Who is rethinking African development?
It is said and widely accepted that countries only have interests. They don’t have friends. Africa as a continent is suffering from that reality from immemorial times.
Atrocities committed during slavery, colonialism and ongoing neo-colonization and globalization are significantly explained by such paradigm which defines relations between nations. Those among them which are powerful do not stop from innovating to achieve their objectives which sometimes and somehow have criminal characteristics in their nature.
Yes, across the continent, the forces we observe here and there are African-focused only by name. In fact, they operate first and for all for external predators despite their claim that their actions intend to preserve national interests of countries where they intervene or operate.
The reference is made here for example to the UN peacekeepers whose presence hinders any genuine peace in Africa. It also relates to the armies of some African leaders like Museveni of Uganda and Kagame of Rwanda.
Their actions serve mainly to promote interests of global powers at the expense of Africans. And the price which is asked to pay is quite heavy. It amounts to millions of victims in areas where they are involved.
I don’t know how many people take the time to look at the African continent these days, while paying attention to the troubled zones. Those zones include: Libya, Ivory Coast and Mali on the one side, and South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Democratic Republic of Congo on the other.
According to some observers, these spots constitute the visible part of a rotted fruit, where the germ of its ultimate destruction is deeply rooted and difficult to extract. I would invite people to consider the fact that more than 34 African armies have been trained in recent years by AFRICOM – US Africa Military High Command are doing on the ground destroying millions of African lives.
Many structures and mechanisms participate to that destruction. AFRICOM, UN peacekeepers, International Criminal Court probing Africans only, military coups and destabilization man-oeuvres are among those weakening African institutions and countries by increasing dependence and submission.
Sometimes I wonder if this has always been the case. Greed, betrayal and lack of humanity for others have always existed, but today I feel more concerned than before. It is true there were for example that occupation of many SADC countries which, for several decades after the 60s, suffered from the South African apartheid regime and the resilience of colonials who were reluctant to let that part of Africa become truly politically independent.
In other parts of the continent, we had places such as Nigeria with serious risks of secession fuel-led by external interests using internal ethnic rivalries which characterized the Biafra conflict. Or the situation of Sudan for many decades where a similar scenario played until the entire country was split into two different parts in 2011.
Despite this not brilliant background, I was recently surprised to note the African Union chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma almost daydreaming about what Africa could be like in just 50 years’ time. In her dream she spoke of Africa in 2064 as a Confederation of African states where high-speed railways, a common language, diplomatic clout, cutting-edge fashion and leadership in space exploration will be tangible reality.
I have a question for the African Union chairperson: how can someone get the luxury to dream of a rosy future when they sleep experiencing something close to a nightmare or do not even wait to be in bed to start their dream? On top this, if the institution is funded by more than 70% of external sources, how can it claim to be in a position to undertake initiatives which contrary interests of those that are financing its survival as an organization?
What is happening?
Today we have advanced armies of the enemies of the continent operating in Africa. If one observes the ways Uganda of president Museveni and Rwanda of president Kagame have behaved for almost the last two decades and more for the former, nobody could conclude that these two leaders have been anything good for Africa.
One reminder: in 1994 while Museveni strongly backed his protégé Kagame in invading Rwanda, he was holding in Kampala the last Pan African Conference. This could be assessed as one of the highest of hypocrisies. Twenty years have passed since.
No more Panafricanism. The Ugandan president superbly managed to silence the movement forever. People should not be surprised that he has not been in good terms with the real pan-Africanists of recent decades, namely Muammar Kaddafi and Robert Mugabe.
Twenty is a long period. It is the duration of the period from childhood to adulthood. For all that period Panafricanism has been intentionally made dormant because its principles oppose what the Ugandan president pursues in Africa: selling the continent’s interests to the West.
Did Museveni silence Panafricanism from his own initiative? Objective analysis pleads here for a negative answer. The unconditional backing of the Anglo-Saxon axe Washington and London for his notorious dictatorship explain widely his longevity in power because of the many services he provides to them, among others that death of Panafricanism which helped Africa achieve its political independence of the 60s.
While the Ugandan president plays the master-minder on the wider political scene of the continent, generals of the Rwandan Patriotic Army that have participated in several genocides in different pays [Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo], are being sent across Africa as UN peacekeepers. Today they are seen in South Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic and Ivory Coast. Previously they were in Darfur [Sudan]. Their forces are being even deployed outside the continent in places like Haiti.
Rwanda and Uganda are not alone in that devastating adventure for Africa. Sufficient to any interested African to look around them those leaders who do not care much about real interests of their people, or behave like mercenaries. It is not without serious that the Anglo-Saxons back the two regimes unconditionally so far since the mid-80s.
They are the guarantors of their interests in their immediate areas of control but even far beyond through these UN peacekeeping missions which are deployed in many parts of the continent. Knowing what the UN has been for the continent – something else than bringing peace, one understands what these Ugandan and Rwandan UN peacekeepers are in fact in mission for.
Your armies [Rwanda and Uganda] cannot be found guilty of committing genocides and crimes against humanity in some places, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then the same soldiers be also deployed elsewhere to bring peace. People should stop from being fooled.
The way forward
Looking back some centuries ahead, Africans of the future generations might have similar analyses as we do today towards slavery: that contemporary Africans failed to resist against events they were facing. They might probably conclude that we did not use all the ingenuity available today to make a difference and stop atrocities that are being committed against Africans.
A coalition of concerned African leaders should aim to root out these African betrayers of the continent’s interests. Those who have access to them must lobby them and make them to see the big picture of what is happening.
The faster African governments strongly interested in a prosperous and unified continent realize that they need to strip out the leadership of rogue states which destroy and slow such ambition to benefit foreign interests, the quicker this imperative objective will be achieved.
It will take a lot of efforts and ingenuity from all concerned Africans everywhere on the continent and in the Diaspora to change the picture of a continent that many care about deeply.
Africans need to organize to root out these foreign armies and their accomplices.
