Panel #1: 2022 GPAM People’s Intervention
Militarism and US Foreign Policy in Africa
Panel Chair: Zophia Edwards, GPAM
Panelists:
- Willy Mutunga, Former Chief Justice of Kenya
- Essam A. B. Elkorghli, Independent Scholar, University of Illinois
- Maurice Carney, Friends of the Congo
- Netfa Freeman, Black Alliance for Peace
Watch this panel:
Panel Summary
Willy Mutunga, Former Chief Justice of Kenya
Justice Professor Mutunga used US-Kenya trade relations and cases of reparations to explain how Africans are using the courts and public interest litigation to challenge imperialism. In regards to United States’s trade relations with Kenya, Professor Mutunga alerted us to the Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP), launched 14 July 2022, (Office of the US Trade Representative USTR – 2022 – 0008). Justice Mutunga described the content of the initiative on paper, before suggesting that the initiative must be examined by the Kenyan people and experts, as per their constitutional rights. Despite the claimed incentives, Dr. Mutunga shared how the interests and influence of US corporations on regulations such as Kenya’s private and digital security policies “would be undermined if a prospective state includes the sorts of free flow of the data, guarantees big tech demands, and has obtained in some past parts”. Another concern is “whether STIP is another push of big tech to tap into the cognitive skills of young Kenyans to use them as cheap labor for the artificial intelligence sector of the US economy”.
As Pan Africanists, we must also be concerned about the threat STIP brings to African unification and cooperation. Justice Mutunga shared that “bilateral trade between Kenya and the USA is not as significant as the trade between Kenya and the members of the East African Community. Indeed, Kenya trade with the US is estimated as US Dollars 3.1 million, while Kenya is trading with Uganda alone is $300 million.” So Kenyan experts and state negotiators must be asking “What have we learned from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA process? Will this STIP reset qualitatively what is being traded? Or is it simply to export more cut flowers to the US? Will STIP provide for the investments required to strengthen the Kenyan entrepreneurs who want to invest in DRC to manufacture electric vehicle batteries?”
In regards to reparations, Justice Mutunga shared “we clearly argue that the British stole our land and through the independence constitution imposed a willing buyer willing seller principles to betray the Mau Mau war of Independence, that fought for stolen lands, resources and our freedom. And given the fact that it is not constitutionally possible, you know, for these ancestral lands to be returned to the communities, the communities themselves have turned to public interest litigation out of the jurisdiction of Kenya courts and within the Kenyan courts themselves. The Kipsigis and [inaudible?] communities have filed petitions in the European Court of Human Rights for reparations. The Mau Mau veterans sought reparations for torture and got, you know, nominal damages. There are suits being filed, you know, in the UK and Scotland, again, as the British multinationals that are, you know, violating constitutional provisions, on slavery and servitude.”
Essam A. B. Elkorghli, GPAM, University of Illinois
Essam Abdelrasul Bubaker Elkorghli spoke about Libya’s modern history and how US-led imperialism, over the course of 7 decades, confronted Libya’s sovereign developmental project and destroyed the country and its people’ potential for self-reliance.
Libya is an African country. Following the genocidal occupation by Italy, its independence was granted in 1951. Despite the numerous resources Libya has, were alien to the people upon the country’s independence in 1951, such that Libya continued to seek aid from the West in return for preferable oil contracts and the presence of the largest NATO base outside of the NATO orbit (Wheelus Air Base in Tripoli, the capital). It is worth noting that when the Arab armies were battling the Zionists in eastern Egypt, American and British planes were flying from Libya’s air bases and attacking the Arab armies. Gamal Abdel Nasser noted, “Where we hope that Libya increases its national wealth, but we also wish for Libya that it removes foreign military bases” (following the 1967 war). Given the large national discontent with the outcomes of the Arab-Zionist war, a regime change followed, which toppled the sitting Monarchy and declared Libya a Republic.
In the early years of the regime change, Libya saw the dismissal of settler colonial Italians, closing of foreign (American and British) bases, and nationalization of oil. With such a small population and a massive oil wealth, the leadership of the country expanded its socialist project and national liberation to other territories, such as Northern Ireland, South Africa in the apartheid era, and Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, and most importantly Palestine. The combination of dismissing foreign troops from the country, nationalizing natural resources, and confronting the West in territories where the latter funds terrorists and reactionary regimes (e.g., Taliban in Afghanistan and apartheid in South Africa and Palestine), Libya faced crippling sanctions that were meant to bring internal destabilization and dissatisfaction with the leadership of the country.
Though Libya did not militarily confront the US and allies, economic warfare was evident. Then it becomes central to understanding that imperialism is not about military prowess or colonial onslaught. Imperialism is, first and foremost, a financial term to describe the means in which the relationship of dependency remains intact and unchallenged, by all means necessary (including militarily). The subordination of Libya through crippling sanctions and its diplomatic isolation, Libya consolidated its African orientation, such that the African Union was established in Libya in 9.9.1999.
As Libya’s sanctions were lifted in 2003, Libya did not open its market to the West, but instead cooperated with other Global South countries. A US embassy cable leak in 2008 reads, “The fact that an operator with Bechtel’s savvy and deep pockets was ultimately unable to secure its contract serves as a cautionary tale for the many U.S. and western companies seeking to enter Libya’s booming market.” The idea that an independent state using its surplus for the benefit of the non-imperialist orbit threatens that particular order. This is why during the 2011 uprising, the West invested its military prowess to destroy Libya through a NATO intervention and sanction the country’s assets through an imperialist economic prowess.
During and following the 2011 NATO intervention, various reactionary factions who were exiled (in the Langley, Virginia, USA or in the mountains of Afghanistan alongside the Taliban) were flown back. These individuals welcomed cooperation with foreign governments, allowed Libya’s airspace, land and waters to be secured by foreign armies, and AFRICOM alongside NATO countries are running the country freely. Though the West frames these security agreements as cooperation between Libya and the West, they are girded in making sure that Libya’s security is dependent on the West, while the latter can attack, kidnap, gather intelligence, and much more about the country and the region. Lest we forget, two years ago, a Colombian national was kidnapped by AFRICOM when his Venezuela-bound airplane, via Iran on African airspace and was extradited to the US. His tale is an alarming tale of the fate of the African continent if we continue to let our lands be dominated by the imperialists. In the words of Malcom X, “Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence” (Message to Grassroots, 1963).
Maurice Carney, Friends of the Congo
Maurice Carney spoke to us about the Congo in particular and the Great Lakes region of Africa, especially as it relates to US policy in the region. Brother Maurice explained how over the past 25 years or so, the United States has used its proxies to destabilize Congo, and maintain historically exploitative relations. He ended by highlighting that a “key challenge for us are here in the US and in the West, is one to confront the narrative that comes out of the Entebbe meeting, from [as far back as] 1998 when Bill Clinton [traveled to Entebbe, Uganda, where [the US] presented the [Paul] Kagame and [Yoweri] Museveni as Renaissance leaders, new pan Africanists. We need to cut through the propaganda and present a different narrative, the narrative of plunder, the narrative of wars of aggression, a narrative of agents of neocolonialism, that has not only destabilized the Congo and set Congo back, but as long as Congo is destabilized, and not self determined, it will be setting Africa back. So that’s one of the big challenges that we have in order to confront these agents of neocolonialism with a different narrative, and educating the masses about what’s truly unfolding in the Congo and the geostrategic interests that are great.” Last but not least, brother Maurice explained the role of other African countries, which highlights why the people of the East African community must push for their leaders to take a stand against Congo’s neighbors and fellow EAC members, Rwanda and Uganda.
History and the role of Museveni and Kagame
Brother Maurice shared that “the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, and President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, both of whom have kept the Congo and region in a death trap for the past 25 years, with the backing of the United States as it relates to training of their militaries, provision of equipment, giving financial resources, intelligence, and they have waged a 25 year war of aggression and plunder against the Congolese people. They invaded Congo twice, in 1996, and then again in 1998. Both those invasions led to what the United Nations says is the deadliest conflict in the world since WWII, where, according to the International Rescue Committee, an estimated 6 million Congolese have perished as a result of conflict and conflict related causes. Half of those are children under the age of five. In addition to the invasions, we see that both countries have occupied the Congo itself.”
“Coltan [and the] illegal extract of Coltan, a key ingredient for all of our cell phones and electronic devices, and they extract it and sell it to multinational corporations. In the case of Uganda, it’s timber and Gold. In fact, the scale and the scope of the plunder of the Congo, as middlemen, led the United Nations in a series of reports in 2001. Three reports, where they say [that] both Kagame and Museveni [are] the godfathers of the exploitation, the illegal exploitation of minerals in the Congo. We understand that they serve as agents, and they’re not the end users because they transport those raw materials and ship those raw materials to Western corporations or to the Middle East. And, what they’ve done really, if you look at how the state itself, the Congolese state was designed, and for what purposes, it was designed by Europeans in the late 1800s. It was designed strictly for extraction. At the time, of course, it was rubber, and ivory. And this extractive process, led to or resulted in an estimated 10 million Congolese perished from 1885 to 1908. And that framework, that extracted framework is not fundamentally changed. What has been relatively new, is that now you have Africans who are joining in that plunder. In fact, Museveni then himself infamously stated that the Congo is a banana plantation, you go in and get what you want. So that framework of Congo being an outpost for extraction remains intact.”
“For the past 25 years or so, the crimes that have been committed in the Congo by Kagame and Museveni, have received diplomatic and political cover from the west, from the United States, from France, [and] from Belgium. In fact, the Catholic Church in the Congo organized nationwide demonstrations this past week [reference to first week in December 2022]. And one of the declarations that came out from the church was quite striking, in that they call that the West, not only for its duplicity in the way it has dealt with Rwanda and Rwanda’s aggression against the Congo, but also its complicity. And they named the United States in particular, they named France, they named Belgium, they named these countries that have covered for Paul Kagame and for Yoweri Museveni.”
What are the interests in Congo?
After referencing a Vanity Fair article about the billionaires club exploiting Congolese miners, Brother Maurice discusses the presence of key resources for the contemporary and future world industries, including automotive, electric, and technology industries: considering the “battery powered future, Congo is central to that, in that the cobalt that is found in the Congo represents half of the reserves on the on the planet. Congo itself produces more than two thirds of the cobalt that is used to power our batteries. And that will ultimately be used to power the Green Revolution. If you add up all the, or the renewable energy revolution, or green energy revolution, however, it’s the advocates characterize it, and if you add up all of the cobalt that’s produced in the world, and all the countries are producing cobalt, they don’t equal to what the Congo itself produces. So we see Congo being strategic as a real urge, as it relates to resources that are vital to the functioning of modern industries, whether we’re talking about the technology industry as is the case of Coltan [and] the electronics industry. Whether we are talking about the now auto industry and the move to establish electric cars as the common mode of transportation, [like how] the State of California [has vowed to do this] by 2035. They look to phase out all combustible engine and have only electric vehicles running in the state. So Congo looms large as it relates to major industries in throughout the globe, and that puts what’s unfolding there in the heart of the African continent, front and center, as it relates to geostrategic interests.”
Exploitation of the Congolese people
An “estimated 90 million people that live in the Congo, its inhabitants 70 million of those live on less than $2 a day. 70 million, according to the World Bank live on less than $2 a day. Meanwhile, you have gentleman by the name of Dan Gertler, an Israeli who’s become a billionaire because of his relationships with the comprador class in Kinshasa. He has one mine, copper-cobalt mine, in the Katanga Province, where he’s netting, it says according to an article in, in Vanity Fair, that was an exposè was published in May of this year. Dan Gertler is netting $20,000 an hour. So, here it is that you have an estimated 70 million people living on $2 a day and less, and one individual who has access to mining concessions, making $20,000 an hour.”
The Significance of Congo to Pan Africanists
“Historically, how the Congo has been viewed through a pan Africanist lens. Now, mind you, these leaders, Kagame and Museveni, they will tell you that they’re Pan Africanists and they are concerned about the continent as a whole. But if we look historically, at how pan Africanist have engaged, the Congo, especially looking at the 50s and 60s, we see we see that figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keita, Sékou Touré out of Guinea, all sought to support the reengineering and the redesigning of the Congo. So that is not solely outposts for extraction, but rather an organized state where the people are the primary beneficiaries. And in that framework, they sought to support [Patrice] Lumumba’s struggle for free and liberated Congo. And in their idea, their conception and the efforts to establish the United States of Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah lays this out in his book, The Challenge of the Congo, they saw Congo as being central to the industrialization of the African continent, to the development of African continent, [and] to the advancement of the African continent. So Congo has been central to the Pan African project of the United States of Africa. And in The Challenge of the Congo, Nkrumah stated how he had an agreement with Lumumba where Congo would serve as the capital of the United States of Africa. So we see a clear distinction between how Pan Africanists that we hold in high esteem and seek to emulate, how they view the Congo, how they engage the Congo, as opposed to today’s would be pan Africanist, so called pan Africanist”
Netfa Freeman, Black Alliance for Peace
Netfa Freeman joined us on behalf of the Black Alliance of Peace (BAP), which works to address domestic repression in the U.S. and also draws connections to global issues, particularly imperialism in Africa. Brother Netfa reminded us of the sharp connections between U.S. actions in Africa and the repression of Black people within the U.S. He also echoed other speakers by calling the U.S.-Africa Summit as an event to maintain U.S. dominance over Africa rather than acting in Africa’s best interests. Central to the goal of the summit was to challenge China and Russia’s influence on the continent, while attempting to legitimize U.S. interests.
The U.S. has historically benefited from the exploitation of African people and land, with both Democratic and Republican governments having a history of undermining African liberation movements. Brother Netfa noted the destabilizing effects of U.S. interventions in Africa, such as the assassination of leaders like Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. The U.S. is also implicated in numerous conflicts in Africa, including the NATO destruction of Libya and the ongoing proxy wars in the Congo and Somalia. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was implicated for its increasing role in ensuring US dominance.Brother Netfa called on the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to end their complicity with U.S. imperialism in Africa, and reiterated the Black Alliance for Peace demands, which include the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa, the closure of U.S. bases worldwide, and a review of AFRICOM’s impact on Africa. Brother Netfa also called for an uncompromising anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, and anti-patriarchal movement for change.
