Title: TOWARDS PEACE IN AFRICA Post by: Tyehimba on July 13, 2003, 05:01:04 PM TOWARDS PEACE IN AFRICA
In 1985, I attended the second annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Classical African civilisations in Chicago, USA. There, I heard the following statement, "If you can make a man think that he is inferior, then you will not have to condemn him to it for he will seek it for himself." That is precisely what the leaders of ECOWAS have done with regard to peace keeping in Liberia. These leaders decided to send a West African peacekeeping force to Liberia and then called on the United States of America to come and lead them. So Africans can not lead themselves. They must have white-European-Americans to lead them. This decision is similar to the kind of partnership decisions taken by some African rulers during the slave trade. Then they formed partnerships with European slaves to sell their fellow Africans into slavery. The partnership between the Asante kingdom ion present day Ghana and the Dutch is a case in point. Now this partnership is designed to enable the USA to recolonise Liberia. This decision flies in the face of the call by Mozambican Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao, the new Chairman of the Executive of the African Union. He said, "The definitive solution to conflicts on the continent should come from Africans. We should solve our conflicts with our own resources." One wonders why these West African leaders are afraid to tell the Americans and Europeans to keep out of African affairs. Had they acted decisively when they could have done so, they would have prevented the entire killing and mayhem in Liberia. It was no secret that the so-called Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels were being armed and financed by Britain and America through the Lansana Conte regime in Guinea. Even the BBC World Service is now admitting "It was an open secret that Guinea supports LURD with arms shipments, communications equipment and transportation." But Guinea neither manufactures arms or communications equipment. "The house in Guinea occupied by Ayesha Conneh, the wife of Lurd leader Sekou Conteh is often protected by Guinean Presidential guards and the communications equipment she uses to track Lurd activities was supplied by Guinean authorities." So this Liberian tragedy, although made in Europe and America, could not have occurred had Guinea not facilitated it. What must be remembered is that the Guineans sold more Africans into slavery than everyone else except the kings of Benin. While engaging in these nefarious activities, Guinea voted with Europe and America in the United Nations Security Council for an arms ban on Liberia. Does this sound similar to the arms control on Iraq? A ban on Liberia importing arms was placed on Iraq despite the armed attack on Liberia from Guinea. African leaders who knew the score remained silent and inactive while the tragedy unfurled. These neo-colonial West African leaders have shown scant regard for the economic and social welfare of their citizens. Otherwise, instead of co-operating with Europe and America in the recolonisation process in Sierra Leone and Liberia, they could have co-operated with one another to develop this very rich region of Africa or their peoples benefit. Thanks to the late President Sekou Toure, Guinea has a great variety of minerals that are untouched. This unlike Zambia where the copper mines appear to be exhausted. Sierra Leone is a British colony in all but name. The British control all the army, police, civil service and ports. They are not accountable to anyone in that country that has the largest concentration of foreign (United Nations) troops in the world. Sources suggest that should these foreign troops be pulled out, the Kabbah regime would collapse. But Sierra Leone is extremely rich especially in diamonds. Ordinary Sierra Leoneans are banned from mining. Diamond mining is dominated by foreign companies all of which participated in he civil wars on one or both sides. It would surprise a lot of people to learn that the British supplied the arms used for the RUF attack on Freetown in 1999. A British company, Lifeguard Securities with offices in London and South Africa delivered two containers of arms to the RUF through Omrie Golley, one time Chairman of the RUF. At the same time, this same company was training Kamajors in Guinea. It is believed that both Golley and LifeGuard Securities were both working for MI6 an arm of the British security services. What was noticeable at the time was that although there was a United Nations ban on Golley travelling, he was travelling in and out of Europe without let or hindrance. Besides its diamonds, Sierra Leone has bauxite, rutile that produces a strategic metal used in the American space programme, rice, cocoa, coffee, palm kernels, palm oil, peanuts, poultry, fish, sheep, pigs, fish and oil off its coast. Surely, this is an African country that can have a reasonable standard of life for all its citizens by applying the African principle that the needs of all must be met. Unfortunately, some of the practices used during the period of colonisation were carried over into independence. Hence the rampant thievery and corruption that afflicts not only Sierra Leone, but other African countries as well. It was poverty that led to the rebellions in the first place. Failure to stamp out corruption and meet the economic, social and welfare needs of the people is surely bound to lead to greater instability in the future. Liberia is also blessed with riches. It has rubber, cocoa, coffee, rice, palm oil, sugar cane, bananas, sheep, goats, timber, iron ore and diamonds. President Charles Taylor came to power in elections supervised by ECOWAS. Now, bowing to American pressure, he has agreed to accept political asylum in Nigeria. He begged the Americans to intervene to bring peace in Liberia. In an interview in New African magazine, he boasted of how much he admired ha American. He even went so far, as did Yahya Jammeh in the Gambia, as to make September 11 a public holiday. These are the only two countries in the world where September 11 is a public holiday. Neither leader showed any similar concern form the millions who were dying in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So Taylor found himself in the position of a hog being taken to the slaughterhouse, sharpening the knife for the butcher. It was American insistence and that of its proxy LURD rebels that has forced him to abandon an office to which he was elected. Even his party chairman Cyril Allen was desperate to have the Americans come in to control Liberia. In a telephone conversation, he told me, No one is safe, we want peace in our country." He said that the African Union had promised to send a peacekeeping force but it had not materialised. He was aware that the LURD rebels were being financed and controlled from outside. The fighting had meant that there was no light and no electricity. Commenting on Taylor's demise, one of his admirers said, "The problem with these guys is that hey are concerned with the trappings of power. They are not concerned with the realities of power. They want power, but they do not know what to do when they get into power." He had asked Taylor, "How can you ask your executioner to be your saviour?" For him, Taylor had a plantation mentality with excess dependence on the slave master. He did not know who his friends were.. When Kuoffour, Obasanjo and Mbeki saved him from being arrested, he did not even thank them. This universal African was concerned that the United Nations, as is usual, had shown scant respect for Africa. This was to do with the charges of "crimes against humanity" brought against Taylor while he was in Ghana for peace talks. It is a general rule that sitting Presidents are not targeted for arrest. No previous sitting President had been so targeted in the history of the world.. But the disrespect that the Euro-American controllers of the United Nations show for Africans is manifested in this decision. It was the Presidents of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa who defied Europe and America and upheld this principle. In response, the British secret service, through one of its front organisations called the International Crisis Group is calling for African leaders who do not do as they are told to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. So the recolonisation process seems to have scored another success in West Africa. What will happen in Cote de Ivoire is anyone's guess. I am told that the rebellion in Cote de Ivoire was an American project aimed at pushing France out of its former colony. In the same way that Rwanda went from being in the French sphere of interest to being in the British sphere of interest. No wonder France opposed the British and the Americans in Iraq and is opposing them on Zimbabwe. France seems to be losing its foothold in Senegal as well. President Abdoulai wade has opted to become the darling of the Jewish-Zionist architects of the Project for the New American Century. Under this PNAC, America, with the assistance of Britain, has embarked on a new age of empire. It seems that despite all the huff and puff about international terrorism, Africa is the main target of this PNAC. American President George Bush, who is the words of Nelson Mandela, is a "President without a vision, a president who does not think. Has embarked on an African odyssey. He is busy proclaiming his love for Africa and all things African. But he has not demonstrated any love for the African descendants of former enslaved Africans living in America. When he was Governor of Texas, he sent more Blacks to die in the Gas Chamber than all the other American Governors put together. He has not lifted a finger to help the more than 1,000,000 Black men and over 300,000 Black men in prison in the US. Rather, he nutures the prison-industrial complex that makes huge profits from the imprisonment of Blacks. A recent study on the Prison Industrial Complex carried out by Professor Randall G. Sheldon concluded, "crime pays for the criminal justice system and big business that caters to it. Neither has Bush demonstrated that he cares for the on welfare, the millions who have no health insurance or the millions of unemployed Blacks. Statistics show that under the Bush presidency, poverty is increasing among the poor. In his first year as president, another 1.3 million were plunged into poverty and the household incomes of Blacks fell by 3.4 per cent. So what makes Africans on the continent think that election stealer George Bush cares about them. American policy in Africa is aimed at maximising profits for American industry by dumping American goods and subsidised American agricultural products in the African market. At the same time, it opposes subsidies to African farmers while working to destroy the manufacturing sector in Africa through the IMF and the World Bank. Despite the pleas of African leaders, Bush opposes then cancellation of the debt that has crippled African economies. Rather, he forces World bank and IMF poverty causing structural adjustment programmes on African governments that are not powerless to resist. These structural adjustment programmes are aimed at preventing and destroying industrial development on the continent so that Africans have to but manufactured goods from abroad. So rather than create employment and value added on the continent, these are created abroad. In every country that has adopted a structural adjustment programme, the currency has declined relative to the US dollar and large-scale inflation becomes the norm. With this weak currency, Europe and America then step in, buy up successful African companies and force African governments to sell basic necessities like water and electricity. With profit maximisation being the only objective, increased prices to the long suffering African and increased unemployment follow. America's war against international terrorism has targeted Africa. No African has carried out acts of terrorism against America. Yet, America has withdrawn its troops from Saudi Arabia, the home of most of those said to have been involved in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World trade centre in New York. It is stationing more and more of its troops in Africa. One British newspaper reports that America "plans to gird Africa with military bases." In the Collins English dictionary, gird means to bind or secure with or as if with a belt. America is not binding or securing Africa with a military girdle for the benefit of Africans. It is doing so against the interest of Africans for its own economic benefit. With bases already in Djibouti, in Equatorial Guinea and in Botswana, it is planning new bases on Goree Island (Senegal), in Uganda, Morocco, Algeria, Ghana and Mali. Are African leaders so mad that they allow a predatory imperialist power like he USA to establish more and more bases on African soil? Despite the calls for unity in Action by the African Union, some of these leaders are so dumb as to act individually rather than collectively, thus exposing the continent to American military occupation to meet America's economic needs. The Jewish-Zionist architects of the PNAC have declared that African oil is an American strategic interest linked to American national security. They have their Black house slaves applauding them. These house slaves are involved in the African-African American conference being held in Abuja this weekend. They represent the advance guard of the American assault on Africa to rape and plunder African resources. Leon Sullivan, the originator of thee series of conferences, was a former CIA operative. General James Jones, the Commander of US European Command has special responsibility for African operations. He said, "the US wants a family of military bases across the continent." Besides these military bases, the US is increasing its naval power in the Gulf of Guinea, declared an area of American strategic interest. Djibouti is said to be the home of 1,500 marines watching over Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. Sudan is known to be oil rich. It is like a piece of cork floating on a lake of oil. A US military panel known as the African Oil Policy Initiative Group says that "it considers the Gulf of Guinea oil basin of West Africa, with greater Western and Southern Africa and its attendant market of 250 million people astride key sea lanes of communication, as a vital interest in national security considerations." But who would have thought that Goree Island, the place from where millions of Africans were sent to slavery in the Americas, would become a military base for our former slave masters. One would not have believed that Senegalese President Abdoulai Wade could have stooped so low but this should not be a surprise. With his slave trading mentality, he opposed slavery being declared a crime against humanity, in support of Europe and America. He also supports them on Zimbabwe in opposition to the support for Zimbabwe by the African Union and the None Aligned Movement. One wonders whether wade would go through with his plan to invade The Gambia, using mercenaries who have fought in the civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote de Ivoire. At the recent African Nations Cup football match between Senegal and Gambia, Senegalese troops viciously assaulted Gambian football supporters who had followed their team to Senegal. Gambians responded with two days of carnage, beating Senegalese traders, looting and burning their business premises. For two days, the Jammeh government allowed this to go on then sent in the army to restore order on the third day. Neither of the two Presidents made any statement on this matter. Wade's failure to settle the Casamance problem seems to be the trigger that is leading to hostilities between these two West African countries. Ethnically and linguistically, hey are the same people. Wade blames Jammeh for supporting the rebels in Casamance. Last week, the Senegalese Foreign Minister went to Gambia to invite Jammeh to travel to Dakar Bush on his arrival in Dakar. So these two leaders are only co-operating here American imperialists are concerned. So where is Africa going? Despite the urgings of Libyan leader Muamar al Gadafi, African leaders did not even consider his proposal for a Union Government for Africa as a whole. The idea of having an African military High Command as advocated by Kwame Nkrumah, the African Man of he Millennium is being ignored. Instead, South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota is calling for military partnerships. He said that sometimes, Africa "had no choice but to seek help from foreign powers whose military involvement was often the very cause of the problem." But Africa does have a choice. It could choose not to invite foreign military forces on to the continent. It could also choose to ask foreign military forces on the continent to leave. Lekota stressed, "We are only too aware that the involvement of foreign powers, especially military involvement, has been the cause of our problems." So the solution of these problems is to exclude foreign powers from involvement in African affairs. That is the way to peace on the continent. American imperialist troops must not be allowed to have bases in Africa. When Muamar al Ghadafi came to power, one of the first things he did was to close down the British and American bases in Libya. But Ghadafi is a practitioner of African culture in that he is ensuring that the oil wealth of Libya is used to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, give water to the thirsty and to minister unto the sick. Surely this is an example that other African leaders can follow. by Lester Lewis Responses to: pananfas@yahoo.co.uk |