African Security Problem - A Geopolitical Red Herring for Recolonisation/Evolved Imperialism

Africa - A continent of 54 states

Introduction

In the background of the 24^th Africa Union Summit in Addis Ababa, a profound high-jacking of the agenda by misinforming Western media seem to find the gem in the election of Zimbabwean president as the AU chairman. Beyond appropriating headlines, the same suspects have latched on post-liberation-struggles imposed insecurity. It is the position of this article that Africa’s imposed insecurity is a function of geopolitical struggle on a wider spectrum between Western alliance and China. Insecurity and instability are manufactured tools or weapons in the geopolitical/geostrategic calculations of foreign powers’ arsenal. Unfortunately, Africa and Africans have become victims duly co-opted and cooperative under duress.

After Cuito Carnavale

In an era of instant messaging and 24-hrs news/misinformation, most of what is lost in not the underlying truth but also the historicity of content. Western media and western capitals have sustained misinformation projecting Africa as insecure & unstable. This is all the more poignant from sections of vulture-investors nevertheless Chinese, Indian, Korean and Russian investments continue to role in.

1987-1988 Battle of Cuito Carnavale in Angola set a watershed for eliminating a pillar of African instability in a proxy geopolitical war between United States and ideological communism. It may seem far away now but the essence cannot be dismissed. The scene was set by a fudged or muddled Portuguese policy towards Angolan independence which exposed colonial Lisbon as a farce laced with impotence displayed in the 1975 Treaty of Alvor. So instead of presenting a clear transition to independence, weak Lisbon played for sustained conflict between various independence parties.

These parties included pro-communist Popular Movement for Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Zaire-backed National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and South Africa-US backed Union for Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA). Typical clash of liberation fighters! Surely they clashed as Lisbon sublet the problem by repacking it as ideological conflict. Above all the motivating issue is Angola’s rich mineral and marine resources. Remember the battle for South Sudan, same policies never change!

Rich reserves of crude oil & diamond among others, massive fishing generated by cold Benguela Current off Angolan coast and potential regional market domination in a stable environment provides geopolitical markers of which any new state must be collared at conception. See figure below.

Benguela Current - Source: www.microecho.ethz.ch

From the south, South Africa with its obnoxious apartheid footprint was already a regional policeman projecting power from Cape to Northern Angolan parallel across the whole of Southern Africa. Apartheid South Africa launched unprovoked attacks on Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and others states on the pretext of pursuing liberation fighters. See Map below for apartheid military spatial capability. Namibia then SW Africa was a South African occupied territory. White Pretoria was not only exploiting with impunity internally but with massive foreign support had a grip on its huge neighbourhood/market. US naturally allied with Pretoria which is understandable with its Jim Crow/slavery policy for over 300 years.

Apartheid South Armed Forces spatial range in Southern Africa

Fast-forward to 1975 when MPLA (backed by Cuba, Nigeria and USSR) gained Luanda hence provisional power, only time play for showdown. As a communist party ruffling feathers over rich real estate, Western calculation confirmed its elimination. Cuba and Nigeria understood this strategic gambit. When battle joined it was bloody, exhaustive, expensive and prolonged until the 1987-1988 battle which not only eliminated presumed invincibility of white South African forces but served the death kneel of apartheid. See Map below.

Exaggerated Map of Angola - Source: Wikipeadia

Read Piero Gleijeses’ Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976 & Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 for comprehensive treatment. On the basis of this battle, generations-long struggle for African dignity, freedom and ontology was won. The result include assured security of Angola under MPLA, elimination of apartheid ideology and its white minority rule in South Africa, independence of Namibia, conclusion of liberation struggle in the region and finally reversing Pretoria’s (United States) role in destabilisation of Southern Africa region.

IMF/World Masterstroke & Post-Soviet Malaise

Africa with her massive reserves of mineral, marine and hydrological resources can never be dismissed by foreign powers. For geopolitical powers including China, Africa offers the best laboratory for experimenting with imperialism, stretching the limiting of its evolution and modification. Coming on the onus of capitalism, the main thrust is making profit via vehicle of instability unleashed by industrial violence if possible with limited boots on the ground. This imposed instability by the West doesn't serve Africa’s strategic interest and this picture has dominated the continent for the past 2-3 centuries.

Nested western interests converged on United States supreme dictation parcelled out to European losers of WW2 especially UK and France reflect the main vehicle for Africa’s instability. France is quite deft in these matters. For history, it mustn't be denied or argued that USSR forces not only won WW2 but sacrificed millions of men/women and massive resources. USSR never haunted Africa. Read Vladimir Alexandrov The Black Russian for unique experience of a US person of African descent in Imperial Russia.

The so-called wind of change of independence never transformed ‘independent’ countries to security, clarity and stability. The new elite were and remain in the most part holdovers of colonial operations. This is clear especially in French colonised countries with their treasuries in the Bank of France. So by 1970s groundwork was laid for extension of impunity on Africa by UK & France. In addition to adverse natural conditions, bankrupt African economies gradually got hooked on massive borrowing of western funds. An addiction that developed dependence! The borrowed funds never stayed in Africa and there was no development of substance rather it recycled back in flight to Europe and United States while interest piled for citizens. Watch/read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by J Perkins for further treatment!

1980s ushered in IMF/World Bank medicine of Austerity/Structural Adjustment which finished off and started another round of regression in Africa. It was at the same period that HIV/AIDS appeared on the scene to complement the onslaught against Africans. The purpose of these geostrategic measures is to regress, degrade and eliminate Africa as a viable force in determining her own affairs by any means necessary. These geostrategic policies are renewed by Washington DC to suit her strategic interest over time or in response to serious challenges by other/new powers.

Look at Greece today with the same arguments made against Athens similar to those made on Africa & South America. Austerity is a weapon of economic warfare deployed against nations/countries by geopolitical powers in collaboration with domestic privileged and elite to extract their submission, subjugation, impotence, regression and ontological destruction.

It must be stressed that Moscow’s footprint in Africa was limited by design which classified hierarchies of communistic tendency on strict criteria of orthodoxy implemented by Joseph Stalin and remain unchanged by his successors including Mikhail Gobarchev. By the time USSR became history every geopolitical proxy in Africa set up to counter the presumed Moscow threat was cut adrift by Washington DC. This was best expressed in Zaire in President Mobutu Sese Seko’s meltdown and collapse of the country thereafter which continues till today. Patrice Lumumba saw it decades in advance!

Geographically African centre rich in mineral resources connecting Congo, Gabon, DRC, Central Africa, Rwanda and Burundi is hollowed out for reasons to be explained later. Communism and Moscow were perfect objects of false flagging and misinformation to advance western interests towards coveting mineral resources via fear, conflicts, insecurity and instability realised by industrial violence in Africa. The case of Zanzibar in the 1960 is a textbook in geopolitical red herring!

Full Spectrum Dominance Phase

In the absence of a superpower challenger, Washington DC relaxed into geopolitics of hubris savouring the globe as her object of unchallenged manipulations over time. For Africa a window of opportunity gradually emerged in some regions as one funnel of resources was closed. Post-apartheid Africa generated new geopolitical demarcation of the continent by Clinton regime into 4 distinct sub-sectors assigned to a regional policeman; Nigeria for West Africa, Egypt for North Africa, South Africa for Southern Africa and Ethiopia for East Africa. In the meantime US AFRICOM was dangled and rejected by African leaders prior to 2001.

There are few frozen conflicts or cold peace in Africa. Conflicts in Africa are concluded regardless of duration.  Prior to 2001 remnants of conflicts in various regions are either in decline or are grinding to a halt towards new inclusive elite democracy or demilitarised decision making at the centre.In Southern Africa, effective cut-off of direct foreign support and resources from South Africa and Zaire to the UNITA enabled Luanda to regain full territorial control in routing UNITA. Instability in the Cabinda area was reversed. As a geopolitical space, military conflict was eliminated in Africa and became ripe for other kinds of instability exemplified by the unfortunate alignment of Nelson Mandela with neoliberal economic forces.

In West Africa a combination of forces converged to unleash conflagration in the region. Despite cessation of Libyan interference in Chad’s Aouzou Strip (rich in uranium), 1987 murder of Captain Thomas Sankara reconfigured Burkina Faso as the new linchpin of regional destabilisation. Ex-president Blaise Compaore strategically placed Ouagadougou as the entrepot of weapons & equipments supply from Libya and France to destabilise Liberia and Sierra Leone both rich in diamond. Interestingly Monrovia’s overplaying her hand and sucked Guinea in while Cote d’Ivorie played for time until her own rebels sought assistance from Ouagadougou that finally brought Allassane Quattara to power in 2011.

While Nigeria projected power in stemming the conflict with ECOMOG, unfortunately Lagos/Abuja was fuzzy on the complexity of responses the foreign conflict stakeholders will unleash on her interests even within her territorial space. Principally, Nigeria is the main obstacle to French ambition in Africa especially in the west sub-region. Remember the difference of opinion and policy between Washington DC and Lagos on Angola in 1976. Relationships between Lagos backing of MPLA and the 1976 murder of the approving (Nigerian) Head of State remain fuzzy.  

Interestingly French France-Afrique operations continue unabated as perceived in the changing internal forces in Congo, Chad, Niger and other countries under Paris bidding until 2001 arrived. In addition Nigeria’s destabilisation furthers French interest rather than Washington DC. Without Africa, France is diminished hence the current Boko Haram insertion cannot be dislocated from French influence. Remember the French president 2014 emergency summit on Nigeria & her neighbours in Paris following Chibok girls’ abduction, which Nigerian president broke protocol to attend. A meeting Abuja should have initiated and hosted.

Earlier allegation by Abuja against Ouagadougou (under Blaise Compaore) sponsoring/collaboration with Boko Haram was unanswered. Rather Nigeria is encircled by new US strategic assets in military/drone bases in surrounding former French colonies. Admittedly Abuja has been supine and dormant in diplomacy and bereft of robustness in driving internal cohesion for nearly 2 decades. Evidence is the current inability of Nigerian Armed Forces to subdue and eliminate Boko Haram. Rather African Union and even Chad is called upon to support and assist Abuja. The turn of fortunes!

North Africa erupted in massive turmoil when Algeria erstwhile power refused to cede power peacefully in 1992. The outcome became renewed war of independence without Paris as the opponent. Nevertheless from Morocco (asphyxiating Western Sahara) to Egypt an ossifying form of stability tied mostly to Washington DC design played out.

On the eastern flank interesting developments were unfolding. Sudanese debacle moved into irreversible gear with SPLA dug in with United States support channelled via Uganda and Kenya. Somalia has already drawn blood of Washington DC in 1993-1994 which later influenced policy underpinning US AFRICOM. Was this a deliberate ploy to trigger a new policy or influenced US domestic audience? Simply in Africa strategic geopolitical interests must be pursued with if possible no boots on the ground. Drones haven’t come into military formations at the time.

However as Zaire unravelled, Rwanda dissipated and Uganda waxed strong and in the near future was reading for battle. Weak Zaire opened for power grab while Uganda assisted rebel forces to destabilise Rwanda culminating in the 100-day genocide. Current Rwandan president was Ugandan Army Intelligence chief. Fingerprints of United States and France were written all over the conflict as Rwanda emerged as a powerful army devoid of a durable state, an export/’producer’ of mineral resources, a dependable accessory of United State and a member of bilateral axis US satrapy in East Africa. Read Reyntjens Filip’s The great African war: Congo and regional geopolitics for comprehensive treatment.

War on Terror cum Pivot to Asia

Degradation of Soviet influence opened the door wider for China to express her ambition in Africa. United States obsession (with crude oil) in Arab world & Afghanistan ensured that geopolitical vacuum cannot exist in Africa of which Beijing latched on with the masquerading policies of co-developing status and co-colonised victimhood. This is another imperial quisling masquerading weakness for a time at least on the economic front without hanging on to territorial ambitions. Time will come later in future for such adventures and memories of Boxer’s Rebellion may recede.

Considering the complexity of relationship between Washington DC and Beijing, on the one hand the former wants to constrain/contain the latter while it simultaneously wants to extract profits from the latter’s markets at least by US elite. US also wants to contain Chinese influence beyond her shores including moderating her access to and supply of mineral resources which Beijing pays for at world market price. Since most of Chinese mineral supply comes from Africa and China is deploying various policies to maintain her market share/supply chain including building strategic relationship with various African capitals, these interests are deemed threatening by Washington DC.

Dubbing Africa a geography of terrorism and insecurity is classic misinformation. Washington DC is willing to continue to underwrite insecurity and instability through industrial violence in Africa to pursue her interest. Convergence of US & Saudi interests in an apparent Saudisation of US (African) policy is an example of bizarre militarisation of binary violence of which Africans are helpless victims.

Another important outcome of 2001 is the wholesale subordination of French France-Afrique policy to US State Department in an attempt not to muscle out London rather to sustain her core interest against buoyant and expanding Chinese strategy. In a sense France is avoiding or slowing down evident de-imperialisation. Austerity has a downside; it weakens foreign policy, geopolitical ambitions and projection of power.

A decade on war-on-terror, the war machine was redirected against Africa. This corrosive and regressive foreign policy enhanced on Africa by US president of African descent is troubling at least for its diminution of leadership. In 2011 Libya was destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Libyans murdered including their leader with losses on Libyans for generations to come while billions of dollars in investment were irreparably lost to Chinese, Turkish and Russian investors. (Turkey assumed her handsome reward will come with quick overthrow of Damascus hence the frost in current US relations).

The attack on Libya created expected spatial dispersal effects on destructive forces inserted across the region and increasing insecurity. The whole of North Africa is boiling and for good measure an elected leader was excusably removed from power under duress in Egypt. Lesson for the all especially countries with nuclear capability!

South Sudan is barely a state. Kenya, a poor and struggling client was recruited for a few dollars more to keep boots on the ground in Somalia and eventually got stuck. Strategically, Nairobi is seeking for an exit strategy from Somalia which will only materialise when Washington DC approves. In the mean time there are more tasks (including internally in Kenya) to be done irrespective of any emerging evidence for immediate Somalia exit; hence Kenya’s client status will continue to undermine her independence and sovereignty.

US AFRICOM is now in ascendant with massive military aid (instead of development assistance) provided to many African capitals to fight off imaginary ‘terrorists’ consisting of mainly of opposition party members and legal power challengers to the status quo. US will raise the spectre of her bulging military aid to Africa but check the footprint in African blood then a better picture will emerge. Few years ago in the central Africa region, US deployed her forces in the excused pursuit of Lord’s Resistance Army group despite clear evidence that the group has receded into a band of loose hungry stragglers. What was Washington DC intention if not insecurity and instability?

If French position is injected the picture becomes clearer. Central African Republic has of late become a hub for western media. Her presidents are changing rather in quick succession for a simple reason. In the face of austerity which devastated French treasury, Bangui decided to invite China to explore and invest in mineral resources development in erstwhile French sphere of influence.  Paris construed such seeking of foreign investment as an affront and nipped Beijing investment in the bud by organising regime change. The macabre of death and merchants of murder plundering Central African Republic currently is underwritten by Paris.

Similar event is observed in Cote d’Ivorie were then President Gbagbo defied Paris hence inviting the blood thirsty President Nicolas Sarkozy to invade an already wounded country and overthrow the government for its favoured man to take power. There is a blunted parallel for US in her erstwhile backyard of South America back in the days.

Conclusion

Africa is a continent of stability, security and huge potential. Imperial ambition of foreign powers and geopolitical design of future powers is expressed in their united position to covet, exploit and denude Africa’s huge mineral, hydrological, marine and human resources. These foreign powers underwrote, are underwriting and will underwrite insecurity and instability. Insecurity and instability are in themselves weapons for gaining advantage in geopolitics.

Masquerading as market innovation based on profit, capitalism is once again deployed to extract maximum result in tandem with industrial violence and abiding fear. It is this fear that overhangs when Africa is mentioned while her airports are teeming with plane-loads of foreign investors and her seaports bursting with exports of unprocessed minerals/assets and imports of domestic-market suffocating, cheap-low-quality tangibles. Only Africa and Africans can create and sustain her own security, stability and unfettered development. It is only feasible when Africa unites!