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

Far from a Humanitarian Savior, the U.S. Causes Vast Misery In Africa
25 Jul 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Americans want to believe their president when he poses as a humanitarian world leader. But Africa knows different. Literally millions have died and been displaced as a direct result of U.S. imperial strategies. “American policy in Africa is to create chaos, and then to present itself as the cure.”

 

Far from a Humanitarian Savior, the U.S. Causes Vast Misery In Africa

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The United States is the main vector of mass carnage and misery, from Somalia to Libya to Congo and so many points in between.”

The United States has finally made a token effort towards reining in its central African client state, Rwanda, whose destabilization of neighboring Congo has contributed to the deaths of six million people over the past 16 years. A United Nations panel charged that Rwanda has been supporting a Tutsi tribal rebel group in Congo. Rwanda and another U.S. puppet regime, Uganda, have profited enormously from stealing the mineral resources of eastern Congo, in collaboration with U.S. and European mining companies. At the end of last year, 1.7 million Congolese remained homeless, largely because of Rwanda’s continued interference in Congolese affairs.

Bowing ever so slightly to world opinion, Washington announced that it would cut military assistance to Rwanda. As it turns out, the only money the U.S. is withholding is for an academy for Rwandan non-commissioned officers – a measly $200,000 out of a total Rwandan aid package of $528 million. The gesture is an insult to the millions of Congolese who have been killed or displaced by the U.S. and its Rwandan and Ugandan mercenaries.

The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that the number of Somalis forced to leave their country has reached the one million mark. At root, this is also an American crime against humanity. Somalia ranks behind only Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia in its number of displaced persons. And, like the other three countries, Somalia’s humanitarian crisis is the result of Washington’s imperial military strategies.

“The number of Somalis forced to leave their country has reached the one million mark.”

The U.S. dragged Somalia into hell in December of 2006, when it funded and armed an Ethiopia invasion of the country. Tens of thousands were killed outright, and Somalia was robbed of a chance to build peace under a moderately Islamist government. In the capital city, Mogadishu, alone, nearly two million people were forced from their homes, and soon the United Nations declared Somalia “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.”

In the ensuing five years, the United States methodically attempted to starve out the Somali Shabaab resistance forces, so that when the worst drought in 60 years struck the region, last year, mass deaths were inevitable. By now, the U.S. had ensnared most of Somalia’s neighbors in its war – Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, a whole region in flames – in order to facilitate an expansion of U.S. military influence in the region.

Far from playing a humanitarian role in Africa, the United States is the main vector of mass carnage and misery, from Somalia to Libya to Congo and so many points in between. American policy in Africa is to create chaos, and then to present itself as the cure. Economically, the U.S. offers nothing to Africa, except rigged deals and endless debt. Years ago, China eclipsed the U.S. as a trading partner, and now offers Africa more and better quality foreign aid than the Americans. Unable to compete on a level laying field, Washington exports death to Africa, in the form of weapons systems and Green Berets. There is nothing good that the United States can do for Africa, but leave.

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/20120725_gf_CongoSomalia.mp3

More Stories


  • Ethiopia: Tribalism versus National Consciousness
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopia: Tribalism versus National Consciousness
    16 Jun 2021
    Ethiopians struggle to forge a national consciousness that supersedes ethnic tribalism, while international human rights NGOs discuss their "responsibility to protect" them, writes Ann Garriso
  • The Town Crier’s List of Who’s Who in the capitalist state machine
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    The Town Crier’s List of Who’s Who in the capitalist state machine
    16 Jun 2021
    “Ain’t no power like the power of the people— ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop!” bouncing  off summer skyscrapers; ricocheting off resistance 
  • Community Control of Public Safety: Building a Transitional Program for Power 
    Netfa Freeman
    Community Control of Public Safety: Building a Transitional Program for Power 
    16 Jun 2021
    Why is more effort is put into trying to discredit CCOP, while the ruling class is pulling all stops to hoodwink the public with actual reformism, like the George Floyd Act.
  • Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
    Ahjamu Umi
    Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
    16 Jun 2021
    Just like we glorified the black leather jackets, black berets, and guns in the 60s, we still romanticize African people with guns and mouths that fire more inaccurately than the guns they carry.
  • Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    Denis Chabrol
     Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    16 Jun 2021
    The martyred revolutionary’s assassination has finally been acknowledged by the Guyana state, and his works will become part of the educational curriculum. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us