In December 2022, the United States will host a U.S-African leaders summit. According to the statement from the Department of State of the United States, the objective of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will be to “demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment to Africa, and will underscore the importance of U.S.-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities.” According to the present posture of the US government, the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will build on our ‘shared values’ to better the goals of the USA in relation to: fostering new economic engagement, advance peace, security, and good governance, reinforce commitment to democracy, human rights, and civil society, work collaboratively to strengthen regional and global health security, promote food security, respond to the climate crisis, amplify diaspora ties, and promote education and youth leadership.

These lofty goals of the US government remain just words since every US administration whether Democrat or Republican have articulated plans for advancing democracy, peace and good governance. The reality in all parts of Global Africa has been different. The so-called commitment to democracy has always taken second place to the military and strategic interests of certain branches of US capital. It is this history of capital accumulation and white supremacy that guides the US relations with Africa. Whether it was supporting British suppression of independence movements, the US support for apartheid, to the cooperation in killing Patrice Lumumba to the current destruction of Libya, the interests of sections of the military and finance propel US policies.

These negative outcomes of US policy have only been surpassed by the cover up of the US of its partnership in destabilization. This is most manifest in the refusal of the US government to hand over information on its role in the untimely crash that killed the former Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld. Within the UN system, the US government has collaborated with the colonial forces of France and Britain to collectively oppose decolonization and full self-determination.

In August 2014, former President Barack Obama hosted an African leaders summit but after the fanfare and hype about AGOA, “Power Africa,” YALI, and PEPFAR, the real tangible linkages between the United States and Africa remain the cruel conditionalities of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the US Africa Command. In the past 8 years the Black Lives Matter Movement has placed the value of African and Black life as the most important shared value that could link the peoples of Africa to the USA. Since the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the global responses to institutionalized racism, the UN has put in place the Permanent Forum for African Descendants. Given the overwhelming support from the UN General Assembly for real follow up to the Durban Program of Action, the current leadership of the US is seeking to blunt the real questions of reparative justice, social transformation, and anti-racism that must inform US Africa relations. Hence, for the first time in outlining its policy, the US government is heralding that it will ‘Amplify diaspora ties.’ Conscious of the importance of the linkages of the Global African family to the conditions in Africa the US and the Bretton Woods agencies for a long time attempted to control the remittances. Now with the support of foundations there is an aggressive effort to divide Africans and capture the brightest of the youths.

Defying the characterizations of the western media, the youths are claiming their spaces on the planet with vigor. This vigor is now manifest in tremendous political engagement is spaces such as Algeria, Sudan, and Nigeria. Youth energies are defying the stereotypes of Africans and it is in the face of this assertiveness that the US is seeking to hold the line with the subservient leaders who will trek to Washington in December.

In reality, the State Department exposed its disrespect for Africa when it rolled out its strategy for ‘Sub Saharan Africa’ in August 2022.

This blatant disrespect for the aspiration of the African Union and Agenda 2063 has been compounded by the Global Fragility Act (GFA) passed by Congress in 2019 and the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act.” In many parts of Africa, concerned peoples are asking whether there are members of the Global African Family in North America who oppose the coercive diplomacy of the USA. As was stated by the Minister of International Cooperation of South Africa, the stance of the USA is “unprecedented,” since it involves penal measures against countries unwilling to align themselves with Washington about Russian-Ukrainian conflict. She added that this is “another remarkable example of modern American so-called diplomacy, based on coercion, blackmail and total disregard for partners’ interests.” It is this background which inspires the Global Pan African Movement, of North America to gather a broad range of constituencies and multi-issue organizations from the United States and Africa to reflect on the present conjuncture of US Africa relations.

It is anticipated that the one-day symposium/meeting on International Human Rights Day December 10, 2022 will focus on militarism, coercive diplomacy, global warming, reproductive rights, reparations, the UN Permanent Forum For African Descendants and the current US Strategy for Africa.

The one-day event in Washington DC will be a Hybrid event to ensure that activists, intellectuals, and militants from Africa will be able to meaningfully build solidarity in opposing militarism, racism and doublespeak of the US government.

GPAM is open to partnering with independent nonpartisan anti-imperialist forces of the USA to participate in this one-day event.