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“African Union Faces Turbulent Headwinds”
By Horace G. Campbell
January 12, 2017
The
current efforts to elect a new Chair of the AU Commission have been
caught in the crosswinds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the
question of reseating Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa
will face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump
and Marie Le Pen.
The
AU will survive this turbulence. But the rise of the Pan African
Movement will likely sweep away the present crop of leaders.
Introduction: Three crossing points
In
all countries of Africa, from Egypt to the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC) and beyond there are stirrings of the people who want to
assert themselves politically in the context of realizing the pan
African project of building a peaceful, integrated and prosperous
Africa.
These
stirrings have created massive political tensions and are nowhere more
evident than at the seat of the African Union where the poor and
oppressed of Ethiopia have demanded a new democratic dispensation that
provides real resources to the majority of the people.
Despite
the glowing figures of economic growth, averaging 10.8% per year in
2003/04 - 2014/15, exploited Ethiopians have taken to the streets and
internationalized their protests at the recent Olympics in Rio. At
state of emergency in Ethiopia confronts the AU about its future in a
society of contested politics.
The
peoples of Africa are responding every day to the global capitalist
crisis by stating that the goals of Agenda 2063 cannot be achieved with
the crop of current leaders.
Genocidal economic relations in the South Sudan, dictators for life,
idle threats to withdraw en masse from the International Criminal Court
(ICC), war as a business in the so called War against Terror and the
illicit capital flight from Africa preserved the interests of a class in
Africa that opposed real African Unity.
This is one of the top contradictions facing Africa at the crossroad
between self-financing and illicit financial flows out of Africa.
In
response to critical opposition to the stagnation at the AU Commission,
the current leaders promised to ‘reform’ the African Union and to work
harder to realize the aspirations of Agenda 2063.
The goal of the ‘reform process’ is to transform the AU into a more effective and self-reliant institution.
It will be the argument of this short intervention that the African Union is now facing turbulent headwinds.
The
current efforts to appoint a new AU Commissioner has been caught in the
cross winds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the question of
the reseating of Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa will
face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump and
Marie Le Pen.
The conclusion will suggest that the Pan African movement will rise to
the challenges posed by the current moment and the real push for
reconstruction and transformation in Africa will accelerate in this
period.
African Union and capital flight
Most
of the countries of Africa are now deeply integrated into the
international illicit economy that is embedded in looted minerals,
bunkering of hydrocarbons, money laundering, illicit funds from
fraudulent activities and non-payment of taxes.
In
my most recent contribution to Pambazuka, I had outlined in great
detail the way in which Kenya is one of the principal beach heads for
this global illicit economy.
Of
any major country, Nigeria has probably had the highest percentage of
its gross domestic product stolen— largely by corrupt officials—and
deposited externally. Since the 1960s, up to $400 billion has been lost
because of primitive accumulation, with $100 billion shifted out of the
country.
In
October 2016, the government filed 15 separate suits against 15 oil
companies at the Federal High Court in Lagos to recover billions of
dollars that have been illegally siphoned from the country.
As
reported by Sahara News, “the Nigerian government used the consortium
of experts for the intelligence-based tracking of the global movements
of the country's hydrocarbons, including crude oil and gas, with the
main purpose of identifying the companies engaged in the practices that
had led to missing revenues from crude oil and gas exports sales to
different parts of the world.” http://saharareporters.com/
Future
researchers on the state visit of President Buhari to Washington in
July 2015 will be able to analyze the call from Buhari for assistance in
identifying the more than US$150 billion that has been illegally taken
from Nigeria and what Obama informed Buhari of where to look for the
money.
Such
researchers will then be able to connect the travels of President
Buhari to Kenya, London and Dubai in search of these funds and how these
centers of money laundering rebuffed the Nigerian effort to recover
stolen assets.
The
legal action that has now been taken in Nigeria followed the earlier
fine against that of telecommunication firm MTN for non-payment of taxes
is one indication that at the highest political levels in Nigeria there
is a commitment to curtail money laundering.
A
study by UNCTAD found out that between 1996 and 2014, “under invoicing
of oil exports from Nigeria to the United States was worth $69.8
billion, or 24.9% of all oil exports to the US.”
With
the release of the Panama Papers in 2016 there is now more evidence of
the volume of ‘illicit financial flows’ and the amount of wealth
funnelled out of Africa every year by capitalists.
Reports
in the media that the world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax
tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as
$32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than
the entire American economy - were circulated in early 2016.
In
these reports, Nigeria, Cote D Ivorie and Angola were at the top of the
list of African states with high net worth individuals holding hundreds
of billions outside their country.
One
major area of future research by progressive pan African intellectuals
at home and abroad will be to assess the linkages between political
leaders and the opaque world of finance capital to unearth the
infrastructures that have been put in place to ensure illicit financial
flows from Africa.
Discussions
on the non-payment of dues to the AU by member states have been another
example of the failure of intellectual and political leadership at the
top Commissions of the AU.
The
fact that over 70% of the AU Commission is funded by imperialist states
(called donors ) is itself one indication of the infrastructure of
capital flight.
These
‘donors’ actually have the intelligence on how much money is being
shipped abroad by African leaders, hence they seek to keep up the
fiction of providing ‘aid’ to Africa.
One good example of this duplicity was the case of the stolen funds
from Zimbabwe. A few weeks after stepping down as Chair of the AU in
January 2016, in an interview on March 3, 2016, President Mugabe made
the announcement that US$15 billion had been stolen from Zimbabwe over
the past 7 years under his watch.
Yet,
there has been very little exposure of how the Mugabe regime destroyed
the economy while his cronies robbed the diamond mines and exported
billions.
In
order to facilitate their export of capital they resorted to using the
US dollar as the currency of the society while printing worthless bonds
for the people to use as a medium of exchange in Zimbabwe.
Why didn’t Madame Zuma act on the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial flows out of Africa?
British corporations are the most experienced in the business of stealing and looting minerals from Africa.
A
recent report by the non-governmental organization, War on Want,
documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) —
most of them British — have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African
countries. They collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s
most valuable resources. http://media.waronwant.org/
The
details that are presented in this report are the kind of facts that
should be studied in every major university and policy think tank in
Africa. While this author takes issue with their designation of Sub
Saharan Africa, we have witnessed the downgrading of African
universities so that NGO’s can produce facts on ‘conflict gold’ but
there is no serious research being carried out because the same ‘donors’
starve African researchers of real resources.
The
most recent information by UNCTAD on the misinvoicing of minerals in
Africa has exposed the fact that the question of gold exports from South
Africa involved the pure smuggling of gold, “The most striking feature
of the gold sector in South Africa is the huge discrepancy between the
amounts recorded in that country’s official trade statistics and those
reported in its trading partners’ records.
According
to South Africa’s data, the country’s cumulative gold exports were
$34.5 billion from 2000 to 2014, whereas according to trading partner
data for that period they were more than three times higher, at $116.2
billion.
This
is indicative of massive export underinvoicing.” In fact, the study
reports, the physical volume of exports (using the data from SA’s
partners) and export underinvoicing are in “perfect correlation”. “This
suggests that export underinvoicing is not due to underreporting of the
true value of gold exports, but rather to pure smuggling of gold out of
the country.
“Total
misinvoicing of gold exports to South Africa’s leading trading partners
was $113.6 billion over the 15-year period. At an average exchange rate
of R9 per dollar, this corresponds to over R1 trillion.”
What is true of misinvoicining in South Africa is true for every conceivable commodity exported from Africa.
One
of the failures of Madame Zuma in her role as Chairperson was to fail
to aggressively place the resources of the AU in the area of combatting
illicit financial flows and following the recommendations of the Thabo
Mbeki high level panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa. http://hdl.handle.net/10855/
Was
it an accident that the press conference announcing the findings of
this high level panel took place in Abuja where former President Mbeki
announced that said African countries lose between $50 billion and $60
billion annually through illicit financial flow, IFF? .
“Monies for infrastructure and social amenities for the poor African
population are being transferred to other countries via illicit
financial flows,” said Mbeki at his report on the findings of the panel.
This
report by the High Level Panel reinforced the research that has been
done over the years and reproduced by the UNECA to bring home the
reality that Africa lose between $50 billion and $60 billion annually
through illicit financial flows. [1]
Capital flight and insecurity in Africa
There
is competition between Britain, France, and the United States to decide
on which country can produce the most corrupt officials in suborning
African bureaucrats into the world of primitive accumulation of capital.
The
US uses the institutions of the Washington Consensus and the US Africa
Command for their corruption, the British seek to be sophisticated and
hide behind the mineral houses and London Bullion Market Association
(LBMA) while the French are the most obscene in their corrupt and
manipulative politics in Africa.
Eva
Joly has exposed the role of the French intelligence services and oil
companies in those countries that are still dominated by France.
The
scandalous relations between France and the puppets in many former
colonies are well known and it is these puppets who compete to protect
France in the corridors of the African Union.
Before
its name was changed, the French Elf state oil company, France’s
largest enterprise with a turnover of 232.6 billion francs in 1996, had
been robbed of over 2 billion francs—305 million euros—by its top
executives, largely during the second seven-year term of ‘socialist’
president François Mitterrand (1988-1995).
Serious law schools in Africa need to get a hold of the judgement
relating to the criminal activities of Elf. In their 1,045-page
indictment and a further 44,000 pages of documents, the investigating
magistrates described in detail "a large number of operations carried
out on the margins of normal functioning of the group's structures, and
destined... to collect assets off the books".
“Annual
cash transfers totalling about £10m were made to Omar Bongo, Gabon's
president, while other huge sums were paid to leaders in Angola,
Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville.
“The
multi-million dollar payments were partly aimed at guaranteeing that it
was Elf and not US or British firms that pumped the oil, but also to
ensure the African leaders' continued allegiance to France.
“In
Gabon, Elf was a veritable state within a state. France accounts for
three-quarters of foreign investment in Gabon, and Gabon sometimes
provided 75% of Elf's profits. In return for protection and sweeteners
from Elf's coffers, France used the state as a base for military and
espionage activities in west Africa.”[2]
As
reported at the time of the trial, ELF had been set up as a state
enterprise by General de Gaulle in 1963 “to ensure France’s independence
in oil and which lived, grew and prospered in a special and incestuous
relationship with Africa” (Le Monde, November 12, 2003).
As
Loïk Le Floch-Prigent put it: “In 1962, [Pierre Guillaumat] convinced
[General de Gaulle] to set up a parallel structure of real oil
technicians. [By creating Elf alongside Total] the Gaullists wanted a
real secular arm of the state in Africa...a sort of permanent ministry
of oil...a sort of intelligence office in the oil-producing countries.”
Loïk
Le Floch-Prigent, CEO of Elf from 1989 to 1993, received a jail
sentence of five years and a fine of 375,000 euros. Alfred Sirven,
former general affairs executive, also got five years and a 1 million
euro fine.
André
Tarallo, 76, former number-two in the hierarchy and known as “Mr.
Africa,” was given four years and a 2 million euro fine. Alain Gillon,
former refinery executive, received a three-year jail sentence and a 2
million pound fine.
However,
their counterparts and underlings have intensified their work in Africa
and France has been the most active within the ranks of her colonies
and within the Peace and Security Council of the African Union.
The
name of the company Elf Aquitaine International may have changed (now
Total) but the continuity in practices of theft and bribery are so clear
that these elements from France and the EU cannot afford real
democratic change in African societies such as Gabon.
The
corruption of the French capitalists has been well documented by Eva
Joly and more needs to be done in relation to the role of France in
financing and supporting insurgents in places such as Mali and Central
African Republic and then turning around to the Security Council of the
UN to lead the fight against terror in Mali and Central African
Republic.
The
Peace and Security Council of the AU has permitted the European Union
to set the agenda of what defines terror and terrorism in Africa.
Both
China and Russia as members of the Security Council of the United
Nations have been complicit in giving a pass to France for her
activities in Africa.
In the case of former President Sarkozy, he particularly worked hard to get the Chinese to be allies in their corrupt practices.
When
the funds and minerals are fraudulently taken from African economies,
then the foreign banks establish special desks to ensure that the
illicit funds flow to offshore bank accounts.
None
of the reports on illicit flows out of Africa made the connections to
the questions of militarism, insecurity, the so called war on terror and
the role of international military operators, especially private
military contractors.
Cameroonian
intellectuals who are researching on the expansion of Boko Haram beyond
Nigeria are slowly documenting the duplicitous role of France in the
enlargement of terror in Central and West Africa.
There
has been talk of the reform of the African Union and the leadership of
this reform process has been placed in the hands of President Paul
Kagame of Rwanda.
A
visit to the largest gold refinery in the Gulf of Arabia will widen the
discussion of reform in the AU to implicate the looting of resources
from the DRC and to place the mandate of the Peace and Security Council
of the African Union in the elaboration of identifying the looters and
their chief beneficiaries.
How can Kagame lead a ‘reform process’ in the AU when his regime
violates the basic human rights of members of the opposition to the
point of killings on foreign soil?
At
the Kigali summit of the African Union in 2016, the President of
Rwanda announced an impressive team to spearhead the reforms at the
African Union so that this Pan African body can be more self-reliant.
It
was proclaimed that member states will be expected to contribute 0.2
per cent of proceeds from levy on eligible imports to fund operations of
the organisation.
What
remains striking in the proclamation is the fact that these schemes
seem to deflect attention from the ways in which African economies are
integrated into the present global economy and that there can be no
self-reliance until there are serious efforts to control the wealth of
Africa.
Any
study of the looting of the DRC by Uganda and Rwanda will expose their
complicity in ensuring that Africa simply digs out minerals and all of
the added value is accrued to other countries.
During
the Kigali summit, a new funding model was adopted to make AU
operations exclusively funded by subventions from member states. A few
years earlier, a previous high-level panel chaired by former Nigerian
president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had been appointed to look at alternative
sources of financing for the AU.
Then,
there was the recommendation that member states raise revenue by
imposing a $10 airfare levy on each international flight leaving or
entering Africa and a $2 levy per hotel stay in Africa. This levy
remained just another proposal with no real effort towards
implementation.
Now,
Paul Kagame as the lead person for the ‘reform process’ has designated
nine prominent to oversee the reform efforts of the African Union. Of
these nine, many are aware of the drain of resources because of the
absence of processing facilities in Africa. Others have participated in
the detailed studies of illicit financial flows out of Africa.
It
will remain to be seen whether the Chairperson of the Reform process,
(Dr Donald Kaberuka, the former president of the African Development
Bank (AfDB) and Finance minister of Rwanda) will raise the question of
African resources in the global value chain as part of the agenda of how
to increase revenues for African peoples, and ultimately for the
African Union.
Europe is afraid of the full unification of Africa
The
question of the AU budget as discussed in the deliberations about
‘reform’ had steered clear of the questions of capital flight and
definitive benchmarks of the African Monetary Co-operation Programme
(AMCP) of the Association of African Central Banks. [2] Patriotic Pan
African bankers who understood the full impact of external currency
domination of Africa had been keen to develop the African Currency Unit
as far back as 2002.
At the 1963 meeting of the OAU, Kwame Nkrumah had admonished the
African leaders that ‘Africa must unite or perish.’ For fifty years the
Pan African project was pushed forward by the Lagos Plan of Action and
the Abuja Treaty of 1991 establishing the African Economic Community.
The
former President of Libya had gone ahead with precise plans for the
gold reserves of Libya to be used to anchor the African currency. After
the NATO intervention in Libya it emerged that the primary motivation
for the launch of the war was to halt the process of realizing the Pan
African project of a common currency in Africa.
Revelations
from the correspondence between the Secretary of State of the United
States, Hilary Clinton and Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France in
March 2011 revealed that the plans for the NATO intervention were
dictated by the following issues:
· A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
· Increase French influence in North Africa,
· Improve his internal political situation in France,
· Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,
· Address
the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant
France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa. https://consortiumnews.com/
Many
of the leaders who had retreated from supporting the African Monetary
Cooperation Programme are being made aware of the real role of
international finance as the more literate follow the rulings of the
British court in relation to the resources of the Libyan Investment
Authority that had been purloined by Goldman Sachs.
The
ruling of the High Court in London in favor of Goldman Sachs against
the Libyan Investment Authority is only serving to increase the literacy
of Africans on the workings of the international financial oligarchy. https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/
Recently
President Museveni gave notice that the African Union will be working
more aggressively to end foreign domination in Libya. Museveni stated
that,
“We
recently had a meeting in Addis Ababa and told all and sundry that AU
intends to rescue Libya and we also made it clear that future attacks on
African soil without coordinating with AU are not acceptable, to put it
mildly. Can Africa defend African soil? Very much so.”
This
kind of bravado statement of Yoweri Museveni after the AU High Level
committee meeting on 8 November 2016 belied the reality that at least
three members of the AU committee, Chad, Egypt and the Sudan are
partners of NATO in the current destruction of Libya. http://www.peaceau.org/
In
the book, Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya, this
author brought out the graphic historical lessons from the destruction
of Libya and what lessons that will be learnt when comparing the
invasion of Libya to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935.
The Pan African movement of that period accelerated the end of colonial domination in Africa.
Lessons from the Italian invasion of Abyssinia
Between
1935 and 1946 the global mobilization against fascism built new
alliances internationally and quickened the pace of decolonization in
all parts of the world.
That
anti-fascist internationalism deepened with mass resistance inside of
Africa and linked the pan African movement to the Bandung process to
cement the South Project.
From that moment until now, the Pan African movement has been a central
anchor of the South Project, that is the project of creating a new
international economic order.
Africans
are being called upon to rebuild and strengthen this project with calls
from the belly of empire to defend black lives.
The
present generation of youths is being mobilized through new means of
communication to realize the goals of real Pan African solidarity from
Burkina Faso in West Africa to Bahia in Brazil.
European project shatters in the face of solidarity in the South
The
question of the re-joining of the AU by the present Moroccan leadership
forms the next major challenge for the future of the African Union.
Since 1984, the political leadership of Morocco had placed its
aspirations on the future of the European project, but with the
implosion of the European ideal as manifest with Brexit, the Moroccan
leadership has decided to re-join the African Union.
In the process, the Moroccan leadership seeks to strengthen the
neo-liberal pressures of global capital inside the AU to challenge the
anti-colonial stance of the African Union on Western Sahara and all
outstanding colonial territories (Puerto Rico, Cayenne, Martinique,
Guadeloupe Mayotte, etc.).
Progressive Africans have been tracking the economic diplomacy of Morocco in the rest of Africa.
As
one commentator outlined, “Morocco is currently courting a number of
African countries relentlessly, including Madagascar, Tanzania, Rwanda,
and others. Morocco has signed 19 economic agreements with Rwanda and 22
with Tanzania—two countries that traditionally backed the Western
Sahara’s quest for decolonization.
Nigeria
Morocco have signed a total of 21 bilateral agreements, a joint venture
to construct a gas pipeline that will connect the two nations as well
as some other African countries to Europe.
“It
is easily transparent that the economic agreements with these countries
imply ulterior motives for increasing Morocco’s leverage in its
campaign to return to the AU and deal a blow to Western Sahara’s
aspirations for self-determination. Morocco is waging a similar campaign
internationally and in the halls of the U.S. congress by hiring
expensive lobbyists and sleazy public relations firms.” [3]
It is in the push by Morocco to play a leading role in the AU that is helping to define the future of the AU in world politics.
The
political leadership of Morocco has been working through states such as
Cote d Ivorie, Gabon and Senegal to promote the interests of the
Moroccan leadership but the limits of this alliance with Senegal and
Cote D Ivorie were exposed at the heads of state meeting of the 4th
African-Arab summit in Equatorial Guinea
The
Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), declared by the Polisario
Front in 1976, is a member of the African Union At the Malabo Summit of
African and Arab leaders in November 2016, Morocco found out the
limits of its influence when it tried to force the question of removing
the representatives of the SADR from the meeting.
When
Morocco walked out of the meeting, only the most conservative
monarchies of the Gulf - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar
and Oman - pulled out of the summit over the participation of the
Polisario Front delegation.
Many
governments such as Egypt and Kuwait who in the past would have been
supportive of Morocco decided to stay in the meeting, exposing the
diplomatic isolation of Morocco.
This
push by the Moroccans is also caught up in the struggles for a new
chairperson of the AU Commission. My most recent article on whether
Kenya can lead the African Union offered some reasons why the
interpenetration of western financial and security interests in East
Africa disqualifies Kenya from taking a leadership role.
It
is the contention of this intervention that at this historical moment
the ideas of the Moroccan leadership confront the aspirations of the
Moroccan peoples and thus the question to be posed is not whether
Morocco will be part of the AU, but what kind of politics will emerge in
Morocco out of the present stirrings of the oppressed citizens of
Morocco.
The
death of a fishmonger in the northern town of Al-Hoceima who was
crushed to death (inside a garbage truck as he tried to retrieve fish
confiscated by police) exposed another reality of thousands of outraged
Moroccans.
The
present leadership of Morocco has a short-sighted understanding of
world politics and have not yet grasped the seismic shift that has taken
place since the imperial interventions in Libya and the war in Syria.
Hence, they could not understand why Egypt is not under the thumb of Saudi Arabia as in the past.
The turbulence in the revolutionary politics that had been initiated in
the streets of Cairo and Tunis may seem to have subsided, but the
youths of Africa are assessing the new forms of organizing for the next
round so that the decisive blow against neo-liberalism in the next round
of revolutionary struggles will sweep away leaders who seek to reverse
the gains of popular rebellions.
Reparations and African Descendants.
The
third major contradiction for the AU will be how it confronts the
growing threat of fascism. The election of Donald Trump in the United
States and the rise of the ideas of Marie Le Pen in Europe have brought
back the questions of racism and xenophobia to the center of world
politics.
Repairing
humanity from the scourge of racist and genocidal violence has been at
the center of Pan African political activity since the days of
enslavement.
In
the last years of the OAU the Reparations question had been high of the
agenda with positive interactions between the Global African family in
all parts of the planet.
The
present leaders of the AU who have been silent on the question of the
black lives at home and abroad are now faced with a vibrant #Black lives
matter social movement that is spreading in all parts of the globe.
When
Haiti attempted to join the AU in 2016, this African society was
rebuffed by a leadership that does not understand the history of Pan
Africanism and the centrality of Haiti in the History of Pan African
Revolts.
Leaders who understand the so called ‘diaspora’ only in terms of
remittances are being exposed for their silence on what is happening to
Africans on a day to day basis in the face of police killings.
The
demands for reparations and for respecting Black Lives in the era of
Donald Trump will sharpen the contradictions between the EU brand of Pan
African partnership and that which comes from ordinary Africans.
There
is little reference at the official level of how Agenda 2063 would
affect the more than two hundred and fifty million Africans of the
Global African Family living outside the geographical boundaries of
Africa.
At
the bidding of their ‘global partners’ that seek to set the tone for
research and the agenda in Africa there is emphasis on the SDG goals
instead of deepening the understanding of reparations and reparative
justice.
Slowly,
the EU-Pan African partnership is downplaying the aspirations of Agenda
2063 and in its place organizing meetings all over Africa on ‘good
governance’ and ‘security sector reform ‘instead on the role of
financial houses in money laundering.
On
the whole, the present leaders had a different project from the
producing classes who believed that the idea of Africa for the Africans
at home and abroad should not be a slogan.
African intellectuals are torn between these two visions of social and
economic change, with a small minority carrying forward the Nkrumahist
vision that had inspired the call for full unity.
The
political upheavals of the current currency wars and the wars on terror
will have impacts on the entire process of African unity and one of the
challenges for the progressive forces will be how to engage with the
popular producing forces to seize on moments to push harder for a common
currency and to make legal the idea of the free movement of the people
of Africa.
When
the AU Constitutive Act was being drafted, it was the conscious effort
of the progressive Pan Africanists that the AU would be qualitatively
different from the OAU.
The
Secretary General of the OAU had worked from a Secretariat. The AU has a
Commissioner whose powers to intervene are clearly stated in the
Constitutive Act.
Current
leaders such as Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame may grandstand on
reforms and the capabilities of the African Union but the seriousness
with which they will be taken will be determined by the levels of
transparency and democratic participation in their societies.
Non-payment
of dues by member states of the AU is itself a statement about where
their loyalties are. They have kept foreign banks alive while their
people go without basic necessities.
It
is in Nigeria where there is the largest section of the African working
class where one will have to grasp the joint struggles against capital
flight and Boko Haram.
Two
Nigerian leaders were killed when they took assertive action against
empire. The psychological warfare against Nigeria is most intense in
order to detract from the calls to bring to justice the fraudulent
leaders.
Both
Murtala Mohammed and Chief M.K.O Abiola were eliminated when they
decided to stand up for Africa. The late Tajudeen Abdul Raheem had
worked hard for the building of Pan African Unity and he had admonished
the youth to organize.
Conclusion
This
call for organizing is now clearer as the liberal ideas of the West has
been shattered with the coming to power of the alt right in Europe and
North America. These neo fascist forces have made it clear that there
will be no grey areas on the question of racism.
It
is this same racism that entreats the leadership of Europe and North
America to seek the recovery of capitalism on the backs and bodies of
the African at home and abroad.
The
current rebellions in Ethiopia and South Africa demand new engagement
with new ideas about transcending neo-liberal capitalism.
The
same foundations that have supported the leaders in the DRC, Ethiopia,
South Africa and the Sudan are busy organizing meetings to ensure that
the rebellions now underway does not really disrupt the looting of
African resources.
Kenya
remains the model for western foundations of spending peanuts on
studies on ‘democratic reforms’ while international capital support a
Kenyan ruling class that divides the working peoples on the basis of
religion and “tribe”.
The
corruption of the Kenyan military led to their catastrophic defeat in
Somalia in January at the el Ade (comfort base). Somali insurgents
fighting against external military presence in Somalia killed 180
Kenyans in January at a camp in el Ade.
Eleven months after the killings, the Kenyan military refuse to provide
figures as to the numbers killed. Instead, the Kenyan military is
promoting their book, Operation Linda Nchi: Kenya’s military experience
in Somalia. [4]
Faced
with the fact that Kenyans want real information on the deaths in
Somalia, the government of Kenya has refused to provide information as
to how many were killed.
Given
the revolutionary potential of the Ethiopian workers and small farmers,
the President of the USA has used his authority to enlarge the
operations of the US Africa Command in Somalia.
On November 27,
President Obama acted to give the legal authority for the expanding
war in Somalia using the U.S. Special Ops, AFRICOM, private contractors,
and the CIA with the 9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force
(AUMF) for Iraq.
US military personnel in Somalia can easily be redeployed to Ethiopia when the current revolutionary upheaval matures.
Member
states of the African Union have been silent on this expansion of the
war when for two decades it was stated in the corridors of power in
Washington that it was the presence of US military personnel in Africa
that acts as a magnet for misguided youths who are financed by the
Wahabists.
At
the time of submitting this article, the peoples of Africa were
confronted with the clowning refusal of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh
to accept the results of the elections of December 1, 2016 when he lost
to the leader of the combined opposition led by Adama Barrow.
While
the diplomatic dance of the AU and ECOWAS is underway, serious Africans
need to engage with the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative that had been
launched in 2007 by the United Nations Office on Drugs.
Such engagement will shift the discussions on the question of where to get the resources to fund the work of the African Union.
The
renewed confidence of Africans is emerging in the midst of an economic
depression in Europe and at a moment when Africans are stating clearly
that there must be new values for African unity, for healing ourselves
and the world (Maathai 2010).
Wangaari
Maathai as a feminist and environmentalist in the Pan African Movement
had brought the questions of environmental repair to the forefront of
the discussions on Pan Africanism.
This
new brand of Pan Africanism that respects life, health, peace and
environmental reconstruction is slowly asserting itself in all parts of
the Pan African world. The AU will survive the turbulent headwinds.
It is not clear whether most of the current leadership will survive. The three crosscurrents promise to blow many away.
* Horace G Campbell is the Kwame Nkrumah Chair at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana at Legon.
End notes
[1]
Ajayi and L. Ndikumana (eds.), Capital Flight from Africa: Causes,
Effects and Policy Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015
[2] Jon Henley, “Gigantic sleaze scandal winds up as former Elf oil chiefs are jailed,”
[3] Yohannes Woldemariam, Behind Morocco’s New Tango with the African Union, https://www.ghanastar.com/
[4] Official KDF Account, Operation Linda Nchi: Kenya’s Military Experience in Somalia, Ministry of Defence, Kenya 2014
Sent from
The Self-Help News <selfhelpnews@ubol.com>
Approved by
AUSC President.
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