Chad and Dictators

One of the functions of the media is to marginalise or silence Western aggression. The coverage of Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad, for crimes against humanity could well have presented the opportunity for the media to examine in detail the complicity of the US, UK, France and their major allies in North Africa in the appalling genocide Habré inflicted on Chad during his rule – from 1982 to 1990. After all, Habré had seized power via a CIA-backed coup.

 As William Blum commented in Rogue State:

“With US support, Habré went on to rule for eight years during which his secret police reportedly killed tens of thousands, tortured as many of 200,000 and disappeared an undetermined number.”

Largely missing from the corporate media was the massive, secret war waged over these eight years by the United States, France and Britain from bases in Chad against Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar Gaddafi.

By 1990, with the crisis in the Persian Gulf developing, the French government had tired of Habré’s genocidal policies while George Bush senior’s administration decided not to frustrate France in exchange for co-operation in its attack on Iraq. And so Habré was secretly toppled and in his place Idriss Déby was installed as the new President of Chad.

Reporting of the Habré sentencing has been predictably consistent across all the leading newspapers in the UK and US. Thus the focus has been on the jubilant reactions of a few of the victims of Habré’s torture and rape, on the comments from some of the human rights organisations involved for many years in the campaign to bring the Chad dictator to justice – and on the fact that it was the first time an African country had prosecuted the former head of another African country for massive human rights abuses. Only a tiny part of the reporting has mentioned the West’s role in the genocide. None of the reporting has placed the Chad events in the broader context of US/Western imperial aggression.

The story in the Guardian, by Ruth Maclean, was typical. Some 21 paragraphs were devoted to the report. But only in the last one (appearing almost as an after-thought) was there any mention of US complicity:

“The US State department and the CIA propped up Habré, sending him weapons and money in return for fighting their enemy, Muammar Gaddafi.”

In a follow-up editorial, the Guardian again left mentioning the West’s role until the last paragraph:

“Many questions still remain unanswered, including several concerning the responsibility or complicity of Western countries, such as France and the US, which actively supported Habré during the cold war years, turning a blind eye to his methods.”

The Telegraph adopted a similar approach. Aislinn Laing, based in Johannesburg, reported briefly:

“Mr Habré, 73, is a former rebel leader who took power by force in Chad in 1982 and was then supported by the US and France to remain at the helm as a bulwark to Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.”

Adam Lusher, in the Independent, devoted just eight words to contextualising the trial:

“Hissène Habré was once backed by America’s Cold War-era CIA.”

In the New York Times, buried in paragraph 24 of a 27-paragraph report by Dionne Searcey are these words:

“Mr. Habré took power during a coup that was covertly aided by the United States, and he received weapons and assistance from France, Israel and the United States to keep Libya, to the north of Chad, and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, then the Libyan leader, at bay.”

Similarly, in Paul Schemm’s 23-paragraph report in the Washington Post, his paragraph 15 reads:

“Supported by the United States and France in his wars against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, Habré was accused of killing up to 40,000 people and torturing hundreds of thousands.”

Neither the Los Angeles Times nor the Belfast Telegraph could find any space to mention the West’s complicity.

The US today is still supporting human rights offenders across the globe – including the current dictator of Chad, Idriss Déby. Moreover, the Western powers, the US and France in particular, are using Chad as a major base for their covert military operations in Africa. A number of newspapers have commented on how the case set an important precedent for holding high-profile human rights abusers to account in Africa. Yet there has been little mention of the extraordinary background. For in June 2003, the US actually warned Belgium that it could lose its status as host to Nato’s headquarters if the Habré case went ahead on the basis of a 1993 law, which allowed victims to file complaints in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/06/how-the-press-hides-the-global-crimes-of-the-west/

Africa 2014 in Review

Counterrevolution, Neocolonialism and the Mass Struggle

Lessons from false starts and imperialist intervention

An article by Abayomi Azikiwe (too long to reproduce the whole here) regarding the impacts and ongoing problems in African countries as a result of colonialist and imperialist interventions and history and how it continues through (mainly) western activity, be it corporate  or governmental involvement via 'client' or proxy elites.

US, France, Britain, NATO and Israel, on the one side with Cote d'Ivoire, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Burkino Faso, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana and Pan-Africanism on the other, all get a mention.

Below is how the article concludes:

All of these struggles aimed at winning a decent standard of living for workers, youth and farmers; the ideological and political campaigns to battle reactionary ideas and movements; the quest for genuine all-African unity; and the revolutionary imperative for the empowerment of the majority of the people within society, should be at the top of the agenda of all progressive forces on the continent and their supporters internationally.

With the decline in commodity prices on the global markets, many African states are already feeling the impact of this looming crisis. These post-colonial governments and the national bourgeoisies in these countries are more vulnerable than ever since they are largely dependent on the foreign exchange earnings from exports to ensure their dominance within these societies.

It is quite obvious that the neo-liberal agenda in operation for the last three decades is running its course. The only real solution to the crisis is socialist reconstruction and planning within a continental and global Pan-African framework.

whole article here

There is no mention of what this 'socialist reconstruction and planning' would be but we can agree that globally the neo-liberal agenda has worked well only for the capitalist class and that definitely needs to be defeated.

 

Divine inspiration: Mere hallucination/infatuation!

I wish to debate the issue at any possible platform or through any available/affordable media. Perhaps there are other people like my neighbours, the Yirira: abandoned, ignored, neglected by evangelists, politicians and fortune hunters. Despite centuries of the spirit of the ‘saviour’ the Yirira are not even aware of their ‘inspired’ and miracle-performing kinsfolk who were caught in the imperialist net or submitted to the colonising authorities. Reasons why such people remained/remain isolated:

The first lot of venturers to the continent were Christian missionaries, empire and wealth hunters. The area around Chewore (and as most in the Zambezi Valley) is composed of mostly very rugged terrain, arid and non-arable, and with no prospects of minerals there was/is no prospect of Mighty Jesus realising the plight of those in such an area. Let there be found some diamonds, platinum etc in Mbire District – Jesus’ controlling disciples will say – ‘Let there be a super tarmac to Mbire yesterday’. In fact, even protesting EU, US will provide means to relocate the Mbire residents to a more habitable environ (as if there never was one before). And some preacher/prophet will propound that Jesus knew of the Mbire plight long before he was born, it is just that he was waiting for the inspired ‘Man of God’ (the preacher/prophet).

The current equally selfish ruling elite will as usual blame the plight of the Yirira on the ‘negligent racist colonial regime, as if they (current leadership) did not adopt the same cruel, selfish and self-glory-seeking mentality, exaggerating their role in the struggle to overthrow the exploitative colonial system. As if they did not instead adopt it and indeed worsened it; much worse than the colonial leaders: the colonialists had to prove to have some substantial wealth acquired before getting into the legislature; our self-proclaiming ‘messiahs’ from colonial exploiters are exploiting the followers much worse. They use just political clout/rhetoric (hollow promises) then abuse donor and public funds to enrich only the ruling elite and their relatives, loot and share spoils with even (former) colonial exploiters like the Sam Levis, Bill Irvines, Thomas Meikles, Rautenbachs etc, even allocating them diamond fields, platinum fields, gold fields etc.

The best people such as the Yirira can benefit (if minerals are found around their home) is the ‘generosity’ of leadership to relocate them, as if the leadership ‘moulded’ the relocation site. All in all what it now proves is that our leaders were only bitter because the colonialists denied them participating in the splendour (looting from the public and donor coffers, abuse of power) overall, in religion – politics – general system (socio-economic). What has changed is the complexion of leaders, the imperial system is further entrenched in the so-called opposition groups are for the same selfish imperial system socio-economic (just different sides of the same – worthless – Zimbabwe banknotes) vying to abuse the powers that the current are abusing, e.g. did we not have thousands of homeless people in Zim while our president and recent prime minister built/refurbished extra palaces/castles in Borrowdale, Highlands, Pleasure Mountains (Mount Pleasant) apart from already existing plush residencies (private/personal)? And that in 2008 many of us had our funds frozen by RBZ decree, courtesy of Governor Gono, endorsed by central government (during the period of limited withdrawals the elite were allowed to withdraw as much as they wanted), but no redress to the non-elite.

You will find that given the Zim population and the Zim bounty of nature, our poverty is not a result of scarcity of basic necessities. It is the direct result of downright selfishness: please note: despite claims by African leaders and claiming to be revolutionaries, they have all been won back by imperialism. Look at Zim in particular: the same Westminster-type parliament, with the same pomp and glory as king/queen when opening parly after of course the 5-yearly circus called poll (here it is just to endorse the leader to dictate for the next 5 years and be foiled again with campaign rhetoric). How does anyone claim to be a revolutionary when he/she adopts (and worsen) the imperial religion (during the colonial era struggle against Christianity was banned by the fighting cadres, leadership pretended to support the comrades perhaps to impress non-religious China, Russia, DPRK), socioeconomic and the imperial legal system anyway?

Well, back to the heap of bullshit called divine inspiration: the reality is that every parent or leader wants to groom his offspring/followers according to his ideals. The reasons I have given concerning the Yirira cover many people in similar situations (e.g. islands undiscovered by religionists/propagators. I do not know enough about the Koran, but the maker of the environment/universe can never be the selfish pompous, tribalistic, cruel (warmonger, ruthless in Deuteronomy 7:1) despot and erratic – at first the claims to have created a perfect man, later the man is found to be defective and needs circumcision etc, as depicted in the Bible. The story of the resurrection proves the lies: he Jews are not the most stupid people in the universe (perhaps my timid and gullible fellow Zezurus are), i.e. he was sent specifically to save the Jews. If indeed he had resurrected, even the most ardent critic/doubter would have been proved wrong. As it reads (apart from the gullible) we have the story of a king/queen who can be seen by all before death but, when he/she resurrects is seen by the co-called royal ones only! (Blessed are they who believe without seeing.) Gullible! Imaginative!

How effective, how powerful is divinity when a criminal selfish Jacob gets divine blessings which should have gone to honest diligent Esau, fair and infallible god? Should not Jacob have got the same result as Ananias and Saphira? Again, we get a selfish, cruel adulterous king David, instead of being pelted to death, he grandsires ‘The King of the Jews’. Wonderful, infallible divinity! Thus, in the name of primitive humanity, in the desire/wish (a prayer is a wish) for eternal life (Oh! How I wish there were!), people have created rival monsters (imaginary –God and Satan), always at each others throats, no winner but also imagined answers. Hence when primitive dreams/hallucinations are interpreted by Daniel: … primitive mathematicians (a) Seventh Day Adventists come up with 31-08-1844, (b) Jehovah’s Witnesses come up with 1914 as the return of Jesus Christ. We have many people who were teenagers by 1912 still around, among my associates no-one saw or heard of Jesus then. However, if he did not come then that means he is still coming yesterday. As usual, the divine answers are all imaginary (interpreted by chosen seers). In my personal perception/perspective, the reason many shun reality is the false grooming plus respecting wishes. Hence, by suspending logic I cite two orators:

(1) ‘… when you die you cease to exist like the beasts you kill often to feed yourselves, the maker (nature) loves everything it made, equally, no favours to any particular species…’

(2) ‘… if you obey me, because I often talk to the creator, who says I have domain over all other species, you will be resurrected after death and live for ever…’

Of course, orator 2 gets favour most. It is hope/wish versus fact/reality. Despite millions of years of human existence with continuity by offspring, there is no single person, despite highly propagated fables, who was ever resurrected. According to scientific (and reality) explanation of death only wishful thinking and the suspension of logic make people think there ever was/will be any resurrection. If the leading humans were not egoistic (selfish), the most selfish animals in fact, and primitive hallucinations/dreams and their propagation aside, who can confirm to you (humans) that the maker/creator loves you more than the lion, tiger (rats– pests), cattle, moths etc?

Face reality!

GODWIN HATITYE, HARARE, ZIMBABWE

The European Union And Africa

Beyond the handouts of free money to few people in the elite as corruption tool, the EU is an imperialist organization.

The EU is the Union of European countries.
The AU is the Union of African countries.
Tomorrow, there will be an EU-Africa Summit in Brussels.
Now here comes how rogue the EU is.
1. The EU refused the meeting to be between EU-AU, because the EU doesn’t want to deal with Africa as a unified continent, but each individual states.
2. The EU sent individual invitation to each african country, then the AU asked its members not to attend the meeting, because of the way the EU is trying to divide and conquer.
3. The EU first refused to invite Mugabe, a democratically elected president, but sent an invitation to the president of Egypt who is excluded from the AU because of taking power by a coup.
4. When Many Africans sided wit Mugabe, the EU then granted him a visa, but refused to give visa to his wife to come with him.
5. When Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa expressed his concern over the dubious methods of the EU in Africa, he got shunned.
Regardless of the fact that the AU (African Union) asked its members states not to attend the meeting, over 40 puppets Africans president will be tomorrow in Brussels to get instructions on how to let multinationals loot their countries in exchanges of some gifts.
Now, you may ask, how could the EU force Africans to act against their own interest. They can because before anything EU is a war machine, they have guns and they can make a coup in any country when they want. Most of the presidents are afraid to be victim of coup.
In fact, During the last 50 years 21 African presidents were Killed in office, and since 2008 altogether 13 presidents died in office in the world, 10 were African presidents.
Even the logo of the so called partnership shows the EU swallowing Africa, a continent 3 times bigger than the whole Europe, and million times richer.

Here is the propaganda website for the EU colonial pact with Africa : http://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/
They say they will open EU market 100% to african products, but … But … Africa does not produce “anything” except exporting raw materials (which the continent doesn’t have any problem selling anyway). In exchange Ecowas 16 countries will open their 300 millions consumers market 75% during the next 20 years to EU multinationals to crush the soul out of local producers (like they are already doing in agriculture) and kill any dream of african industrialization and economical infrastructure building.
It’s just plain stupid deal, but to make it easy to accept by the puppets african leaders, EU promised about 6 billions euros corruption money (also called aid) for the local elite to get new cars, new houses, etc.
While we were focused on the Ukrainian crisis, the EU tried to bribe 16 governments in West Africa to sign a colonial pact that will help its multinationals to loot more Africa, and impoverish the average african.
In fact the EU succeeded to bribe about 15 governments, who were ready to sign the so called new partnership with EU, but fortunately for us the big Nigeria refused to sign such a deal.
I suspect the EU would prepare a coup in Nigeria soon (with the help of France) to trow the nigerian government, and ask the new puppet to sign the colonial pact.
Africa is not poor, Africa is constantly agressed and impoverish by Europeans.

Mawuna Remarque Koutonin

from here

Canada's expanding African Empire

According to Natural Resources Canada, a federal ministry, there were 155 Canadian companies with cumulative mining assets totalling more than C$31.6bn ($30.5bn) operating in 39 countries in Africa in 2011, the latest available figures. That was up from $26.9bn in 2010.

"Canada is a pretty large outward investor," says Pierre Gratton, president and chief executive of the Mining Association of Canada. "We're one of the larger players on the continent."

Canada's conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has negotiated investment promotion and protection agreements with a number of countries, including Benin, Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia.

In March 2013, Canada's government amalgamated the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the arm of the government responsible for international aid, into the rebranded Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. But Stephen Brown, an associate professor of political science at the University of Ottawa, recently criticised the Harper government's move

“It does nothing to improve aid effectiveness," Brown argues. "It's really about rehabilitating the image of Canadian mining companies, distracting public attention away from their practices ... and transforming their image from resource extractors to humanitarian actors." Brown points out that 20 CIDA "countries of focus" have among the top 12 largest reserves of the six most important metals in the world.

Mining Watch Canada, an independent watchdog, cautions that there are very few laws governing the conduct of Canadian companies operating abroad. "In many instances, local governments simply do not have the capacity," Jamie Kneen, a coordinator for MiningWatch says. "There are serious risks for the environment and health of the nearby communities." While the Dodd-Frank legislation in the United States and the European Union's Accounting and Transparency Directives have put pressure on companies to disclose payments made to governments, no such legislation exists in Canada. For now, Canadian oil operations by firms including Canadian Resources and Sunco Energy in West and North Africa have remained largely below the radar.

The Chinese Soft Power in Africa

China, which, through state-run company Poly Technologies Inc (PTI), donated a swimming pool and sports complex to the armed forces of Ghana in 2011. As well as the Olympic-size pool, complete with sun loungers, there's a gym, with weights and cardio equipment, and a studio where soldiers and civilians mingle over step aerobics, the Tae Bo fitness system, a weight loss programme and African dance. There are tennis courts, seven-a-side football pitches, volleyball, beach volleyball and a restaurant run by the Southern Fried Chicken franchise.


The country's ability to host the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations was given a huge boost by a $100m (£65m) soft loan from China for new stadiums, and construction is about to begin on a stadium in the colonial-era capital Cape Coast in central Ghana, for which China donated $30m.

"China has offered to build our new 15,000-capacity stadium at Cape Coast, without asking for anything in return," says Michael Frimpong, director of public relations for Ghana's ministry of sport.

Nothing in return?
PTI, for example, is one of China's top three arms manufacturers. It is a subsidiary of the state-controlled outfit China Poly Group Corporation, based in Beijing. Critics accuse PTI of exporting weapons to repressive regimes such as Burma and Zimbabwe, which paves the way for resource extraction by Chinese-owned firms.

And there is more to Ghana's relationship with PTI than treadmills and abdominal crunches. In 2011, a month before the new complex was completed, Ghana commissioned two 46-metre patrol vessels worth almost $40m from the company. Ghana has also entered into high-profile bilateral agreements with China such as a $10bn loan for infrastructure projects and a $3bn loan for its oil and gas sector. A source at the Chinese embassy said it had registered more than 300 Chinese companies that have opened an office in Ghana.
"China has a longstanding practice of offering package deals to countries in Africa," said David Shinn, professor of international affairs at George Washington University and co-author of China and Africa: A Century of Engagement. "They include very large concessionary loans that must be paid back, frequently with raw materials. These loans are often used to construct large infrastructure projects tied to Chinese companies and sometimes a component of Chinese labour. It is not unusual to include grants in kind [which] very often come in the form of a stadium, government building, or sports complex." Shinn adds: "In terms of the total package, the grants are usually a modest component and fall in the category of public relations. The idea is to garner good publicity for China."

The Chinese government has backed 1,700 projects on continent in 50 countries since 2000 in apparent attempt to win favour. $75bn (£48bn) on aid and development projects in Africa in the past decade (compared with $90bn the US committed over that period).

In Liberia, China has put millions towards the installation of solar traffic lights in Monrovia and financed a malaria prevention centre. In Mozambique, China's projects include a National School for Visual Arts in Maputo. In Algeria, construction has begun on a multimillion dollar 1,400-seat opera house in the Ouled Fayet suburbs of western Algiers. China has also sent thousands of doctors and teachers to work in Africa, welcomed many more students to learn in China or in Chinese language classes abroad and rolled out a continent-wide network of sports stadiums and concert halls.

The "China-Zambia Friendship Hospital" opened in August 2011 and includes casualty, dental and maternity wards as well as laboratories. It has 159 beds, treats 2,600 patients and delivers 260 babies each month on average. John Kachimba, medical superintendent and consultant urologist, said "I believe it was a gift from China. I think it was just a sign of friendship. They built this, they built a stadium in the copper belt." It was also certainly good PR, he says. "Looking at the hospital, your impression of them will be much better than looking at a mine with poor safety standards and controversy over wages. For them, the hospital is definitely a positive thing."

Many of the cultural and sporting projects across the continent are probably "upfront sweeteners" to win government favour, a "downpayment" for future commercial deals, suggests Stephen Chan, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
Chinese medical teams have worked in Africa since 1963, but recently their objective has expanded to include promotion of China's pharmaceuticals such as antimalarials, according to Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said a combination of economic interests and the need to expand its political influence and improve its international image was driving Chinese health aid in Africa.

Last summer, the then Chinese president Hu Jintao announced an expansive aid programme that will offer 18,000 government scholarships and train 30,000 Africans "in various sectors" by 2015. China advertises these programmes as a kind-hearted diplomatic gesture – the terms "equality", "all-round co-operation" and "mutual gain" pepper its state media reports and programme descriptions. Experts say they're a calculated, long-term investment to win the hearts and minds of Africa's future leaders, many of whom fear China's investment in the continent may come with invisible strings attached. Mahamat Adam, a Cameroonian business consultant and former member of the China-Africa Business Council, said "It must be understood by the Africans, they are not there to do philanthropy or help, they are there to do business. The Chinese are here to work for us, but they're here for their own interests first."

the Mali mess

Only last month, asked about intervention in the strife-torn Central African Republic, the French President François Hollande replied: “Those days are over”. But apparently not. France (and Britain) appear to be embroiled in yet another war. French planes attacked targets,  The mayor of Konna, says the dead included children who drowned after they threw themselves into a river in an effort to escape the bombs. Britain has provided transport planes. Americans provides intelligence and logistical support, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Nigeria agreed to send soldiers to join hundreds of French troops. France, the only European country still to have a permanent military presence in Africa with several major military bases. French involvement in Mali dates back more than a hundred years. The current unrest erupted in Mali after President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup on March 22, 2012. The coup leaders said they had mounted the coup in response to the government's failure to contain the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, which had been going on for two months.

A secular separatist Tuareg, National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad,  wants an independent state in northern Mali called Azawad. National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. The group which once controlled the cities of Gao and Kidal has largely melted back into the population awaiting its next chance. The MNLA is generally disregarded and underestimated because it has receded and allowed al-Qaeda-linked groups to take over the field. But it's important to remember the genesis of this crisis was an action by the MNLA to take over northern Mali, and all that is happening can be seen as a kind of reaction. The aspirations of the MNLA are deep-rooted going back to the first Tuareg rebellion in 1963. Their demands are not going to go away and those demands will continue to be the deep root of the northern Mali crisis.

National Front for the Liberation of Azawad is an Arab group loosely allied to the MNLA which wants the people of northern Mali to have the right to self-determination. They want northern Malians to be able to decide whether they want to be autonomous, independent or to be a part of Mali, possibly through a referendum similar to what happened when Southern Sudan voted for independence. The FLNA is not asking for the implementation of Sharia law.

Ganda Koy (Masters of the Earth) is a Songhai ethnic self-protection militia which has been around since the second Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s. Ganda Koy has in the past fought alongside the Malian Army against Tuareg rebels. They have allegedly committed massacres against Tuareg civilians. Human Rights Watch recently put out a report warning that ethnic self-protection militias like Ganda Koy and Ganda Izo are compiling kill lists of members of MNLA, Ansar al Din, other groups and their collaborators.

Ganda Izo is a Fulani ethnic militia that was formed in 2008 to perform a similar function to Ganda Koy—providing self-protection to the local Fulani populace and countering Tuareg rebellion.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a mostly Algerian and Mauritanian group that has been present in northern Mali since 2003 and which has kidnapped and held more than 50 European and Canadian hostages for ransom in the last ten years earning what is estimated to be well over $100m. Niger's foreign minister Mohamed Bazoum recently said that AQIM's presence in northern Mali was part of a deal between the group and the deposed President of Mali Amadou Toumani Toure. Hostage ransom money from European governments was allegedly spread around to Malian officials while AQIM was given free rein in Tuareg areas, with a wink and a nod from the Malian Army. AQIM is currently holding at least nine European hostages in northern Mali. Over the last decade a few local Ifoghas, Tuaregs and Arabs joined AQIM in Mali, and their members also inter-married with the community. However now that AQIM are openly circulating in the main cities of northern Mali, and thanks to its association with local groups like Ansar al Din, the group has become more mainstream. Now youths from southern Mali, Senegal, Niger and other countries have come to join them under the rubric of the Islamic Police which AQIM has a direct hand in running.

Ansar al Din is a group of local Ifoghas Tuaregs, Berabiche Arabs and other local ethnic groups who want Sharia law implemented everywhere in Mali and across the Muslim world. The founder and head of Ansar al Din is Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg former leader from the 1990s. Over the past ten years Iyad worked closely with the former president to try and put an end to simmering Tuareg rebellions and to negotiate hostage ransom deals with AQIM. Ansar al Din's spokesman is an Arab from the Timbuktu area named Sanda Ould Boumana who was incarcerated in Mauritania in 2005 for being an alleged member of al-Qaeda. The majority of Ansar al Din fighters are Tuaregs from Iyad Ag Ghali’s Ifoghas tribe and Berabiche Arabs from the Timbuktu area. Ansar al Din avoids fights with the MNLA and FLNA so as not to shed blood of relatives and tribal cohorts which would be de-legitimising. They tend to leave that job to MUJAO and AQIM. Although Ansar al Din denies any links with al-Qaeda, it effectively functions as a local umbrella under which members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) can operate. The relationship between the two groups is analogous to the association between the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghainstan, with Ansar al Din playing host. The two groups work together running the religious police, for example. Ansar al Din keeps its membership Malian, thus keeping their future options open within Mali. Ansar al Din can be found in all three main cities of the north: Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa is the most opaque of the al-Qaeda-linked groups in northern Mali. It is supposedly a dissident group which split off from AQIM, but they told Al Jazeera that they're proud of working with AQIM in Gao to fend-off mutual enemies. MUJAO says like Ansar al Din that they want Sharia law everywhere in the world. Unlike Ansar al Din the group incorporates both locals and foreigners from the Sahel region and North Africa.  MUJAO has been the most aggressive in attacking MNLA elements as well as Arab groups who want self-determination for northern Mali. When the MNLA gain a foothold in a region, MUJAO are known to harrass them until they leave. Tilemsi Arab drug lords from the Gao area are alleged to be involved in funding MUJAO and some of their young people have joined.

The trade routes of the Sahara once made the region now called Mali among the world’s richest. But for the past century, it has been marred by instability and conflict.

Source

The State of Africa

Africa represents 15 percent of the world’s population, yet only 2.7 percent of its GDP, which is largely concentrated in only five of 49 sub-Saharan countries. Just two countries—South Africa and Nigeria—account for over 33 percent of the continent’s economic output. Life expectancy is 50 years, and considerably less in those countries ravaged by AIDS. Hunger and malnutrition are worse than they were a decade ago.

At the same time, Africa is wealthy in oil, gas, iron, aluminum and rare metals. By 2015, countries in the Gulf of Guinea will provide the US with 25 percent of its energy needs, and Africa has at least 10 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. South Africa alone has 40 percent of the earth’s gold supply.  The continent contains over one-third of the earth’s cobalt and supplies China—the world’s second largest economy—with 50 percent of that country’s copper, aluminum and iron ore.

The slave trade and colonialism inflicted deep and lasting wounds on the region, wounds that continue to bleed. Selling oil, cobalt, and gold brings in money for the governments and its elites, but not permanent jobs or prosperity for its workers. Africans cannot currently compete with the huge—and many times subsidized industries—of the First World. Nor can they build up an agricultural infrastructure when their local farmers cannot match the subsidized prices of American corn and wheat. Because of those subsidies, US wheat sells for 40 percent below production cost, and corn for 20 percent below.  But the West's adherence to “free trade” torpedoes countries from constructing their economies. The Carnegie Endowment and the European Commission found that “free trade” would end up destroying small scale agriculture in Africa, much as it did for corn farmers in Mexico. Since 50 percent of Africa’s GNP is in agriculture, the impact would be disastrous, driving small farmers off the land and into overcrowded cities where social services are already inadequate.

One disturbing development is a “land grab” by countries ranging from the US to Saudi Arabia to acquire agricultural land in Africa. With climate change and population growth, food, as Der Spiegel puts it, “is the new oil.” Land is plentiful in Africa, and at about one-tenth the cost in the US. Most production by foreign investors would be on an industrial scale, with its consequent depletion of the soil and degradation of the environment from pesticides and fertilizers.

Africom has anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 U.S. Marines and Special Forces in Djibouti, a former French colony bordering the Red Sea. It has 100 Special Forces soldiers deployed in Uganda, supposedly tracking down the Lord’s Resistance Army. It actively aided Ethiopia’s 2007 invasion of Somalia, including using its navy to shell a town in the country’s south. It is currently recruiting and training African forces to fight the extremist Islamic organization, the Shabab, in Somalia, and conducting “counter-terrorism” training in Mali, Chad, Niger, Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Gabon, Zambia, Malawi, Burkina Faso, and Mauretania. Since much of the US military activities involves Special Forces and the CIA, it is difficult to track how widespread the involvement is. “I think it is far larger than anyone imagines,” says John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. While America has put soldiers and weapons into Africa, it has  has either cut aid or used debt relief as a way of fulfilling its UN Millenium obligations. Through affordable access to AIDS medicines, aided by India’s cheap generic versions of drugs (decade ago, they cost $10,000 per person per year and a tiny fraction of desperate people received the medicines) more than 1.5 million South Africans – and millions more in the rest of Africa – get treatment, thus raising the SA collective life expectancy from 52 in 2004 to 60 today, according to reliable statistics released this month. However, in recent months, Obama has put an intense squeeze on India to cut back on generic medicine R&D and production, as well as making deep cuts in his own government’s aid commitment to funding African healthcare. In Durban, the city that is home to the most HIV+ people in the world, Obama’s move resulted in this year’s closure of AIDS public treatment centres at three crucial sites. Meanwhile America has increased military aid, including arms sales and one thing Africa does not need is any more guns and soldiers.

In March 2013 Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa - BRICS-  network are meeting in South Africa  and is expected to carve up Africa more efficiently, unburdened by what will be derided as ‘Western’ concerns about democracy and human rights. They will "talk left" but "walk right". Its resolutions will continue to favour corporations’ resource extraction and land-grab strategies. A new ‘BRICS Development Bank’ likely to be based just north of Johannesburg, will be following the existing agenda.

In July, BRICS  sent $100 billion in new capital to the IMF to bail-out the banks exposed in Europe. South Africa’s contribution was only $2 billion (R17.5 billion), a huge sum for Gordhan to muster against local trade union opposition. Explaining the SA contribution – initially he said it would be only one tenth as large – Gordhan told Moneyweb last year that it was on condition that the IMF became more ‘nasty’ (sic) to desperate European borrowers, as if the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Irish poor and working people were not suffering enough!

The  BRICS are not "anti-imperialist" but instead the deputy-sheriffs for global corporations. Doesn’t the Brazilian expansionist policy in Latin America and Africa correspond, beyond the quest for new markets, to an attempt to gain control over sources of raw materials – such as ores and gas in Bolivia, oil in Ecuador and in the former Portuguese colonies of Africa, the hydroelectric potential in Paraguay – and to prevent potential competitors such as Argentina from having access to such resources? The definition of Brazil as an imperialist power may seem excessive because it is associated with an aggressive military policy. But this is a narrow perception of imperialism. It remains globalisation. Africa is a battleground for internecine conflicts between all imperialist powers, large and small.  

Adapted from here

China in Africa

Navin Shah, a property developer in Kenya, stresses that the Chinese are not philanthropists, and that Chinese aid is not just a gift, but also serves to benefit the benefactor: "Ultimately, it is another imperial power pursuing its national interests." He explains "The early colonisers came to Africa with alcohol and useless gifts to lure the locals. China is doing the same with arms sales, especially to those African governments under threat owing to civil war, insurgency, or barred from obtaining weapons from traditional Western sources. In fact, no other major power has shown the same interest or muscle, or the sheer ability to cozy up to greedy African leaders,"

China's engagement with Africa is not 'new'. Its roots date back to the 1950s, when China fought the Soviet Union and the United States for Africa, which was then seen as an ideal terrain in the Cold War. Known as the "coolie trade", China focused its efforts on African mining, plantation and railway construction. The most notable being the construction of the TamZam railway between 1970 and 1975, which linked Zambia directly to Dar-es-Salaam, breaking the dependency on white-ruled Zimbabwe. It was during this period that the Sino-African relations became political. By 1978, China had established diplomatic relations with 43 African countries. At the end of the 1970s it decided to focus on its internal challenges, China's leadership forgot about Africa and  turned to outright neglect in the 1980s. The inauguration of the new leader, Deng Xiaoping, in 1978 led to a new political direction and the uncertainty of economic development in China. Economic aid to Africa was reduced, accompanied by a decline in bilateral trade. However, self-sufficiency - a central pillar of Chinese policy - could no longer be maintained in a host of vital areas including energy, forestry resources and even food production. By the end of 2011, Chinese investment in African countries totalled almost $90 billion (£55.4 billion), the third-largest recipient behind Asia and Europe. Oil is the top item imported from Angola, followed by hardwood timber from Liberia. Sudan exports two-thirds of its oil to China.

As Chinese investment in Africa increases, the emergence of small-scale Chinese retailers threatens to undermine existing local shops. In Huambo, Angola, Chinese shops have increased ten-fold, from two in 2002 to over 20 in 2006. In Oshikango, Namibia, the first Chinese shop was opened in 1999; by 2006, there were 75. The influx of Chinese trading shops has been met with a mix of enthusiasm and concern. . In South Africa, Chinese migrants are seen as intruders, even by those who buy at their shops. A street vendor in Kenya scornfully remarks: "The Chinese come here with promises of new jobs and better lifestyles, but they are taking away even the simple businesses like selling groceries. Yet, the government says we should celebrate Chinese investment?" Dipak Patel, former trade minister for Zambia: "Does Zambia need Chinese investors who sell shoes, clothes, food, chickens and eggs in our markets when the indigenous people can?" And in 2006, an opposition presidential candidate ran a "Zambia for Zambians" campaign aimed at expelling Chinese influence from his country.

There is a debate regarding China's practice of employing its own nationals. A study commissioned by the Angolan government showed that while non-Chinese employers were expected to pay between $3 (£1.85) and $4 a day to Angolan labourers, Chinese labourers were paid $1 day by their own employers. At the World Social Forum held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007, Humphrey Pole-Pole, head of Tanzania Social Forum, declared: "First, Europe and America took our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy. You don't even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labour."

The general manager of China National Overseas Engineering Corporation, based in Lusaka, Zambia, attributes the differences to cultural barriers: "Chinese people can stand very hard work. They work until they finish and then rest. In Zambia, they are like the British; they work according to a plan. They have tea breaks and a lot of days off. For our construction company, that means that it costs a lot more."

While this low-cost model insinuates low wages, it has also become synonymous with bad working conditions, abusive practices and environmental degradation. In 2010, for example, 11 local employees of a coal mine in Sinazongwe, Zambia were sprayed with bullets by the Chinese managers while they were protesting about pay and working conditions. This followed a 2005 explosion in a Chinese copper mine in Chambishi, Zambia, which killed 46 workers. In 2007, the Nigerian government leased to China Nuclear International Uranium Company a tract of land belonging to ethnic Tuaregs, without compensating them. Legal and illegal timber logging has wreaked havoc on the prospects for sustainable forestry in Liberia and Mozambique. Dams built in Sudan and Mozambique have displaced thousands of local residents, while over-fishing off the eastern and southern African coasts has impaired communities dependant on fishing for their livelihood.

A Done Deal?

Kipawa, a district of Tanzania's Dar es Salaam, used to be a lively neighbourhood, home to about 1,300 families. Many residents had lived there for most of their lives. More than 480 families protested against a proposed compensation package that, they said, undervalued their homes by 50% and was based on an obsolete land acquisition act dating from 1967. Nevertheless, in February 2010, the eviction was carried out suddenly. Teargas was used and more than 300 buildings were demolished within two days. Many people became homeless overnight, according to the Legal and Human Rights Centre, a Tanzania-based NGO.

Now, the area has been completely demolished and fenced in. A sign on the fence says a Chinese company, China International Fund, is to construct a terminal building here as part of a project to extend the country’s main airport. It is almost two years since the community was evicted to make way for the development, and yet there are no signs of construction in Kipawa. The displacement may turn out to be pointless, since the Tanzanian government has admitted the investment for its airport projects is not yet in place. The area has become a deserted field. Most former residents were relocated 36km to the west; they no longer have access to electricity, clean water, roads or schools, and they face long journeys.

 In March 2007 Chinese businessman Sam Po flew his private jet into Tanzania. Po represents the 88 Queensway Group, a body of companies – including the China International Fund (CIF) and China Sonangol International Holding. He offered to upgrade Julius Nyerere international airport and revive Air Tanzania, the national flag-carrier. Po promised six other projects.  A few months later  China Sonangol was granted licences to explore two oilfields in the Lake Rukwa basin in south-west Tanzania. It is clear the two deals were linked. Sonangol has been granted oil concessions outside normal procedure in 2009. A year later, the parliament forced the authorities to withdraw the oil licences granted to the Chinese company.

Meanwhile, the 1,300 families evicted from Kipawa are still struggling to rebuild their lives.

 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/03/02/chinese-investment-in-tanzania-results-in-mass-evictions/

The new imperialists

Socialist Banner has previously described the new imperailsts such as Canada. But others should not be over-looked, Australia being one new arrival in African continent to take advantage of its natural wealth.

30 per cent of global mining resources are in Africa.

At least 230 Australian companies are active in the resource sector on the African continent. Between them, they are pursuing 650 individual projects in 42 countries. Their total investment is estimated at a whopping $24 billion. About 20 companies and 100 projects have been added just since the beginning of 2011. And Intierra Resource Intelligence estimates that the capital expenditure for new projects in the pipeline is about $23bn.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/africa-provides-a-rich-seam-for-resources-sector/story-e6frgd0x-1226174509918

At this week's Commonwealth Business Forum with 300 officials from 40 African countries attending , Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is set to unveil a $30 million initiative to promote mining development in Africa

Chinese capitalism

Chinese investment in Zambia, Africa's leading copper producer topped $1 billion last year and came with the promise of 15,000 jobs as well as an additional $5 billion investment over the next few years. Almost all of the money went into Zambia's copper-mining industry, with only 10% invested in construction, agriculture, retail and manufacturing. In a country where almost two-thirds of the 13 million citizens live under the poverty line of $1.25 a day, economic growth is the government's priority but Zambians have begun to realize that "economic growth has not translated into significant poverty reduction," as the latest World Bank country assessment states.

Copper — responsible for 70% of Zambia's export earnings — largely contributed to the country's 7.6% economic growth in 2010. Critics complain that those revenues hardly benefit all Zambians. Unions and watchdogs note that most profits are taken out of the country instead of being reinvested in much needed infrastructure, hospitals and schools. There are also widespread allegations of Chinese firms ignoring environmental and labor laws to reap higher profits — and of the government turning a blind eye.
"The government lets Chinese investors act above the law," explains Edward Lange, coordinator of Southern Africa Resource Watch in Zambia. "Corruption is rife. We have lost control over our resources."
Tens of thousands of mine workers and their families are growing increasingly disgruntled with Chinese-run mining operations. Previous protests against low pay and poor working conditions have shown few results, only worsening tensions among workers and managers. During a strike in April, Chinese managers shot and wounded eleven protesters.
"We are discontent with the political and economic situation," confirms Charles Muchimba, research director of the Mineworkers' Union of Zambia. While Chinese investors have reaped massive profits, workers have borne the brunt of Zambia's free-market economy and suffered salary cuts of up to 40% during the recession, he says.

China is on a resource grab. Beijing doesn't do gifts; it does deals. The ambition, speed and scale of Chinese involvement in Africa is extraordinary. According to Chris Alden, author of China in Africa, two-way trade stood at $10 billion in 2000. By 2006, it was $55 billion, and in 2009 it hit $90 billion, making China Africa's single largest trading partner, supplanting the U.S., which did $86 billion in trade with Africa in 2009. Today the Chinese are pumping oil from Sudan to Angola, logging from Liberia to Gabon, mining from Zambia to Ghana and farming from Kenya to Zimbabwe. Chinese contractors are building roads from Equatorial Guinea to Ethiopia, dams from the Congo to the Nile, and hospitals and schools, sports stadiums and presidential palaces across the continent. They are buying too. Acquisitions range from a $5.5 billion stake in South Africa's Standard Bank to a $14 million investment in a mobile-phone company in Somalia. What's happening is a new scramble for Africa.

The Great Land Grab Continued

Land, farm, food—some of the few things that all societies hold sacrosanct, yet also some of the hottest commodities in financial markets. Land is up for grabs across Africa.

The International Land Coalition, an NGO alliance, says “the new scramble for Africa” is taking place today on a far more complex political and environmental terrain. One modern aspect to the new scramble is the expanding market in biofuel crops, which have been blamed for undermining and displacing traditional food crops—not to mention their role in creating water scarcity, global climate change and population pressures.

Land deals do carry the racial baggage of imperial history. Land reform has also been a continual struggle since independence within many African countries. It has too often yielded policies that deepen existing patterns of segregation and inequality and encourage the displacement of farming communities that lack formal landholder status. That’s in part because land is a critical bargaining chip for political leaders who are courting foreign capital after years of failed development and agrarian reform initiatives. As ILC explains, “these acquisitions sit well with the new thinking among African political leaders frustrated by patronising aid dependency and keen to forge relationships of trade with the developed world.” But if parceling out prime real estate helps governments capture new investment, the land itself and its traditional stewards are withering away.
Ecologically, the ILC says, “There is limited or no capacity in these countries to control or deter pollution of the air, soils, and groundwater by the heavy chemicals likely to be used in these ventures. Such pollution will add to the burdens of poor environmental health that rural populations already bear in many of these countries.” The use of aggressive industrial farming methods and genetically modified crops may further destabilize rural communities, since “many of these countries lack the capacity to effectively police the type of large-scale technological production envisaged over the large areas of land involved.”
Despite promises of building new infrastructure and encouraging trade, the commodification of land portends the destruction of more sustainable, small-scale agriculture. “What they are bringing is what is required for industrial farming in large-scale plantations,” Oakland Institute Policy Director Frederic Mousseau. “Small-scale farmers in Ethiopia aren’t going to suddenly learn to drive a tractor and ride a tractor. It’s really about buying land in Africa.”

The Oakland Institute, which monitors global agricultural trends, suggests that transnational land grabs in Africa—including Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Sudan—are setting up a repeat of the 2007-2008 food-price crisis, which was fueled by a blend of financial, political and environmental factors. “We see really vertical integration and control of the markets by investors who will be able to both influence prices and also decide on what the production will be,” warns Mousseau. “We have the food chain, which is pervasively and quite rapidly in recent years being under the control of financial groups. Multinational investors bank on humanitarian rhetoric by wrapping their land deals in the banner of “trade not aid.” But the land bubble in many ways poses greater danger than did the U.S. real estate boom: at stake are the fates of indigenous communities.

Michelin, the massive tire corporation rolled into Nigeria’s Iguobazuwa Forest Reserve a few years ago and just one thing stood in the path of the plans to set up a rubber plantation: the communities that lived there. With cruel precision, the communities that got in the way were uprooted and displaced, their farmland devastated. The bulldozers of the French conglomerate Michelin sowed the ground for “increased hunger, malnutrition, poverty and forced migration, as food became harder to find or produce,” as documented by Friends of the Earth International

“It was as if there was no reason to live again,” recalled a local woman. “Now, no land, no farm, no food.”

Taken from here

talk and yawn

“Abolishing poverty from the face of the Earth” that has become the stock slogan for the politician.

Over the years, special summits held with the customary fanfare have taken the pledge to accomplish this noble objective. Diplomats and experts have wined and dined in exotic locations in between expressions of profound concern for the deprived of the world. The tragedy is that the paper promises and solutions thrown up at these special summits have gone the way of all similar pious platitudes. Thrown into the waste basket, sacrificed at the altar of economic reality. The rich nations of the world, after having made ‘solemn’ promises in international forums to ‘eradicate poverty’, actually take economic measures that are expressly directed towards undermining the economies of the poor nations around the world.

According to one study some years ago, if world cotton prices were not depressed as a result of subsidies, the number of people living in poverty in the African nation of Burkina Faso could be cut in half within six years. Subsidies accounted for about one third of the $35,000 average annual income of the US cotton farmer, the per capita income in Burkina Faso was less than $1 a day.

The World Trade Organization continues its merry-go-rounds of global trade talks. Meanwhile, the developed countries continue with their march aimed at their economic prosperity through means, fair or foul, and that at the expense of the world’s poor. The poor nations of the world are invariably left out in the cold

How about calling off the charade of global conferences and using the money to subsidise at least some of the poor for a change?

Adapted from here

Walmart arrives

The South African government approved Wal-Mart's $2.4 billion deal to buy local chain Massmart, opening the door to expansion throughout the continent. Wal-Mart itself plans to expand deeper into the 53 other countries of the African continent. Critics say the move will cost thousands of jobs. South African unions announced plans to strike at Massmart stores. According to a government witness at the Com­petition Tribunal, shifting just 1 percent of Massmart's product line from local goods to imported goods would cost South Africa 4,000 jobs

The country’s largest union group, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) said “Wal-Mart is more likely to destroy jobs by using its competitive advantage to force its competitors out of business” by selling goods made in “sweatshops by nonunion workers.”

"We've looked at Wal-Mart's record, we know their story in the US, and we know what impact they have on the employment, and on the market," says Christy Hoffman of UNI Global Union, the worldwide union federation representing 20 million workers, in an interview. "A lot of the evidence we submitted to the Competition [Tribunal] shows what is the impact of Wal-Mart in the communities where they operate, and overall there is a decline in wages, there is a slight decline in employment, and the supply chains are put under substantial pressure. Small and medium-sized businesses cannot compete with Wal-Mart." According to Ms. Hoffman, Wal-Mart essentially pulled out of the German markets because German authorities discovered that Wal-Mart was selling milk at below cost, and this was affecting other businesses. "They were told by the German authorities they couldn't operate this way in Germany, using their business model, so they left."

the asian scramble for africa

South Korea joins Beijing in the scramble for access to the continent's vast natural resources. Kim Sung-Hwan South Korea's foreign minister will travel to Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

Talks will be held on oil exploration projects in Gabon and the building of infrastructure in Congo in return for energy deals, a ministry official said. "We plan to actively encourage South Korean companies take a plunge in Africa, the world's emerging economy rich with energy resources," the ministry said in a statement. "The trip... is aimed at helping South Korean companies win business deals there and sharing the experience of our economic development with Africa".

India has also been securing land and resource deals in Africa in a bid to maintain its growth.

Tony Blair - the new Cecil Rhodes?

Tony Blair has defended his close personal and working relationship with one of Africa's most controversial leaders, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, even as foreign governments distance themselves over accusations of war crimes and the suppression of political opposition. A UN report that accused Kagame's forces of war crimes, including possibly genocide, in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, and charges that the Rwandan government is increasingly authoritarian after the opposition was effectively barred from challenging Kagame in August's presidential election. The White House has criticised Kagame for the suppression of political activity and made clear that it does not regard Rwanda as democratic. The UN report in October accused Rwanda of war crimes in eastern Congo, including the wholesale massacres of Hutu civilians and the plunder of minerals which tarnished Kagame's image.
Kagame has denied the accusations but human rights groups have been documenting such crimes for years. His re-election in August was with 93% of the vote, after his main rivals were jailed and barred from running after being accused of stirring up ethnic hatred between Hutus and Tutsis after what Human Rights Watch called "persistent harassment and intimidation" of their parties by the government, and the curbing of criticism in the press including the banning of two newspapers. The deputy leader of a third opposition party was murdered in July.

Blair has described Rwanda's president as a "visionary leader" and a friend after making the central African country the focus of the work of his charity, the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI). The initiative includes placing officials hired by Blair in Rwanda's institutions such as the president's policy unit, the prime minister's office, the cabinet secretariat and the development board to assist with administration. Blair said allowances have to be made for the consequences of the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and suggested that Kagame's economic record outweighed other concerns. Blair told the Guardian: "I'm a believer in and a supporter of Paul Kagame. I don't ignore all those criticisms, having said that. But I do think you've got to recognise that Rwanda is an immensely special case because of the genocide. Secondly, you can't argue with the fact that Rwanda has gone on a remarkable path of development. Every time I visit Kigali and the surrounding areas you can just see the changes being made in the country."

AGI, a registered charity, launched its first project in Rwanda in 2008 and involves placing Blair's staff in high government offices, such as presidential policy units and cabinet secretariats, to build "effective governance" through "a combination of on-the-job coaching and support and formal and informal training".

"There is a clear sense by this generation of African leaders that the future of Africa is in their hands and they're not interested in a debate about the colonial past," he said. "They're very much eager to get their countries sorted out. They're perfectly willing to listen and learn from the outside. They're also keen on bringing in quality private sector investment and that is the way you build a country."

But the initiative is open to criticism for promoting a model that pressures African states to again surrender political and economic autonomy.

"You've got to make a judgment about this, and my judgment, rightly or wrongly, is that he [Kagame] is somebody who does want to do his best for his country, is doing his best for his country..." Blair stated.

Socialist Banner is fully aware of Blair's sense of good judgement and his avowed declarations of good intent - such as the invasion of Iraq !

The need to struggle in new ways

Socialist Banner can sympathise with the writer and director of the Third World Forum, Samir Amin, when he says "...it has now come to a point where continuing the accumulation of capital is deepening and continuing the destruction of the natural basis for the reproduction of civilisation. And therefore that we ought to move and start moving beyond capitalism."

He explains further that:
"The forms of organisation and action have to be and are always invented by the people in struggle and not preconceived by some intellectuals and then put into practice by people. They are the result of invention. If we look at the previous long crisis of capitalism in the 20th century, during that century, people have invented efficient ways of organising and of acting – efficient vis-à-vis the challenge of their time. I mean, forms of organisation like the trade unions, like the political parties, whether communist parties or really social democrat working-class parties or the war of liberation associated with social change – those forms of organisation and of action have been really efficient and have produced gigantic progressive change in the history of humankind in the 20th century. But they have come all of them out of stream because the system has itself changed and moved into a new phase. And the first wave has come to an end. And now, as Gramsci said, the first wave has come to an end, the second wave of more that protest, of action to change the system, is just starting...there is no reason why through their struggle, which are growing and will continue to grow in the coming years and decades, the people in struggle will not invent new forms of organisation...social movements exist and have always existed and social struggles are already there, including in Africa, but they are in Africa as elsewhere, fragmented and on the defensive. Now to move from that position into some kind of unity and building convergence with respect of diversity with strategic targets is on the agenda in Africa, as elsewhere today, which means that re-politicisation of the social movements. Social movements have chosen to be depoliticised because the old politics – the politics of the first wave of progressive social forces which have been the basis for the first wave of reconquer of national independence – have come to the end of the road, have moved into a blind alley, have lead to growing contradictions, have lost their legitimacy. So the parties which built the conquest of independence of Africa, such as the Tanzanian National Union, African Union, such as the union in Mali, national liberation movements have come to the end of the road and they have lost their credibility. Now the social movements have to re-create adequate forms of politicisation."

Samir Amin then elaborates:
"We are moving into a second wave of emancipation of African popular classes along with liberation of their nations. We are at that point in history where the first wave has come to an end and the second is just starting. Now today for imperialism, Africa is very important because of the enormous natural resources of the continent, not only oil and gas, but also rare minerals, a lot of minerals common like copper and less common but no less important like cobalt and other rare minerals, but also more and more, land, which is becoming a scare resource at the global level and Africa has plenty of it. But for imperialism, Africa is important for its resources, not African people. They are rather an obstacle to the exploitation of natural resources. This is why the US and their European allies in NATO are developing a planned strategy of military control of important areas in Africa to be plundered for their natural resources. And they are assuming that the African people will remain passive and will not move into active agents which will stop their plunder of the continent. I think they are wrong. Just as the colonialists thought that the colonial system was there forever and that the peoples of Africa would have to adjust to it and they were for a number of decades adjusting to it, but that could not continue forever. Exactly in the same way, the idea that the African resources can be plundered without the African peoples responding to the challenge and taking over the control of those natural resources is a big error of judgment of imperialism"

Socialist Banner, however cannot endorse his statist advocacy of some sort of alliance with the ruling class and the state-powers for the "rebuilding of a solidarity of African and Asian nations and peoples against the plunder of imperialism."

Oil out - Guns in

Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa. Eds Axel Harneit-Sievers, Stephen Marks and Sanusha Naidu, Pambazuka Press £16.95. (Also available as an e-book from www.fahamubooks.org)

There may be a prevalent view of Africa as a continent immersed in poverty, but in fact it is rich in many things, minerals and energy for instance. Efforts by the wealthiest and most powerful countries to exploit these resources have carried on since the end of classical colonialism and the coming of ‘independence’, and these have helped ensure the continuation of poverty for the vast majority of Africans. As China joins the club of developed capitalist states, it also sees Africa as a source of raw materials and a market for exports. This volume gives a wide-ranging overview of China’s activities in Africa, with chapters by activists and academics from both China and Africa. Almost without exception, the most interesting essays are those by African authors, with those by Chinese contributors being largely bland and uncritical.

Bilateral trade between China and Africa has increased over the last decade to more than $US100 billion. As Chinese capitalism expands, it needs to import raw materials of various kinds, and nearly 80 percent of China’s imports from Africa are oil and petroleum products. For instance, 500,000 barrels of oil are exported to China from Angola each day, and it is only Chinese companies, with mainly Chinese employees, who carry out this work, so Chinese industry benefits from both the oil and the extraction work. Furthermore, China is a major producer of wood and paper products, but has relatively little by way of forestry resources, hence Chinese companies undertake logging in Mozambique and Tanzania. Minerals such as iron ore, copper and uranium are imported to China from Liberia, Zambia and Niger.

At the same time, China exports finished goods to Africa. In Nigeria, for example, cheap Chinese textiles have undercut domestically-produced goods, increasing local unemployment. Chinese companies export cheap, and sometimes dangerous, goods aimed specifically at the African market, where consumers have little money to spend. Arms sales from China to Africa are also an important source of profits, with Sudan, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe among the purchasers.

The book contains a few pointless policy ideas, such as the African Union playing a larger role in supervising Sino-African relations. Its usefulness lies elsewhere, in showing the extent to which China is acting in essentially the same way as the other capitalist powers, and how the workers and peasants of Africa remain subject to the exploitation and oppression of both ‘home-grown’ and global rulers.
PB

Book Review from November issue of the Socialist Standard

America, africom and africa

The United States’ interest in Africa is driven by America’s desire to secure valuable natural resources and political influence that will ensure the longevity of America’s capitalist system, military and global economic superiority – achieved through the financial and physical control of raw material exports. The U.S. has a long history of foreign intervention and long ago perfected the art of gaining access to other countries’ natural, human, and capital resource markets through the use of foreign trade policy initiatives, international law, diplomacy, and, when all else fails, military intervention. But diplomatic efforts have largely been sufficient for the U.S. to establish influence over other nations’ politics and economies.

Access to natural resources – particularly oil and rare earth elements - is critical for the U.S. to remain a dominant industrial and military power, especially since the U.S. has experienced a decline in natural resource production while China’s production and foreign access to strategic materials has only increased. A sustained increase in oil imports has been underway since domestic U.S. oil production peaked in the 1970s, with oil imports surpassing domestic production in the early 1990s. Strategic metals, such as the titanium used in military aircraft, and rare earth elements used in missile guidance systems are increasingly produced by China or under the control of Chinese companies. The issue is of such importance that 2009 saw the creation of the annual Strategic Metals Conference, a forum designed to address concerns related to US access to metals with important industrial and military uses. The second annual conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio in January 2010, saw dozens of engineers and military personnel express heightened concern over China’s near monopoly over rare earth metals. China controls around 95% of the world’s rare earth output and has decided to restrict the export of these metals, leaving international consumers short by approximately 20,000 tons in 2010.

The demand for raw materials has led to new policy initiatives in which Africa has taken center stage for Chinese investment. China has gained access to Africa by, in large part, offering favorable aid packages to several nations which include loans, debt forgiveness, and job training. In contrast to Western aid packages, Chinese aid has few if any strings attached. China’s platform for developing trade with and providing aid to Africa was of such importance that in October 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was launched. Fifty African nations participate in the forum which serves as the foundation for building bridges of economic trade as well as political and cultural exchange. Africans see Chinese influence as being far more positive than U.S. influence.

Russia has also taken a renewed interest in Africa. Putin’s push to restore Russia’s international stature, power, and prestige has led Russia to purchase in excess of $5 billion of African assets between 2000 and 2007.

In November 2002, the U.S. based Corporate Council on Africa held a conference on African oil and gas in Houston, Texas. The conference, sponsored by ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco among others, was opened by United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kansteiner. Mr. Kansteiner previously stated that, “African oil is of strategic national interest to us and it will increase and become more important as we go forward,” while on a visit to Nigeria. With all of the concern over U.S. access to key natural resources, it is hardly a surprise that United States conceived of and finally launched United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007. The unveiling AFRICOM was done under the auspices of bringing peace, security, democracy, and economic growth to Africans. The altruistic rationale for the creation of a new military command was belied by the fact that from the start it was acknowledged that AFRICOM was a “combatant” command created in response to Africa’s growing strategic importance to the United States; namely, “the size of its population, its natural resource wealth, its potential". In fact, President Fradique de Menezes of Sao Tome and Principe said at that time that he had reached agreement with the United States for establishment of a U.S. naval base there, the purpose of which was to safeguard U.S. oil interests. Menezes revealed the new model for U.S. military outposts abroad. He stated, "It is not really a military base on our territory, but rather a support port for aircraft, warships and patrol ships so that they can come to this port and stay for some time." Since the establishment of AFRICOM, numerous training exercises have been carried out in Africa by U.S. military forces, and basing agreements have been worked out with several African partners across the continent – even in the face of strong dissent from the citizens of several countries. The U.S. has been able to create these relationships through the careful structuring of its operations, size and make-up of its staff, and public relations efforts.

Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, a key military outpost and strategically important piece of real-estate in the Horn of Africa, precisely where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden, the United States government entered into an agreement with the government of Djibouti that has several striking features:
· U.S. military personnel have diplomatic immunity
· The United States has sole jurisdiction over the criminal acts of its personnel
· U.S. personnel may carry arms in the Republic of Djibouti
· The U.S. may import any materials and equipment it requires into the Republic of Djibouti
· No claims may be brought against the U.S. for damage to property or loss of life
· Aircraft, vessels, and vehicles may enter, exit, and move freely throughout the Republic of Djibouti.

Such an agreement allows the U.S. to maintain a small permanent presence in Djibouti, but staff and stock up with as many military personnel and weapons as it deems fit for any particular operation inside or outside of Africa as needed. Additionally, the agreement gives the U.S. the flexibility it wants to operate freely without interference from or liability to the people and government of Djibouti. The small size and staff of U.S. basing operations like Camp Lemonier is the new model for U.S. Forward Operating Locations (FOLs). FOLs are “smaller, cheaper, and can thus be more plentiful. In short, the FOL can lie in wait with a low carrying cost until a crisis arrives, at which point it can be quickly expanded to rise to whatever the occasion demands.” Arrangements have been made with several countries, north, south, east, and west, including Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia. A leaner, smaller, less intrusive, and more culturally engaged network of military outposts is America’s new blueprint for foreign intervention and global domination.

U.S. officials have long recognised African hostility to any efforts that could be perceived as neo-colonialist and imperialist. AFRICOM’s staffing structure is a military-civilian hybrid for two reasons: to convey the message that the combatant command does not have an exclusive military purpose, and to gain influence over African nations’ domestic and foreign policies. AFRICOM has a civilian deputy commander and a large civilian staff, in part made up of U.S. State Department personnel. These civilian personnel include foreign policy advisors from the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs, humanitarian assistance advisors from the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as advisors from the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security. To overcome poor public relations, the command built several activities into the structure of AFRICOM, to include the building of schools in poor villages, air and sea port construction projects, the distribution of medicine and textbooks to children, military-to-military training programs, and legal operational support. The U.S. Army War College published a research paper in March 2008, entitled “Combating African Questions about the Legitimacy of AFRICOM”. It called for the increased use of “soft power that could be leverage by the U.S. Department of State in winning the public relations fight for Africa." The structure and domestic operations of AFRICOM also makes it more palatable to African leaders.

Taken mostly from here