- Harare - AFRICAN revolutionaries now have to sleep with
one eye open because the United States of America is not stopping at anything
in its bid to establish Africom, a highly-equipped US army that will be
permanently resident in Africa to oversee the country's imperialist interests.
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- Towards the end of last year, the US government intensified
its efforts to bring a permanent army to settle in Africa, dubbed the African
Command (Africom) as a latest tool for the subtle recolonisation of Africa.
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- Just before end of last year, General William E. Garret,
Commander US Army for Africa, met with defence attaches from all African
embassies in Washington to lure them into selling the idea of an American
army based in Africa to their governments.
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- Latest reports from the White House this January indicate
that 75 percent of the army's establishment work has been done through
a military unit based in Stuttgart, Germany, and that what is left is to
get an African country to host the army and get things moving.
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- Liberia and Morocco have offered to host Africom while
Sadc has closed out any possibility of any of its member states hosting
the US army.
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- Other individual countries have remained quiet.
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- Liberia has longstanding ties with the US due to its
slave history while errant Morocco, which is not a member of the African
Union and does not hold elections, might want the US army to assist it
to suppress any future democratic uprising.
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- Sadc's refusal is a small victory for the people of Africa
in their struggle for total independence but the rest of the regional blocs
in Africa are yet to come up with a common position. This is worrying.
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- The US itself wanted a more strategic country than Morocco
and Liberia since the army will be the epicentre of influencing, articulating
and safeguarding US foreign and economic policies.
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- The other danger is that Africom will open up Africa
as a battleground between America and anti-US terrorist groups.
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- Africom is a smokescreen behind which America wants to
hide its means to secure Africa's oil and other natural resources, nothing
more.
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- African leaders must not forget that military might has
been used by America and Europe again and again as the only effective way
of accomplishing their agenda in ensuring that governments in each country
are run by people who toe their line.
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- By virtue of its being resident in Africa, Africom will
ensure that America has its tentacles easily reaching every African country
and influencing every event to the American advantage.
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- By hosting the army, Africa will have sub-contracted
its military independence to America and will have accepted the process
that starts its recolonisation through an army that can subdue any attempts
by Africa to show its own military prowess.
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- The major question is: Who will remove Africom once it
is established? By what means?
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- By its origin Africom will be technically and financially
superior to any African country's army and will dictate the pace for regime
change in any country at will and also give depth, direction and impetus
to the US natural resource exploitation scheme.
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- There is no doubt that as soon as the army gets operational
in Africa, all the gains of independence will be reversed.
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- If the current leadership in Africa succumbs to the whims
of the US and accept the operation of this army in Africa, they will go
down in the annals of history as that generation of politicians who accepted
the evil to prevail.
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- Even William Shakespeare would turn and twist in his
grave and say: "I told you guys that it takes good men to do nothing
for evil to prevail."
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- We must not forget that Africans, who are still smarting
from colonialism-induced humiliation, subjugation, brutality and inferiority
complex, do not need to be taken back to another form of colonialism, albeit
subtle.
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- Africom has been controversial on the continent ever
since former US president George W. Bush first announced it in February
2007.
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- African leaders must not forget that under the Barack
Obama administration, US policy towards Africa and the rest of the developing
world has not changed an inch. It remains militaristic and materialistic.
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- Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations
argue that the major objective of Africom is to professionalise security
forces in key countries across Africa.
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- However, both administrations do not attempt to address
the impact of the setting up of Africom on minority parties, governments
and strong leaders considered errant or whether the US will not use Africom
to promote friendly dictators.
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- Training and weapons programmes and arms transfers from
Ukraine to Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Ethiopia and the transitional government
in Somalia, clearly indicate the use of military might to maintain influence
in governments in Africa, remains a priority of US foreign policy.
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- Ukraine's current leadership was put into power by the
US under the Orange Revolution and is being given a free role to supply
weaponry in African conflicts.
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- African leaders must show solidarity and block every
move by America to set up its bases in the motherland unless they want
to see a new round of colonisation.
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- Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Nelson Mandela,
Julius Nyerere, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto and
Samora Machel, among others, will have fought liberation wars for nothing,
if Africom is allowed a base in Africa.
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- Thousands of Africans who died in colonial prisons and
in war fronts during the liberation struggles, will have shed their blood
for nothing if Africa is recolonised.
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- Why should the current crop of African leaders accept
systematic recolonisation when they have learnt a lot from colonialism,
apartheid and racism? Why should the current crop of African leaders fail
to stand measure for measure against the US administration and tell it
straight in the face that Africa does not need a foreign army since the
AU is working out its own army.
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- African leaders do not need prophets from Mars to know
that US's fascination with oil, the war on terrorism and the military will
now be centred on Africa, after that escapade in Iraq.
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- Tichaona Nhamoyebonde is a political scientist based
in Cape Town, South Africa.
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