Africom, a bad omen for Africa and her people
With each passing day, I am convinced that if there are a chosen people, then it must be people of African descent, because our naivité is beyond compare. It was by allowing Europe to set up military forts all along the African coast why they were eventually able to conquer Africa and enslave and colonise her people.. But people of African descent seem to be suffering from a serious case of amnesia. It is the same thing that is happening right now with the election of Barack Obama in the US. Our people have thrown all caution to the wind. They seem to have forgotten, that this is not the first time that Afircan Americans have reached a symbolic or historic crossroad in the US. As I looked at TV coverage of the elections, I tried to imagine our ancestors at Emancipation and how they too must have celebrated. I also remembered the tremendous hope after the civil rights struggle, and the struggles in Zimbabwe and South Africa. They all resembled each other. But helas, after each celebration came deception, as white supremacy returned with a vengeance (Jim Crow, Black Wall Street) to destroy every single one of our aspirations. Let’s also remember that during slavery, it was always a bad omen when the slavemaster (white ruling elite) told the slave (Obama) to go to the big house (the white house) because it was either to rape, punish, sell or put pressure on us to make the lives of the other slaves even more hellish. Recently, a white man on a radio program in France suggested that to solve the unemployment problem, they should simply bring back slavery. I hope it is not a case of foreshawdowing, especially for those who have children, because we already know who the slaves will be. Today, with the setting up of Africom in the motherland and Obama in the white house, perhaps African people need to be reminded more than ever of the proverb which says, “those who fail to learn from their past mistakes are bound to repeat them. Hort
Police: Hispanic attacked by white NY gang, dies (the backlash has already started)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081110/ap_on_re_us/stabbing_death
http://www1. herald.co. zw/inside. aspx?sectid= 513&cat=10
Africom — A new tool for regime change, colonialism
By Isdore Guvamombe
November 7, 2008
Africa is under siege with America finally setting up the long-planned African Military Command, a permanent US army base in Africa to drive their foreign policy and to exploit Africa’s resources at the expense of indigenous people. On October 17, 2008, the United States, which is living true to its status as the world’s greatest predator state, officially launched the African military Command, Africom which is temporarily housed in Germany while scouting for a sellout African country to permanently host the headquarters.
Continental revolutionary parties, from Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, South Africa’s ANC, Tanzania’s CCM and Mozambique’s Frelimo among others, face the real threat of being wiped out and replaced by pro-Western stoogees formed and sponsored by the imperialists to douse the spirit of the revolution that had united Africa since the 1960s. African leaders from Cape to Cairo should look at Africom as the single largest threat to the continent’s humanism, sovereignty and territorial integrity and a shame for generations to come.
Africom will be a permanent feature, almost impossible to remove.
It will become the epicentre of US regime change agendas and co-ordinate the uprooting of all revolutionary parties and African statesmen who have become a thorn in the flesh on the American and European foreign policy. A combination of Africom, errant states like Botswana and Liberia and a host of Eurocentirc opposition parties, will certainly leave Africa as worse off as during colonialism.
Africans should know that the militarisation of political and economic space by African military leaders has been one of the factors that has held us back for decades. While African states are trying to put the culture of military rule behind them, America appears determined to demonstrate that most civilian activities in Africa should be undertaken by armed forces.
The irony is that it should not be an African military operation but an American or European military operation. Once there is an African military adventure it is publicised in the rabid Western media as brutal, dictatorial, ethnic propelled and the soldiers become militias. To some African policy makers, this should be a clear indication that the US Government lacks sympathy for what Africans so deeply want today, namely democratic systems in which the armed forces remain in the barracks.
Africans want to control their resources and become masters of their own destiny. These are the virtues well role modelled and epitomised by Cde Robert Mugabe, Kwameh Nkrumah, Julias Nyerere, Samora Machel and a host of other living and departed African nationalists. The US dreamt that African countries would compete to host the headquarters because it would bring money for the recipient country but Africa is aware that the hosting of Africom would invite the wrath of international terrorism.
However, of all the African nations, only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to host Africom’s headquarters. Nigeria has said it will not host such a base and opposed its creation.South Africa and Libya have also expressed reservations over the establishment of a headquarters in Africa.
Zimbabwe has stood firm and declared that Africom is a non-starter.
While Sadc has vehemently opposed the hosting of such a military outfit in its territory, the same cannot be said about other African regional groupings whose member states are in the armpits of the West and have been supping and wining with the devil. Jamie Galbraith’s recent book describes modern George Bush and Dick Cheney Republicanism as creating a "predator state". Its predatory aspects are starkly visible in the gangs of corporate lobbyists who roam Washington DC, the Halliburton Iraq war procurement scandal, and the corruption and incompetence that surrounded the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The regime change in Zimbabwe and of late South Africa. However, the broad concept of a predator state needs qualification as we are really talking of an "American corporate" predator state. Thus, the predatory nature of contemporary US governance is quintessentially linked to corporations, and it is also a uniquely American phenomenon and Africa should know that it will not be spared by the US. ZDERA and how European multi-national companies have made spirited efforts to suffocate the Zanu-PF Government in Zimbabwe and bring it to its demise, are examples of America’s predatory instincts.
Who does not know what happened in the Caucusus region where America used its bases to train soldiers in Georgia, who later turned against innocent civilians and brutalised them, thanks to the timely intervention of humane Russia. Africom is a creation of the Bush-Cheney American corporate predator state. It was conceived by people who were focused on Africa’s oil, other natural resources, and on opposing China and Russia. These are the same people that have done the most to convert American democracy into a corporate predator state, and destroy American democracy in the process. It is fact not fiction that the other American problem is the lack of any clear explanation or rationale for creation of the command.
Africom’s creators contemptuously discount or disparage the advances Africa has made with respect to African security through the African Union as well as regional organisations like Sadc. Although there is a lot of talk about partnerships, there has been little real consultation with Africans. Most of the Africans consulted have been those trained (indoctrinated) in US military training programmes such as IMET and have been so brainwashed that they unconsciously turn against their own relatives. Africom is a major manifestation of the militarisation of US foreign policy.
The Pentagon is swallowing the traditional diplomatic and foreign assistance programmes of the United States and is now operating like a hyena in a sheep’s skin. It is, however, an insult that Africa has a tendency to be divided by the power of the dollar that some of its children are prepared to sell out. Is it not ridiculous that the AU head of operations and support unit, Brigadier-General Jean De Martha Jaotody has already started supporting Africom when he is the one we have entrusted with continental security? Shame.
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