenges" to U.S. interests in Africa.
Since then, as General Ward has demonstrated in an interview with AllAfrica, he has become more adept at sticking to the U.S. government's official public position on Africom's aims and on its escalating military operations on the African continent.
These activities currently include supervising U.S. arms sales, military training programs and military exercises; overseeing the growing presence of U.S. naval forces in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and off the coast of Somalia; running the new U.S. base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti; and managing the array of African military bases to which the United States has acquired access under agreements with the host governments of African countries all over the continent. These countries include Algeria, Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia.
....
President Obama has decided instead to expand the operations of Africom throughout the continent. He has proposed a budget for financial year 2010 that will provide increased security assistance to repressive and undemocratic governments in resource-rich countries like Nigeria, Niger, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to countries that are key military allies of the United States like Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Rwanda and Uganda.
And he has actually chosen to escalate U.S. military intervention in Africa, most conspicuously by providing arms and training to the beleaguered Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, as part of his effort to make Africa a central battlefield in the "global war on terrorism." So it is clearly wishful thinking to believe that his exposure to the real risks of such a strategy revealed by these hypothetical scenarios gave him a better appreciation of the risks that the strategy entails.
Daniel Volman is director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. He has been studying U.S. security policy toward Africa and U.S. military activities in Africa for more than 30 years.SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14783