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

Where Will the U.S. Strike Next in Africa?
08 Aug 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The U.S. is stalking Africa like an imperial predator. Eritrea is on the short list of who’s going to be attacked next. Eritrea, says the U.S., creates instability. However, “it is not little Eritrea that is destabilizing the Horn of Africa, but the United States, which has made the region a front line in its so-called War on Terror.”

 

Where Will the U.S. Strike Next in Africa?

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Eritrea’s real sin is to be one of the very few nations in Africa that do not have military relations with AFRICOM, the U.S. war machine.”

Under the direction of the United States, the UN Security Council recently extended sanctions for another year against the northeast African nation of Eritrea. The country of 6 million people, nestled against the Red Sea, is on America’s hit list. In the imperial double-speak of Washington, Eritrea is described as a “destabilizing” force in the region – which simply means the government in Asmara has refused to buckle under to U.S. military domination of the Horn of Africa.

Back in 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened to “take action” – and, by that, she meant make war – against Eritrea if it did not stop supporting the Shabab resistance fighters in Somalia. There was no evidence that Eritrea was, in fact, arming the Shabab, and there is no evidence that Eritrea is doing so, now – as the UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia admits.

The monitors, who are, in effect, tools of U.S. policy, reported that they found “no evidence” of Eritrean aid to Somali fighters over the past year, and concluded that, if such assistance exists at all, it is “negligible.” Yet, the UN Security Council, under U.S. pressure, extended the sanctions, anyway. Washington claims that Eritrea’s alleged support for the Shabab has only halted because of the sanctions, and it’s, therefore, too early to lift them – which amounts to punishing Eritrea for having the wrong intentions, whether it acts on them or not.

“In the imperial double-speak of Washington, Eritrea is described as a ‘destabilizing’ force in the region.”

It is, of course, not little Eritrea that is destabilizing the Horn of Africa, but the United States, which has made the region a front line in its so-called War on Terror. Washington's closest ally in the neighborhood is Ethiopia, from which Eritrea won its independence in 1993, after a 30-year war. The U.S. instigated, armed, financed and gave logistical support to Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in 2006, plunging that country into what United Nations observers called “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.” Under American direction, Kenya also invaded Somalia, in the midst of a great famine, last year. The U.S. bankrolls, arms and trains the nominally African Union force that occupies Somalia’s capital, and has turned neighboring Djibouti into the main base for the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM.

And there sits Eritrea, surrounded by warring American puppets, interfering in no one’s affairs, yet determined to defend her sovereignty – accused by the world biggest and most aggressive power of destabilizing the region.

Eritrea’s real sin is to be one of the very few nations in Africa that do not have military relations with AFRICOM, the U.S. war machine. That puts a bulls-eye on her back, along with Zimbabwe and Sudan, which U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice demanded be blockaded and bombed back in the George Bush administration. Barack Obama’s Africa policy is an extension and expansion of Bush’s aim to militarize the continent, and the much older U.S. policy to create chaos and horrific human suffering in those regions it cannot directly control. In practice, Obama’s doctrine is the same as Bush: “You are either with us or against us.”

Eritrea rejects that doctrine; that’s why it is a target. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120808_gf_Eritrea.mp3

More Stories


  • ESSAY: Negro Revolutionary Hero: Toussaint L'Ouverture, Cyril Briggs, 1929
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Negro Revolutionary Hero: Toussaint L'Ouverture, Cyril Briggs, 1929
    20 Jul 2022
    In 1929, Black radical Cyril Briggs penned an essay on Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. For Briggs, both provided inspiration for the fight against the U.S. occupation of Haiti. We…
  •  BAR Book Forum: Steven W. Thrasher’s Book, “The Viral Underclass”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Steven W. Thrasher’s Book, “The Viral Underclass”
    20 Jul 2022
    This week’s featured author is Steven W. Thrasher. Thrasher holds the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair at Northwestern University’s Medill School, the first journalism professorship in the world…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of the UN Mission to Haiti (BINUH)
    Black Alliance For Peace
    Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of the UN Mission to Haiti (BINUH)
    20 Jul 2022
    The ineffective and unpopular UN Mission to Haiti must end.
  • Oil and Imperialism in Africa
    Mark P. Fancher
    Oil and Imperialism in Africa
    20 Jul 2022
    Under imperialism resource wealth can become a curse, such is the case with the EACOP pipeline in East Africa.
  • “December Revolution’s rebirth”: Sit-ins Mark New Stage of Protests Against Sudan’s Military Junta
    Pavan Kulkarni
    “December Revolution’s rebirth”: Sit-ins Mark New Stage of Protests Against Sudan’s Military Junta
    20 Jul 2022
    In the aftermath of the violent repression of protesters on June 30, sit-ins have been organized in various parts of Sudan even as the military junta tries to consolidate power.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us