A New Proxy War in Scramble for
Africa<
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/557-a-new-proxy-war-in-scramble-for-africa>
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/557-a-new-proxy-war-in-scramble-for-africa
By Horace Campbell*
IDN-InDepth NewsEssay – Part 3 of 3
Kenyans can now reflect on the changing alliances of the US military inside
Somalia before and after the Ethiopians were defeated by nationalist
elements. Abdi Samatar has written extensively on the ebb and flow of the
fabrication of terrorism. It is again apt to reinforce what Samatar has
said of the US counter-terrorism efforts in the Horn. In his argument on
how the US fabricated terrorism in the Horn of Africa Samatar wrote: "The
hallmark of America's bankrupt policy is the conspicuous gulf between its
democratic rhetoric and its support for thugs, warlords, tyrants, and venal
politicians in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere."
BEIJING (IDN) - In the same week when President Obama announced that US
AFRICOM forces would be assisting the Museveni government to track down
terrorists, the army of Kenya moved into Southern Somalia to pursue those
that the media label as "Islamist militants."
While the western media dubbed this war as "Kenya's first major military
war on foreign soil", this intervention has been an extension of a low
intensity war that has gone on at the Kenyan border since Somalia became
the base for western destabilisation of the Horn of Africa.
Many Somalis opposed this intervention just as they have opposed other
foreign intervention in their country since 1991. In an attempt to keep
this opposition from Somalia out of the international media there were
press reports that the intervention by Kenyan military forces was requested
and welcomed by the US-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG)
in Mogadishu. Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said: "The
governments of Kenya and Somalia are now cooperating in the fight against
al Shabaab, which is an enemy of both countries."
These statements do not hide the reality that all previous incursions by
foreign forces have been resisted by the people of Somalia. From the time
of the first major deployment of United Nations Operation in Somalia, or
UNOSOM, nationalist elements opposed external military intervention.
This phase of external involvement came to a screeching halt after the
Black Hawk Down humiliation in October 1993 when US army rangers sent to
hunt down Aideed were killed in Mogadishu. After the traumatic experiences
of the US soldiers in the so-called Operation Restore Hope of 1993, the
experience of Somalia has been trumpeted as an example of how "failed
states" provide the breeding ground for terrorism in Africa.
Yet, when the people of Somalia moved to stabilise their political
situation, the US colluded with the government of Ethiopia to invade
Somalia on the grounds that the Union of Islamic Courts was harbouring
terrorists. Abdi Samatar, among others, had penetrated the hype behind the
Union of Islamic Courts to outline how the fabrication of terrorism
supported the US military presence in the Horn.
*Bankrupt Policy*
Kenyans can now reflect on the changing alliances of the US military inside
Somalia before and after the Ethiopians were defeated by nationalist
elements. Abdi Samatar has written extensively on the ebb and flow of the
fabrication of terrorism and I have earlier drawn from his work. It is
again apt to reinforce what Samatar has said of the US counter-terrorism
efforts in the Horn. In his argument on how the US fabricated terrorism in
the Horn of Africa Samatar wrote:
"The hallmark of America's bankrupt policy is the conspicuous gulf between
its democratic rhetoric and its support for thugs, warlords, tyrants, and
venal politicians in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. In the minds of most
people in the region American foreign policy and practice has become
synonymous with dictatorship and arrogance, and most people believe that
those are the core values of the America government. Consequently, the US
government has lost the hearts and minds of the Muslim people all over.
America's gifts to the Somali people in the last few years have been
warlords, an Ethiopian invasion, and an authoritarian, sectarian and
incompetent regime."
It is this incompetent regime that has been protected by pliant elements
from African states that are allies of the USA. The people of Kenya had
witnessed the invasion of Ethiopia and the withdrawal of the Ethiopian
troops and how the political leadership in Ethiopia manipulated the Somalia
issue to gain support from western powers.
*What are the Goals?*
The government of Kenya has declared that it will end its military campaign
against Al-Shabaab in Somalia when it is satisfied it has stripped the
group of its capacity to attack across the border. If one goes by the
experience of the past 18 years, then this statement can be read that Kenya
will be in for a long-term deployment to Somalia.
The corollary to this is the reality that Kenya and its cities will be
spaces of war, security clampdown and general destabilisation of the
population. Since the Kenyan foray, there have been two grenade attacks at
a bar and a bus terminal that killed one person and wounded more than 20
people in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. These attacks have already affected
the tourism industry, one of the most important sources of revenue for the
government of Kenya.
*Militarism *
The deployment of Kenyan troops to Somalia was not discussed openly by the
Kenyan Parliament. Those who collaborated with the government of Kenya to
organise this deployment in Somalia are looking way beyond the issue of
Somalia. The more important question is the matter of democratic
participation on Kenya.
Those who have studied wars in Africa, especially counter-insurgency wars,
know that these wars have their own dynamic. One such dynamic is that
invading armies get bogged down. The more the army is bogged down, the more
there are demands for more resources for fighting to get the job done. Wars
are not cheap and precisely the moment when the labour of the Kenyan
working people was being devalued, this deployment of troops is demanding
extra resources from the Kenyan Treasury.
At the same time while resources are diverted to war, revenues from the
tourism industry will diminish in the face of the general climate of
insecurity that will prevail. . . . Mohamed Najib Balala, the Minister of
Tourism sought to reassure foreign tour operators that it is still safe for
tourists to visit Kenya, but international news of grenades being thrown
into bars do not provide good publicity for the tourism industry.
The longer Kenyan troops remain in Somalia, the more there is a danger of
the society being sucked into a long term commitment to fight in a way that
demands states of emergencies inside of Kenya itself.
Terrorism of all kinds must be opposed and extremists must be isolated.
However, the record of the US in the Horn of Africa is that isolation of
extremist elements is the furthest thing from the defence planners in
Washington who are seeking new places for the deployment of US military
resources in the wake of the withdrawal from Iraq.
Jeremy Scahill has documented the musical chairs of the military
entrepreneurs in Somalia and how these entrepreneurs have been able to
shift their alliances according to the whims of the US counter-terror
experts who are now working with the Kenyan military. In his article
entitled 'Blowback in Somalia', Scahill drew a picture of the various
militarists who were enemies of the US in one moment and allies of the US
in another moment. He concluded his analysis in this way:
"In any case, the Shabab's meteoric rise in Somalia, and the legacy of
terror it has wrought, is blowback sparked by a decade of disastrous US
policy that ultimately strengthened the very threat it was officially
intended to crush. In the end, the greatest beneficiaries of US policy are
the warlords, including those who once counted the Shabab among their
allies and friends. 'They are not fighting for a cause,' says Ahmed Nur
Mohamed, the Mogadishu mayor. 'And the conflict will start tomorrow, when
we defeat Shabab. These militias are based on clan and warlordism and all
these things. They don’t want a system. They want to keep that turf as a
fixed post—then, whenever the government becomes weak, they want to say,
'We control here.'"
Al Shabab has always benefitted from foreign intervention and the Kenyan
foray into Somalia will provide these military entrepreneurs the political
legitimacy to argue that they are opposing foreign invaders.
However, from the point of view of this commentary, the more long-term
consequence will be the efforts to torpedo the efforts of the people of
Kenya to end 48 years of kleptocratic rule where the state is run like a
criminal syndicate. If the popular and democratic forces are not organised
to demand a full withdrawal from Somalia, the danger is that this
deployment will cascade into repression leading to a postponement or
cancellation of the elections scheduled for December 2012.
*AFRICOM follows the Tradition of US Failed Enterprises in Africa*
The present remilitarisation of Africa is being opposed in Africa by those
who support peace. Museveni of Uganda and the militarist faction of the
Kenyan leadership have been working hard to push the African Union to be
completely subordinated to the demands of US military crusaders.
On top of the confusion wreaked by the international media, the peace and
justice forces internationally have not been engaged sufficiently on the
question of the remilitarisation of Africa. . . . Bill Fletcher, Carl
Bloice and Jamal Rogers (have) called upon the progressive sections of the
African American community to oppose this remilitarisation. In this
article, they asked in relation to the Obama Foreign Policy in Africa,
where is the outcry?
"It is no rhetorical flourish to say that the foreign policy of the Obama
administration, far from representing a qualitative break with that of the
Bush administration, has proven in most spheres to be continuality."
I want to join my voice to the call by these progressive forces to raise
the opposition to the new vigour of imperialism in Africa. Additionally, I
want to elevate the opposition to the Obama administration’s
remilitarisation of Africa. This call is for the peace movement to put on
their marching boots just as when the previous generation opposed the US
military in their support for Mobutu and apartheid.
>From this record, it is clear that at every moment of African agency to
break from colonial forms of plunder, the USA was willing and ready to
intervene on the side of the exploiters. The most dramatic intervention
came at the period decolonisation when the government of the United States
conspired to assassinate Patrice Lumumba and derail the self-determination
project in Africa. In every region of Africa, progressive and
anti-imperialist leaders were executed and puppets maintained in power.
The second period of militaristic deployment was after the African peoples
gave notice of plans for economic integration under the Lagos Plan of
Action in 1980. The political leadership of the USA responded with the
entrenchment of Structural Adjustment Programmes on the economic front and
the establishment of the US Central Command on the military front.
*Interventionist Thrust*
Most recently, at precisely the moment when the peoples of Africa seek to
strengthen the African Union by setting an agenda for the Union of the
People's of Africa, the militarists have intensified the interventionist
thrust into Africa. In every instance, the commitment for peace and justice
won out over repression and destruction.
The previous efforts at military control of Africa failed. The alliance
between peace forces in Africa and beyond will ensure that this new round
of the scramble for Africa will be resisted and ultimately, defeated. This
is one more reason for the work to unify Africa and work for the
demilitarisation of Africa.
In their testimonies before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier
this year, the representatives from the Department of Defense and the
Department of State went to great lengths to outline how US Africa Command
was now a force for "diplomacy, development and defense."
Africans have understood these Orwellian doublespeak of the intellectually
bankrupt US policymakers who repeat the same arguments that were repeated
when the US was supporting Mobutu as a stabiliser in Africa. This writer
joins the call of those who are calling for the disbanding of the US Africa
Command and for the people of Africa to rise up to oppose dictators and
religious extremists who manipulate religion for military purposes. The
root cause of the "threats to stability and security challenges" all over
Africa stem from the exploitation and plunder of Africa. [END OF PART 3 of
3. Read PARTS 1<
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/551-remilitarisation-of-africa-set-to-fail>and
2<
http://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/global-issues/555-behind-counter-revolution-in-east-africa>
.]
* Horace Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political
Science at Syracuse University. See horacecampbell.net. He is the author of
‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’
and a contributing author to ‘African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions’.
He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of International
Relations at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. A version of this article
appeared on Pambazuka News <
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/>. [IDN-InDepthNews
- November 17, 2011]
Picture: Kenyan troops near al-Shabaab town in Somalia | Credit: ramadji.com
2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters <
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Received on Mon Nov 28 2011 - 23:29:52 EST