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Monday, 7/21/97 Hands off! AFRICA: Western involvement in Africa is a detriment to African people

So often we in the Western world hear our politicians talk of how our world is at peace. Of course, the African continent is not an area which they are referring to when speaking of "peace." Although the continent has undergone a lot of positive successes in the 1990s, such as the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Botswana's astounding economic success, independence for the nations of Eritrea and Namibia, and high prospects for economic success in Ghana, the 1990s will also be known as one of the bloodiest periods for many countries in the African continent. A seven-year war in once-peaceful Liberia, a civil war in Somalia which included direct U.S involvement, an Angola which has been shattered by a war lasting over 20 years, the 1994 genocide of over 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, and a civil war in Democratic Congo (until recently known as Zaire) have characterized this decade. Currently the agenda of the United States is the creation of an African Peacekeeping Force which would be able to respond to crises such as those described above. The operation has been termed the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), and will include U.S. training of African militaries in Uganda, Senegal, Mali, Malawi, Ghana and Ethiopia. Probable additions to this list are Rwanda and Eritrea, strategically important nations because of their close proximity to U.S.-supported Islamic Sudan, which has been at war for many years with Southern Sudan's Christian SPLA. U.S. State Department spokesman John Dinger has stated, "the whole point of this is to decrease reliance on outside intervention and provide an African ability to respond to requirements for humanitarian peacekeeping ... our objective is to join with France, the U.K. and others to move this initiative forward as quickly and coherently as possible." While many critics applaud the ACRI as an alternative to direct Western involvement in the problems of Africa (such as the disastrous U.S. mission to Somalia earlier this decade), many critical questions come to mind about this proposed peacekeeping force. Who would be in charge? The Organization of African Unity? The United Nations? Would ACRI be just another arm to protect the interests of the West? Would ACRI be another success for countries with a record of human rights abuses and provide easy access to weapons to oppress their own people? Although all of these concerns are important, history shows us that Western involvement in African affairs, both direct and indirect, has had a disastrous effect on African nations. After over a century of exploiting Africa for its mineral and strategic resources, why should the Africans believe now that the West is interested in helping Africa? When one objectively looks at virtually every major conflict which has taken place on the African continent, (Somalia, Rwanda, Angola, Zaire, Central African Republic and Liberia) it becomes evident that at least one of the Western nations has either been a player in that struggle or was directly involved by initiating it. The most relevant examples of the U.S. playing a significant role in African politics are Somalia and Zaire. In 1992, the U.S. government under the Bush administration sent troops to Somalia after Americans became exposed nightly to emaciated, starving children in a country which was involved in a brutal civil conflict. Those same Americans months later started to cry out for the U.S. to pull out of Somalia after seeing pictures of dead American servicemen being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. Yet what most people didn't think about was the fact that the Somalis that killed U.S. servicemen had weapons that were supplied to them by the United States! During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Siad Barre, the dictator of Somalia, was a puppet for the U.S. in the Cold War against Soviet imperialism. Somalia was strategically important for the U.S. because of its proximity to the horn of Africa to the Middle East (They had established a military base, and a significant military presence in Somalia). Secondly, Somalia was involved in a war with neighboring Ethiopia, which was receiving a staggering amount of support from the Soviet Union. Ethiopia was seen as Africa's Soviet stronghold and if the Somalis lost the war, a communist "domino effect" could happen in the other nations of Africa. Despite the fact that Barre was a dictator notorious for butchering political rivals, civilians, and anyone in general who stood against him since he seized power since 1969, the United States sent him weapons for the war against the Commies every year. In effect, the U.S. did everything it could to ensure that he remained in power despite repeated attempts to overthrow him. By the time the Cold War was finally ending and Siad Barre was overthrown, Somalia's infrastructure had been completely destroyed by the U.S.-supported dictator. Chaos erupted in the form of a civil war. The U.S, which of course never admitted to its shameful role in the Somalia conflict through the American media, sought to score brownie points in the global community by spearheading a humanitarian mission to Somalia, to fix a situation which to a large extent it helped to create. Yet in the mind of the U.S. government, Somalia could be seen as a success, for it was through the pimping of Somalia that they were successful in winning the war against communism in Africa, even if they had to do it through a corrupt dictator with no respect for human life. In former Zaire (now renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo), the U.S. helped overthrow in 1960 Patrice Lumumba, the democratically-elected president of that country, which would have repercussions lasting until present-day Congo. What made Lumumba particularly dangerous to the West was the fact that he was a socialist and a Pan-Africanist. This meant that Lumumba was a man who believed in the unity of the entire African continent and the end of colonialism, both de-facto and economic. Lumumba and his compatriot, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, were gearing up to steer the African continent on a path of unity and self-sufficiency from ex-colonial leaders who wanted to continue the rape of Africa for its mineral resources. Back in Washington D.C., Lumumba's staunch Pan-Africanist stance did not fit so well with the U.S. government's Cold War psychology. In America's eyes, a country either stood on the inside or outside of the Iron Curtain. Washington also knew that Congo contained over 70 percent of the world's cobalt, an essential component for aerospace alloys, as well as being rich in uranium, which is necessary for nuclear devices. Washington simply could not afford the possibility of Congo falling into Soviet hands, which would give the Soviets a drastic strategic advantage over the Americans. To make a very long story short, the CIA, Joseph Mobutu, chief of staff of Congo's military, and his army decided to find, capture, and eliminate Patrice Lumumba at all costs. Lumumba, the president of Congo, was arrested by Mobutu and his men, and sent to the southern province of Katanga where he was executed. Soon afterwards, Mobutu, with the help of the CIA, would become president of Congo, renaming the country Zaire. During Mobutu's 32-year, CIA- sponsored reign, he would become one of the richest men in the world - worth well over $10 billion - by stealing funds from Zaire's banks, mines and national revenues. In turn, Zaire plunged into a state of abject poverty ($100=50,000 zaires). To complicate the situation, on three different occasions the Zairian people would rise to overthrow Mobutu, and on each occasion the CIA and France would send soldiers (most often mercenaries) to save Mobutu's butt! It wasn't until May of this year that Laurant Kabila, in conjunction with Rwanda Minister of Defense Paul Kagame, and Uganda's President Museveni (both U.S. allies) was able to end the CIA stooge's 32-year reign. The question which is now raised is why the West or the CIA did not once again come to Mobutu's rescue. The answer is that now the name of the game is no longer the Cold War, but free market economies. In fact, right after wresting power from Mobutu, a company headquartered in Arkansas signed a billion dollar contract with Kabila for exclusive mining rights. According to Vanity Fair writer Alex Shoumatoff, President Clinton offered Kabila $50 million and military cooperation if the new regime adheres to human rights standards. Now that the Congo is no longer of as much strategic importance (except as buffer zone against Islamic Sudan), its future lies more with corporations than with the CIA. I could of course go on with several other examples of the West's involvement in Africa and its detrimental effect on African people (the 1994 genocide of over 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda which was sponsored by France, the CIA involvement in the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, the CIA's involvement in the Angolan conflict, the CIA and U.S. government's support of South Africa's apartheid era regime), but in the interests of the Daily Bruin's space, I will conclude here. I believe that a nation as powerful and as rich as the United States has the power to do a lot of great things, not only in Africa, but all over the world, yet when that help entails some type of military action, or CIA operations, which has typically been the case, it has the effect of destabilizing African governments, and usually supports the greedy and corrupt bed buddies of the West while the people remain in abject poverty. The West has used Africa as a Cold War platform for their own political means which led to an economic exploitation which will take decades for Africa to recover from. In short, I believe Africa has to learn how to depend on Africa, for whenever the West becomes involved in any way, shape or form, there are usually strings attached, and a lot of small print which has very detrimental effects on the future of the African continent. Victor Patton Previous Daily Bruin Story: 'I'm sorry' just isn't enough, 7/7/97

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