{"id":984,"date":"2019-03-10T16:04:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T16:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=984"},"modified":"2019-10-21T01:06:52","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T00:06:52","slug":"out-of-africa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/out-of-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Journalist Chido Onumah, co-ordinator for Nigeria of the West African Human Rights\nCommittee provides a critique of United States interventions in African politics. A reply\nfrom the World Socialist Movement follows.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have received a long contribution from journalist Chido Onumah who is the\nco-ordinator for Nigeria of the West African Human Rights Committee. We publish below the\nkey points together with our comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Washington has been too willing to downplay democracy and human rights for the\nsake of natural resources or diplomatic alliances”, the New York Times wrote in its\neditorial of 20 March 1998. Clearly, nobody is better placed to serve this purpose of\ngiving access to Africa’s natural resources and providing a base in support of US\ndiplomatic alliances than the various mad men who have sprung up (often with the help of\nWashington) within Africa and much of the developing world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US supported Mobutu after killing Lumumba and scuttling Congo’s burgeoning\ndemocracy; and Mobutu provided a buffer against Washington’s longest standing bogeyman,\nthe USSR. Today, the US has found it convenient to recant and is calling for democracy in\nthe new Democratic Republic of Congo. On February 4 1966, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah was\noverthrown in a CIA-sponsored coup. The result was the abortion of Ghana’s fledgling\ndemocracy. More than three decades after, the country is still grappling with the\nrudiments of democracy under a military dictator that is making a travesty of democracy,\nyet Washington is contented and applauding that “democracy is spreading”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just name it! Where has Washington stepped into that she has not messed up? The\nUS-supported Marcos and his murderous gang; provided a slaughter slab for the butcher of\nUganda, Idi Amin; aborted democracy in Chile and installed the hydra-headed monster,\nPinochet; wrecked Haiti, courtesy of the Duvalier clan. In all these places, the US was\nlooking for a mad man who would preside over the wholesale transfer of natural resources\nto America’s multinationals and do her dirty job in its so-called war with communism.\nNothing mattered beyond the immediate economic and political gains of Washington. Not even\nthe sight of mutilated bodies of defenceless and innocent kids who were victims of the\ndastardly actions of such scum as Jonas Savimbi and his cohorts who were armed and\nfinanced by the US could move her to change her position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American society is a predatory society and it can survive only by aggressively\nexpanding and conquering new markets from which to extract profit. What Washington aims at\ncreating in West Africa, as in other areas that are under its sphere of influence, is a\nclub of IMF\/World Bank puppets. The reason is simple. West African despots-as always\nquislings of America and her Western accomplices-who mutate into civilian presidents make\nall the difference between the acceptance or rejection of the West’s obnoxious economic\npolicies and by extension, the survival or collapse of their businesses. The examples of\nGhana, Burkina Faso and The Gambia are indicative of this trend. The IMF\/World Bank and\ntheir host governments cannot be too sure what the “new man” would do (a case of\nthe devil you know); so why not support a Jerry Rawlings, Blaise Campaore or Yahya Jammeh\neven where their transition to civil rule succeeds only in furthering neo-patrimonialism.\nAs one of the puppets of international monopoly capital, Washington is sure Abacha will\nexecute structural adjustment, devaluation, privatisation and such other infernal policies\nthe IMF\/World Bank may deem necessary to recommend for Nigeria’s underdevelopment. This\nsupport and manipulation of Abacha is necessary to prevent the toiling masses from uniting\nin a revolution that would threaten international monopoly capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic fallout of Mr Clinton’s visit to Africa is that the world would move into the\nnew century with all the prejudices, including the onslaught of imperialism (courtesy of\nAmerica) which have made the 20th century a nightmare. It is difficult to imagine what\ncould be a greater threat to world peace in the new millennium than the American\nestablishment which is nothing but a scourge. Fanon wrote that every generation must\ndiscover its mission. Africa’s emergent activists, from Cape Coast to Cairo, must enter\nthe new millennium boldly determined to confront the monster of imperialism. Those who are\nready to liberate Africa from the clutches of poverty, illiteracy and general\nunderdevelopment and expand the frontiers of democracy cannot look up to the West, America\nparticularly. They must be ready to struggle for these rights. Apologies from the\ngreat-grand-children of slave traders would not serve any purpose. In fact, the US has\ncommitted too many grave crimes against the African continent that apologies would only\nserve to obfuscate these crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperialism is like the common cold; you either fight it or go to bed with it. There\ncannot be half measures or a middle course. This is a new era in which people,\nparticularly exploited people, do not look up to any godfather. Certainly, the US will\nfail in Nigeria as she failed in Vietnam, Cuba and everywhere else she has sought to\nextend her bloody fang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: Chido Onumah, Ghana<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WSM reply: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We fully accept that American foreign policy is determined by economic (trade,\ninvestments, raw materials) and strategic considerations, but so is that of every other\ncapitalist country. To single out America for special opposition is to play the game\neither of other capitalist powers (such as Britain, France, Germany, Japan, China, etc) or\nof some would-be African ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to say too that we cannot accept that Ghana under Nkrumah or the Congo under\nLumumba were examples of “burgeoning democracy”. Certainly, both Nkrumah and\nLumumba were anti-US imperialism but they were not democrats either in practice or in\ntheory. They favoured and tried to establish one-party regimes, on the model that then\nexisted in Russia. In fact, they perfectly illustrate our point above about opposition to\none particular “imperialist” power playing the game of its rivals-in their time,\n“anti-imperialism” was the ideology under which state-capitalist Russia sought\nto further its economic and strategic interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we have put the word “imperialism” in the previous paragraph in inverted\ncommas this is because we don’t accept Lenin’s theory of imperialism (which sees the\nstruggle at world level as being between imperialist and anti-imperialist forces) with its\nimplication that “imperialism” is something different and worse than capitalism.\nWorld capitalism, not the “imperialism” of particular capitalist powers, is the\ncause of the problems workers all over the world suffer from, and the solution to the\nproblems of workers in Africa lies not in kicking American imperialism out of Africa but\nin uniting with workers in the rest of the world to replace the world capitalist system by\nworld socialism. This is the aim of the World Socialist Movement.–Editors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Please email your comments about this article to feedback@worldsocialism.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the Politics Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journalist Chido Onumah, co-ordinator for Nigeria of the West African Human Rights Committee provides a critique of United States interventions in African politics. A reply from the World Socialist Movement follows. We have received a long contribution from journalist Chido Onumah who is the co-ordinator for Nigeria of the West African Human Rights Committee. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-984","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/984\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}