|
|
Declaration of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA) on the situation in Africa on African Liberation Day, May 25, 2011
|
|
Declaration of the
Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA)
on the situation in Africa on African Liberation Day, May 25, 2011
Since the beginning of the year, several major events have occurred in Africa within a particular global context. Africa has long endured unfavourable integration into the global system. Over the last couple of decades, the continent has suffered the ravages of neoliberal austerity measures, the pillaging of its resources and the logic of privatization of war. Today, more than ever, Africa sits at a crossroads, with the failure of the neoliberal model, the crisis of capitalism and the collapse of the neo-colonial model of growth.
Post-independent states have managed the crisis over the last few decades with a constantly shrinking sovereignty, induced by globalization. The comprador models of countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Egypt and Burkina Faso, cited below, are in decline and in the grips of wheeler-dealer hucksterism. The local autocracies, emboldened by outrageous enrichment and the reign of arbitrariness and impunity, respond with repression to the legitimate and increasingly desperate demands of their people.
In Tunisia, resistance against the Ben Ali regime over the last 20 years was courageously led by several opposition figures who were forced to work underground, in exile, in destitution and under repression. GRILA supported their efforts. With the Ben Ali regime’s attempts to perpetuate its hold on power, these dissidents worked to sow the seeds of citizen and worker revolt. Mohamed Bouazizi’s sacrifice triggered a popular awakening, particularly among youth who, despite the repression, swept the elite from power. There was an immediate domino effect throughout the Maghreb and Arab Middle East, as protesters set forth their democratic demands and rejected unpopular and illegitimate regimes subservient to the dominant order. Tunisia resuscitated on a continental scale the revolutionary imperative of earlier anti-colonial struggles that were impeded by imperialism. The challenge now for Tunisia is to concretize these popular aspirations, to conduct an audit of the debt and to recover embezzled funds. Above all, the challenge will be to prevent reactionary or conservative forces, in league with external actors, from impeding or high-jacking the democratic process with arguments around paying down the debt, restoring economic growth, attracting foreign investment, meeting election deadlines, or playing their role in the “war on terror.”
In Egypt, popular pressure—symbolized by Tahrir Square—managed, despite brutal repression, to vanquish an autocratic and failing regime that had served as a showcase for neoliberalism under structural adjustment. Its historic nationalist legitimacy had long crumbled and had survived thanks to lifeline thrown to it by imperialism; its strategic importance and the ramifications of racketeering and military and police power; and the integration of conservative Islamist trends in the social realm, despite the rhetoric of security and anti-terrorism. The old regime’s desire to hold onto power persists, despite efforts toward a popular transition which itself is largely controlled by the military. The struggle against impunity and a more independent judiciary could serve as guarantors of a democratic transition despite the pressures of conservative and extremist forces. The outcome of the constitutional referendum on March 19 and legal proceedings against supporters of the regime have opened a space for revolutionary change. However, the risk remains that this could be compromised by the reactionary fringe (comprador bourgeoisie and affluent peasantry), culturalist challenges and religious tensions.
These political and social upheavals have everywhere kindled new hope for political rights and freedoms, particularly in Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara. The Libyan Jamahiriya, an atypical country in the sub-region, long resisted the dominant order when it came to issues of sovereignty and, despite its repressive autocratic rule, saw to the social redistribution of its oil wealth. However, the frenzied opening up and liberalization of the economy over the last decade, under the dictates of anti-terrorism and security, and the control of migrant flows to Europe, brought an abrupt end to this populist experiment and led to a shift toward wheeling and dealing and racketeering within the leadership’s inner circle. While Kadhafi financed a voluntarist panafrican project—a laudable albeit self-interested undertaking—he neglected certain restive regions in his own country, which took advantage of the regional revolutionary spring to rise up against him. Imperialism instrumentalized these legitimate demands for political freedom, leading to the partition of the country and civil war. France, which had offered its expertise to put down the Tunisian revolution, chose to lead a punitive force against the Libyan regime. Resolution 1973 was based on the imperative to protect civilian populations, yet no serious investigation ever found any evidence to support the claims of widespread abuses. In fact, the resolution was a ploy to allow NATO to overthrow the Jamahiriya regime despite the fact that the UN—which has had an ambiguous agenda in Africa ever since its role in Lumumba’s Congo—forbids intervention in the internal affairs of a country, unless international peace and security are threatened (UN Charter, article 2(7)).
A double standard is clearly at work here. There has never even been any talk of a no-fly zone in order to rescue the millions of civilians who have died over the last decade of pillage and war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Brushing aside the humanitarian smokescreen, what is occurring in Libya today is a dogged attempt by the dominant order to assert its control over Libya’s oil, and to seize over $96 billion in sovereign funds—not Kadhafi’s fortune, but rather money that is held in the Libyan Investment Fund—invested in several European and U.S. multinationals as well as investment and integration projects (including those in Africa totalling $6 billion). Western support for the insurrection led by the National Transitional Council of Libya, which itself has links to foreign intelligence services that have a long history of supporting repressive African regimes, is threatening legitimate popular demands for the democratization of Libyan society. The insurgents will be indebted to their imperialist sponsors. Given the petroleum lobby’s lust for Libya’s vast oil reserves, panafricanists must be alerted to the risks of implosion in this country.
Côte d’Ivoire provides another clear example of the instrumentalization of the multilateral order. Over the last 20 years, this country has undergone a profound destructuring of its neocolonial and clientelist plantation model through World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs. The inability of the Boigny-Bédié regime to reproduce the model, Guei’s interlude and his instrumentalization of the concept of ivoirité, supported during the election of the Front populaire ivoirien (FPI), opened a Pandora’s box. While the FPI’s model of radical reform sought to break with neo-colonial dependency and the authoritarian liberalism forged by Houphouët Boigny, it fell into the trap of exclusive nationalism with its failure to distance itself from ivoirité. The supporters of Françafrique, in collusion with Compaoré’s regime in Burkina Faso, used ivoirité as a pretext to fight the FPI’s radical reform, and embarked on a campaign to destabilize the country in 2002. This prevented Laurent Gbagbo’s regime from implementing its plans to achieve true sovereignty and redistribution. The FPI was forced into cohabitation with the rebels and external economic interests, and subsequently into elections, even though the perpetrators of the violence were never disarmed. The disputed outcome of the election results should have led to a recount or new elections. Instead, the UN took sides in the dispute, while both parties, contrary to electoral and constitutional arrangements, imposed their own leaders as president. Tensions continued to increase, as did abuses committed by both sides. In the midst of this chaos, most of the African comprador regimes aligned themselves according to the wishes of the world order, in favour of Resolution 1975 and the economic strangulation of the country.
The Sudanese case is instructive with respect to the danger of implosion that comes with partition. Well before Darfur made headlines, Sudan was ravaged for more than 20 years by a civil war between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), until the signature of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005. However the Naivasha negotiations (in Kenya) where the CPA was signed were preceded by a public mobilization campaign, particularly in the United States, with support from European civil society organizations. While this takes nothing away from the democratic and virtually unanimous outcome of the referendum among the population of South Sudan, who were legitimately weary and aspiring to another national option, the way in which this conflict and the Darfur conflict have been placed on the international agenda clearly illustrates the instrumentalization of the Sudanese conflicts by the oil lobby, in concert with American and Zionist evangelical movements. Media coverage, which largely ignored the deeply political nature of the conflicts, has painted a unilateral and simplistic portrait around religious and ethnic issues. Meanwhile, the sabre-rattling in Abyei is cause for deep concern, as are the calls on the so-called “international community” to restore peace. These calls are in stark contrast to the response to the bloody fate of the populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the repeated deferral, since 1994, of the referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara. In Sudan, as elsewhere on the continent, the evidence suggests that the true issue at stake here is the appetite for oil and growing Chinese competition.
The year 2011 has been marked by other events. In Burkina Faso, the comprador regime of Blaise Compaor*, still pursued by the International Justice for Sankara Campaign, was shaken by an unprecedented and broad-based wave of social revolt. For the time being, repression and patronage have managed to snuff out popular pressure. In Chad, the regime held onto power through fraudulent elections, without any critical light being cast on the role of major oil interests. Meanwhile the democratic transition in Niger is cause for optimism, but the French monopoly on the country*s uranium wealth persists. The same challenges exist in Nigeria where a more equitable distribution of oil wealth is still elusive. In Benin, the opposition*s denunciation of fraud continues to fall on deaf ears. The continent is gearing up for a number of contentious elections, in the context of heightened resource extraction and growing productivity, but in the absence of any equitable social redistribution.
The situations described above are just a few of the upheavals that have marked the continent. GRILA:
Ø calls on the African Union, on this solemn day of May 25th, to cease being a syndicate of heads of State, and to assume its responsibilities and take a clear leadership role on issues of sovereignty and the total liberation of the continent on all of the fundamental issues (resource pillage, land grabbing, liberation of Chagos and Mayotte, referendum in the Western Sahara, effective continental integration, etc.).
GRILA
Ø calls on the peoples of Africa and its diaspora to ramp up resistance, both locally and globally, and to unite on the basis of internationalism and panafricanism, despite any presumed differences. It calls for an end to xenophobic attacks against Africans from other countries, not only in C*te d*Ivoire, but in South Africa, Libya and many other countries where these attacks are carried out in the context of economic crisis and in the name of nationalistic intolerance. Imperialism fans the flames of these forms of exclusion and it is up to us to bring them to an end.
Ø condemns the role of the *international community* in Libya and C*te d*Ivoire. It demands the withdrawal of imperial forces and their subordinates from our countries.
Ø denounces the instrumentalization of multilateral organizations and the role of new forms of hegemonic regulation, such as the G20 and NATO. It supports efforts to democratically reform the UN, the Security Council and the Bretton-Woods institutions.
Ø denounces the attempts to anchor AFRICOM and private mercenary companies on the African continent and the subordination of our national armies to the large powers, under the false pretext of logistics and training. It demands the dismantlement of U.S. and French bases on the continent (including its Indian Ocean components).
Ø calls on the forces of the revolutionary process in Tunisia, in the run up to the constituent assembly and elections, to pay careful attention to the cancellation of the odious debt; conduct an audit and ensure the return of illicitly obtained wealth; end impunity by dismantling the repressive structures of the Ministry of the Interior and mafia networks; and be particularly careful to avoid falling under the tutelage of the World Bank and IMF.
Ø encourages the Egyptian people to show wisdom, to finish the fight against impunity and to prevent conservative religious forces from derailing the revolutionary process. The national army must allow the people and their representatives the latitude they need to complete their revolution.
Ø demands a ceasefire, the withdrawal of NATO and other mercenaries from Libya and the formation of a government of national salvation, to ensure a transition toward reconstruction and popular democratization. It recommends that a clear distinction be made between national funds invested overseas and the wealth of the Kadhafi family and regime, which must be subject of a rigorous audit. It demands transparency and respect for national sovereignty in the management and exploitation of the country*s oil resources. It demands that no foreign bases be built as a result of this conflict.
Ø demands an end to abuses and revenge in C*te d*Ivoire; the liberation of President Laurent Gbagbo; and the creation of an impartial African commission of inquiry into the abuses commited by all sides. It recommends a government of national unity that reflects the fairly equal balance of forces across the country. It denounces the role of Fran*afrique as well as the chocolate and oil lobbies in the economic recovery of C*te d*Ivoire.
Ø demands that African leaders and the African Union undertake, once and for all, a continental integration plan that will replace NEPAD, and a proactive policy to replace Libyan voluntarism, by creating a continental fund to finance all continental projects (continental army, infrastructure investment fund, currency, etc.).
Ø encourages networking using social and citizen media and recommends greater vigilance with respect to externally imposed slogans designed to control our struggles, or to reorient them to meet ends that are not our own; advocates that sensitive information from popular organizations and citizens circulates as little as possible in order to ensure effectiveness and discretion.
Ø demands that all forces of goodwill support, by all means necessary, the popular movement in the Maghreb; and draw inspiration from it in order to democratically repoliticize our masses.
Ø advocates a shift away from a consumerist and alienating worldview that is affecting our youth, to be replace by relations of solidarity that promote national and panafrican construction on the basis of autocentric, progressive, non-sexist and ecologically sustainable development.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|