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(please forward widely)
Join UNAC for an educational conference
call on the situation in Mali and Africa. There will be short presentation by
three UNAC leaders followed by questions and discussion. The conference call
will be at 9 PM (EST) on Sunday, February 24. Speakers will include, Glen ford,
Ana Edwards and Abayomi Azikiwe. To access the call, please dial (218)339-3600
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (218)339-3600 end_of_the_skype_highlighting. The
access code is 342310#.
The United National Antiwar
Coalition says:
The recent French
military intervention and the US military and intelligence operations in the
region must be opposed by all those who stand in favor of self-determination for
African peoples. Contrary to the self-serving claims of both France and the US
that they are out to defend democracy, both nations' military operations in the
Sahara-Sahel are in defense of their access to Africa's minerals, oil, gas, and
arable land at bargain basement prices.
The invitation for a
French military attack by a Malian coup regime armed by Washington is but a fig
leaf for an escalation of already existing efforts to protect the 1%'s plunder
of Nigerién uranium, Malian gold, Nigerian oil, Algerian natural gas, Western
Saharan phosphates, Cote d'Ivoire’s plantations, and more. Africanists liken the
current situation to the period in the late 19th and early twentieth century
when the European countries carved up Africa between them. In the new "Scramble
for Africa," Europe and the United States, are competing for petroleum,
minerals, and land to the detriment of the economic well-being of the African
peoples.
The claim that
the French intervention, an intervention supported by the U.S., is an emergency
humanitarian response to help the people of Mali is belied by the context in
which it is occurring:
≈Colonialism
Redux and Ecological Disaster. France, who held many colonies in Africa,
really never left after granting independence in the 1960's. France intervened
militarily in Africa 19 times between 1962 and 1995 and more recently intervened
in Cote d' Ivorie, Chad, and the Central African Republic in order to defend the
1%’s interests. On January 23, news sources reported that French special forces
were sent to protect the French privately owned Areva uranium mining operation
in the border country of Niger. Uranium from Niger supplies reactors supplying
75% of France’s electrical needs.
≈ National
Oppression. The Tuareg and other Northern peoples were first denied control
over their homeland when the colonial map-makers divided their territory between
Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria, and other countries that border the Sahara. Tuareg
rebellions, like the one that prompted this French intervention, have challenged
France’s right to extract uranium in a manner that poisons the local populations
and decimates their livelihood. At the same time, the Tuareg claims are disputed
by other Northern peoples, such as the Songhai, and by Southern groups that feel
Mali proper would be weakened by Tuareg independence. Colonialism’s legacy of
divide and conquer cannot be solved with the colonizer’s guns.
≈Austerity
Mandated by the 1%. The last two decades of IMF and World Bank-imposed
economic restructuring in Mali made gold mining so profitable that Mali is now
the number three gold producer on the African continent. At the same time, this
development has left the majority of Malians living on less than US$1 a day and
the peoples of that nation some of the poorest on the planet. US military aid
to Mali reinforces this state of affairs.
≈Competition for Oil and Natural Gas.
Nigerian oil, a high quality sweet crude, is a crucial part of the U.S. energy
plan and is cited as part of the reason that the U.S. has created the
Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI). A 2009 agreement for a $10
billion natural gas pipeline from Algeria to a Nigerian port further
demonstrates the hydrocarbon basis of the TSCTI and related US military plans
for the region. The 2010 budget request for Trans- Saharan Counter Terrorism
Partnership (TSCTP) was $80.3 million.
≈”War on Terror” Funding Used Against the
99%. Washington recently asked France and
Algeria to be sure to include US favored partner Morocco in the unfolding
so-called “War on Terror “in the Sahara-Sahel. Morocco has been using the US’s
“War on Terror” rhetoric to justify its occupation of Western Sahara and contain
the national aspirations of the Sahrawi people organized in the Polisario Front.
Africanist Franklin Charles
Graham IV, in an article in the Review of African Political Economy, says
that it is fair to say that most US aid for counter-terrorism activities in the
Sahara-Sahel goes to suppress indigenous rebellions against corrupt and
undemocratic regimes.
≈Elite Rivalries. The 2008 authorization of AFRICOM,
the U.S. Africa Command under whose aegis Washington is sending troops and
special forces to 35 African nations is, according to Concerned Africa
Scholar’s Daniel Volman, a direct response to the growing competition from
China and other players for Africa’s energy resources.
≈Looting of
Africa. According to the South African political economist Patrick Bond,
development aid and investment in Africa from the imperialist countries since
the colonies were granted formal independence has resulted in a growing
impoverishment of the people of the continent, leaving more Sub-Saharan people
living on less than a $1 a day than in the 1950’s. Including the loss to the
peoples of their raw material wealth, and the ecological damage wrought by its
extraction, raises the dollar amount of the plunder to unimaginable levels.
≈War at
Home. Each cent spent for
the extraction of profits from Africa for the 1% could be spent at home for the
victims of the current economic crisis. Each effort to paint the main threat to
the well-being of the African people as terrorism will be accompanied by new
threats to civil liberties here in the United States.
Whatever the
exact reality of a new influx of non-Malian Islamic radicals into the
Sahara-Sahel, based on the experience of US propaganda and military action in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, those who support
self-determination must take any claim by Washington that it is intervening to
fight an Al Qaeda threat with a grain of salt. The evidence that resources are
the main reason for war in the Sahara-Sahel is too strong. If the recent
occupations of the Middle East by the US have taught us anything, it should be
that no problem will be solved by US and European military
intervention.
Join the United National Antiwar
Coalition is its efforts to educate about European and US resource wars in
Africa and build a movement to end them. UNAC speakers are available for forums
and interviews. See the United National Antiwar Coalition at www.unacpeace.org
Some places to look for
information on the resource wars in Africa:
To add yourself to the UNAC listserv, please send an email to: UNAC-subscribe@lists.riseup.net |
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
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