Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

America and the Politics of Genocide in Africa
07 Nov 2012

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Uganda threatened to pull out of the dirty war in Somalia unless it was afforded continued immunity for its mass murders in Congo. Washington is the Big Daddy of both bloodbaths. Within days, Uganda backed down, since a “withdrawal from Somalia would amount to going on strike against its employer, the United States.”

 

America and the Politics of Genocide in Africa

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The genocide in Congo is the deliberate result of American and British policy.”

On Tuesday, the vast majority of African Americans cast their votes for a man whose hands are soaked in the blood of millions of Congolese. Barack Obama, like his predecessors George Bush and Bill Clinton, has pulled the strings, paid the cash, and sent the weapons that Uganda and Rwanda have used to cause the deaths of six million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo since invading that country in 1996. Various organs of the United Nations have repeatedly found America’s two top allies in Black Africa complicit in the Congo genocide, and on every occasion, the U.S. and Great Britain have protected the mass murderers. And why not? The genocide in Congo is the deliberate result of American and British policy. Uganda and Rwanda are merely henchmen, who commit mass murder in return for a cut of Congo’s vast stores of mineral resources. Western businesses are the ultimate beneficiaries.

The International Court of Justice found Uganda guilty, in 2005, of killing and torturing Congolese civilians and plundering the country’s resources. Congo asked for $10 billion in reparations, but Uganda has paid nothing. Why should it? Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, was Ronald Reagan’s favorite African dictator and has served U.S. African policy, ever since. Uganda does not act on its own, but as a military asset of the United States. The same goes for Rwanda, which has been repeatedly cited for virtually annexing the eastern Congo in close collaboration with Ugandan forces. Rwanda President Paul Kagame acts as a puppet for U.S. policy in Africa, in return for lavish American military and economic aid and free rein to plunder and kill in the Congo.

Rwanda and Uganda are immune from international law because they do Washington’s bidding, sending troops wherever they are needed to buttress U.S. interests in Africa.

“What is a samurai without a lord and master?”

Last week, Uganda pitched a kind of puppet tantrum, threatening to pull its troops out of so-called peace-keeping duties in Somalia. Museveni’s government is angry, because yet another United Nations report has been leaked, showing that Ugandan and Rwandan military officers are directly in charge of the so-called rebels that are wreaking havoc in Congo. This is not a Congolese civil war, but a continuation of a 16-year aggression by its two neighbors, financed and directed by the United States and Britain.

Uganda’s threat to pull out of Somalia has proven to be empty. After all, what is a samurai without a lord and master? Uganda’s value to the United States lies in its willingness to kill other Africans on orders from Washington. A Uganda withdrawal from Somalia would amount to going on strike against its employer, the United States – a very dangerous thing to do. Besides, who else is going to employ the Ugandan and Rwandan mercenaries?

By the time the Uganda delegation got to New York, there was no more mention of leaving Somalia, much less a Ugandan disengagement from the U.S. Special Forces units that President Obama sent into the Great Lakes region, last year. Uganda had temporarily forgotten its place as a servant in the neocolonial scheme of things. But, in truth, the Ugandans and Rwandans need not worry about the U.S. cracking down on their genocidal activities in Congo, because that, too, serves America’s purpose: to control Africa by drowning it in chaos and blood.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20121107_gf_UgandaCongoSomalia.mp3

More Stories


  • Reclaiming Our Time for the Planet
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Reclaiming Our Time for the Planet
    03 Nov 2021
                                                                        Reclaiming our time
  • BAR Book Forum: Kyle T. Mays’ “An Afro-BAR Book Forum: Kyle T. Mays’ “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States” Indigenous History of the United States”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Kyle T. Mays’ “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States”
    02 Nov 2021
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Kyle T. Mays.
  • Historic Landmark Decision Gives David Win Over Goliath: Maryland Court Halts Sale of Moses African Cemetery by Developer
    Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, BAR editor and columnist
    Historic Decision Gives David Win Over Goliath: Maryland Court Halts Sale of Moses African Cemetery by Developer
    02 Nov 2021
    A judge has ruled in favor of the community fighting to prevent a real estate developer from destroying an African American cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland.
  • Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua
    Netfa Freeman
    Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua
    02 Nov 2021
    While the US government haggles over the cost of providing basic human rights to its citizens, it is also targeting countries like Nicaragua that struggle to guarantee these rights to all of it
  • Sudanese March Yet Again, Demanding Full-Fledged Civilian Rule
    Pavan Kulkarni
    Sudanese March Yet Again, Demanding Full-Fledged Civilian Rule
    02 Nov 2021
    The people of Sudan are protesting against the US and NATO trained coup leaders. They demand civilian rule and the rights to self-determination guaranteed under international law.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us