Greetings, Souljahs,
Posted here is a letter by Sekou Nkrumah, currently on a worldwide tour organizing the Afrikan Liberation/Repatriation Movement.
He will be in travelling to Barbados W.I. on march 3rd. It just so happens that I will be on the island during that time and will be attending. I will keep you posted.
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Letter:
AFRICA’S UNITY WILL NOT BE STOPPED BY U.S. MILITARY AGGRESSION
The recent decision by George Bush to establish an Africa Command is an invasion of Africa and a ruse that gives the illusion that the U.S. is fighting a “War on Terror”. Africa and African people worldwide have been at war with U.S. and European imperialism military aggression since the slave raid began in 1472. Although George Bush’s Africa Command is a continuation of this war, it cannot stop the unification of Africa, which is a historical determined necessity.
Defense Secretary of the U.S., Robert Gates on February 14, 2007 said, “This new command will strengthen our security cooperation with Africa and create new opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa”. This new command, however, is not a military maneuver that shows strength, but in fact is a shift that points up the vulnerability of American imperialism, and their inability to impose their will militarily throughout the world.
The planned democratic victory in the U.S. Congress to save George Bush face, actually sets the stage in preparation to pull their troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, which are illegal wars they can never win. The U.S. did not prove Osama Bin Laden blew up the World Trade Center, and they illegally invaded Iraq against the United Nations decisions, and had Saddam Hussein executed on unfounded evidence that he had weapons of mass destruction. As the smoke clears, the U.S. intentions are clear. The illegal invasion of Iraq was an exercise to steal oil for the Rockefellers and Morgan’s, and Vice President Cheney Company Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, for the restoration of the oil fields in Iraq. Consequently, the U.S. military aggression in Africa is only a disguise to cover up the loss of two unjust wars, and exposes a crack that’s growing wider in the armor of the so-called world’s number one superpower.
Malcolm X said the U.S. would never be able to win another war against an opponent that uses guerilla warfare. In this case, in addition to guerilla warfare, the Iraqi and Afghanistan resistance is using martyrdom bombings and roadside bombings in which the U.S. military have no defense. The recent debate and refusal by the Congress to grant George Bush’s request to escalate the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is a subtle way of admitting defeat. The request of 21,000 more troops and $100 billion dollars by George Bush is seen as a waste of taxpayers money and lives by the U.S. Congress in a losing situation. The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) forces in Europe have refused to fight in “hot spots” in Afghanistan because they view it as a war the U.S. started and must finish with the lives of its own soldiers.
The U.S. has only 1,400,000 service men with military bases in 130 different countries. They have 150,000 troops engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Militarily, the position of the U.S. is so tenuous that the government is granting waivers to admit recruits with criminal records, including felony convictions, drug offenses, medical problems, and low aptitude test. Many of these criminals with felonies were denied jobs, but now they are encouraged to join the U.S. military to sacrifice their lives in two illegal and unjust wars.
They have also increased the age limit from 35 to 42, and waived medical problems of recruits with asthma, high blood pressure, and attention deficit disorder. Especially in the case of felonies and drug offenses, it is clear that this policy is aimed at the African male in America to be used as cannon fodder in these wars. With an African population of only 14% in America, 50% of the people incarcerated in the prison industrial complex are African. As a result, the Bush Administration is keen on recuperating the loss of $30 billion it spent last year on another war it’s losing—the war on drugs. In other words, rather than house these prisoners at a financial loss, it’s more cost effective and cheaper to send them off to war. From Bush’s point of view the profits and chances of winning is much greater.
From America’s inception, the country has never won a war without a strong African male presence in their military. With a military strained to capacity, and over 3,000 deaths and 60,000 others with blown off legs, arms, and other body parts, Bush the mad man and the U.S. government, want to call it quits. However, neither Bush nor the government can figure out how to tell the white American public they’ve lost. The main reason being, the capitalist class would lose a significant amount of money and defense contracts, and would therefore contribute to an already falling American economy. That is to say, $400 billion spent for the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be justified.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2003 the United States spent approximately 47% of the world’s total military spending—the sum of U.S. $956,000,000,000. The U.S. is the world’s largest arms dealer consisting of 48% of the world’s total. The top ten defense contractors of the U.S., and their revenue as of 2004 are:
1. Lockheed Martin $20,690,912,000
2. Boeing Company $17,066,412,000
3. Northrup Corporation $11,894,090,000
4. General Dynamics $9,563,280,000
5. Raytheon Company $8,472,813,000
6. Halliburton Company $7,966,793,000
7. United Technologies Corporation $5,056,937,000
8. Science Application International $2,450,781,000
9. Computer Science Corporation $2,390,806,000
10. Humana Incorporation $2,372,078,000
Visit (
http://www.globalsecurity.org)
The capitalist class made up of defense contractors, bankers, and oil company owners are the major force behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, who have now turned their attention and military aggression on Africa to protect its interest on behalf of profits. Some of the raw materials needed by these companies are bauxite which provides aluminum, iron for making steel, cobalt is used for jet engines, nuclear missiles need uranium, and all of their weapons systems use coltan for computer chips. Seventy percent of these resources are found in Africa, and the companies mentioned above also imports 90% from Africa.
This drive for resources and profits is the major factor that is leading to America’s demise, and is ultimately the cause for the losing situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also accounts for the shift in focus on Africa militarily—more specifically as capitalism begins to fall, the U.S. need for African oil increases. As the U.S. alter their foreign policy toward Africa, it only highlights the susceptibility of their military, which the entire world sees at this time. The British, America’s strongest ally, are getting a head start in isolating the U.S. in its losing effort because Tony Blair (B-Liar) has decided just recently to pull out 7000 troops. Other U.S. allies have already pulled their troops out.
Additionally, the Arabic oil producing countries have seen, even with some of their own support for the U.S., the U.S. is not as strong militarily as it projects itself to be. Moreover, with the removal of this fear in the Middle East and the U.S. weakness, they can raise their oil prices as they see fit. Therefore, the U.S. has to step up its military aggression in Africa because resources are not so easily obtained in the Middle East such as the case of oil.
The defiance and resistance in the Middle East is even more apparent with the recent political developments in Iran. The U.S. cannot stop Iran’s nuclear program, and the Bush administration stated Iran is supporting the resistance movement in Iraq with roadside bombs and weapons, which are killing American soldiers. Yet the U.S. military have no way of stopping any one of these actions by the Iranians.
The rise of Latin America in the form of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and the strength of Cuba is slowly cutting off the hand of U.S. imperialism right in its own backyard (Mexican revolutionaries just lost an election in 2006 by less than 1%). U.S. Homeland Security nor the border patrol can stop the Mexican people from coming over the border, which will eventually lead to reclaiming their land in the Southwest of America. The handwriting is on the wall as the dollar plummets and loses its competitive edge to the pound and the Euro-dollar. U.S. businessmen are stashing their cash in European banks in Europe, and American corporations are downsizing and moving their companies abroad in anticipation of U. S. capitalism‘s collapse.
China, whose economy is growing annually a rate of 10.7%, has a foreign exchange reserve of over $800 billion and is competing voraciously against the U.S. for Africa’s and the world’s resources, as well as for oil to develop its industrial drive. If China decides to do business in the Euro-dollar and cash in its U.S. treasury bills, it would spell disaster for the American economy. The concern of China’s economic strength was expressed by Susan Schwab the U.S. Trade Representative in the World Trade Organization. She lodged a compliant about China “using its basic tax laws and other tools to encourage exports and to discriminate against imports of a variety of American manufactured goods”. Europe and the U.S. requested the Chinese to ease its import of textile products to Europe because the high quality and low cost was under cutting their own market.
From the U.S. capitalist perspective their only alternative is to tighten its grip on Africa. Kwame Nkrumah in his book Neo-colonialism The Last Stage of Imperialism stated in Africa, “foremost among the neo-colonialist is the United States which has long exercised their power in Latin America”. Along the same line, in Liberia in 1816 the U.S. through the American Colonization Society set up a colony, which was granted its independence in 1847. With the manipulation of a former enslaved returned African elite (Americo Liberians) the U.S. and other Western European imperialist were able to exploit the masses labor and extract the country’s resource for huge profits. As the years proceeded and Firestone’s interest in Liberia’s rubber grew, the U.S. began to support and arm reactionary governments and factions so as to solidify this exploitative relationship. Accordingly, it is abundantly clear the problems of Liberia today can be traced to U.S. intervention, and as a result, became America’s first experiment with neo-colonialism in Africa. These are some of the machinations of neo-colonialism, which gives the outward appearance of political independence, but in reality the country’s economy is in fact controlled by an outside power—this in turn leads to military dominance.
The Africa Command, headed by Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, has been created to facilitate this dominance as a last desperate attempt to hang on to Africa’s resources. The military dominance, a major component of neo-colonialism, is connected to the world financial institutions-the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The World Bank is chaired by Paul Wolfowitz, nominated in 2005, and is George Bush’s former Deputy of Defense Secretary. As a result of the Western European and U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA) inspired coups throughout Africa, the U.S. policy makers employed a strategy to force the various military juntas to accept loans. The Bretton Woods financial institutions have not been able to collect the high interest nor the principle for these loans at a rate commensurate with sustainable profits. As a consequence, this strategy of entangling Africa in loans and debt for economic domination has proven to be a disaster. The policy of inciting coups and propping up military dictators, in Africa, who steal these banking institutions loans, and leaving the masses in a state of perpetual debt has turned out to follow the law of diminishing return. In other words, since the economies of many African countries are sagging, due to the U.S. and European capitalist exploitation, many of them cannot meet their payment schedule nor pay back the loan altogether.
The U.S. projected investment in oil in Africa to fuel its military industrial complex is the last ray of hope or desperate attempt to keep the capitalist head above water. Accompanying this investment is the necessity to aggressively protect its interest militarily. As early as 2002, the U.S. realized that they could not win the illegal Iraq War. So, U.S. imperialism and the Bush administration understood they had to look for alternative oil sources in Africa as early as 2001-2002. Coupled with this, was the notion of protecting this oil interest by military domination.
For instance, Daniel Volman, Director of the African Research Project confirmed in an article entitled “The Bush Administration and African Oil: The Security Implications of U.S. Energy Policy” that the U.S. is planning to establish military bases in many parts of Africa, and these moves are “completely unprecedented”. He also wrote “former U.S. Ambassador to Chad Donald R. Norland announced during a House Africa Sub-committee hearing in April 2002 that for the first time, the two-concepts Africa and U.S. National Security have been used in the same sentence in Pentagon Documents.”
As another example, in a July 2002 visit to Nigeria U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kanstein declared “African oil is of strategic national interest for us and it will increase and become more important as we go forward”. The Bush Administration during this time period defined African oil as a “Strategic national interest and a resource that the United States might choose to use military force to control.”
In an article published in 2003 in the Review of African Political Economy, Volman stated, “In North Africa, Pentagon officials are looking at bases in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. They are examining bases in Senegal, Ghana, Mali, and Kenya.” The U.S. already has 1,700 soldiers stationed in Djibouti, and 3,000 military personnel in Africa overall.
A report given by U.S. Vice President Cheney in May 2001 of the President’s National Energy Policy Group, which was chaired by Dick Cheney stated, “Africa provided 14 percent of total U.S. oil; imports in the year 2000, and by 2015 West Africa alone will provide up to 25 percent of U.S. oil imports.” Finally, the February 14, 2007 decision of George Bush’s Africa Command was decided as far back as 2002. Michael A. Wesphal Assistant of Defense told an April 2002 press briefing that “I’ve actually engaged in a couple of discussions about creating a separate Africa Command.” Daniel Volman also stated “the Bush Administration has reached access agreements, allowing American troops to use airfields in Senegal, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, and Namibia. In Nigeria, Benin and Cote d’ Ivoire access agreements are being discussed.”
The U.S. is extracting oil as well as other resources from many of the above named countries in Africa. Since many of these countries are in debt to the IMF and World Bank (headed by one of Bush’s military confidant’s Paul Wolfowitz) they’re being forced to sign non-surrender treaties. These treaties state that U.S. soldiers who commit crimes in Africa must be repatriated to the U.S. to face charges and cannot be tried in Africa. In addition, George Bush, in a move to appease and manipulate the African Heads of States named Cindy Courville, an African born in America, U.S. Ambassador to the African Union (AU). The Bush Administration is imposing their military will on Africa for political control to guard its economic and oil interest. The debt, therefore, becomes the sword of Damocles used in conjunction with a former Bush U.S. military employee who’s head of the World Bank for the capitalist class and the Bush Administration to subdue Africa.
However, these military and political maneuvers are just a cover up for the U.S. armed forces Achilles' heel, and the American economy’s eventual collapse. The following reasons will explicate my point:
1. The U.S. is losing the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The U.S. fear opening another front (war) in Iran.
3. The rising domination of China in the competition of the world’s resources.
4. Latin America is pregnant with revolution and about to deliver on the doorstep of America.
5. Lack of military personnel that are spread out in 130 different countries, which makes it impossible to respond to the resistance of the masses who the U.S. capitalist class is oppressing in various countries.
6. The shrinking dollar to the pound and Euro-dollar, which is adding to the rapid downfall of the U.S. economy.
7. It’s strongest ally, Britain and other allies, have decided to pull out the majority of their troops.
This, in fact, becomes the right time for over 1 billion Africans worldwide to end the final phase of neo-colonialism in Africa. In turn, this will function to unite Africa so the masses can own and control their resources based on the interest of the agricultural laborers (the masses) interest—mass struggle. With the U.S. military strained to capacity, and unable to defeat Afghanistan and Iraq, it is literally impossible for the U.S. to cover the whole of Africa with 3,000 troops—much less the entire African world. Africa is almost 3 times the size of the U.S.
The armed African national independence movements have proven their effectiveness in removing European colonialism from the continent during the 1960s-1990s. Algeria’s war against France, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola gained independence through armed struggle against the Portuguese who were supported by NATO, the Mau Mau fought the British, and Zimbabwe won its freedom by defeating the white renegade settler colonial regime of Britain.
The former apartheid regime and its South African Defense Force backed by the U.S. Britain, and France were defeated at Cuito Cuanavle in Angola by a Pan-African force of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), The South West African Organization (SWAPO) of Namibia, the African National Congress, and the Cuban military.
In 1992, 28,000 U.S. troops invaded Somalia and by 1994 they were crushed by the African masses in Somalia and had to withdraw their troops. This is why the U.S. last year, in 2006, had to use Ethiopia to do its dirty work by invading Somalia because of its military ineptitude, and the African peoples refusal to accept foreign military domination or occupation. In Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) are taking the oil from Shell and Exxon-Mobile who have been virtually stealing it without contributing to the development of the area, while polluting the region as well. All of these movements and armed confrontations illustrate that Africans will never accept foreign or military domination on one square inch of Africa’s soil.
Since the inception of the slave raid, the anti-colonial wars in the 19th century to the national liberation struggles in the 1960s, Africans have fought European imperialism-U.S. imperialism is no exception.
The Pan-African Movement (a movement to unify Africa) is marching with an army of over 1 billion Africans worldwide, and has been fighting European domination in its organized form since 1900. Eventually, the movement will culminate into an All African Union Government (AAUG) with mass control and ownership of Africa’s resources. This July 2007, an All African Union Government is on the agenda of the AU for the first time since the continental body has been established. George Bush’s decision to create an Africa Command to protect their projected oil interest, raw materials, loans, and investments will not stop the unity of Africa nor the organized body of 1 billion Africans worldwide from burying U.S. neo-colonialism in Africa once and for all!
Your Humble Servant
Sekou Nkrumah
Chairman of the Pan-African Improvement Organization
We welcome questions and comments, so please contact us at the corresponding e-mail address.
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