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


  •  Sex was Central to Dutch West Indies Anti-Colonial Politics
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Sex was Central to Dutch West Indies Anti-Colonial Politics
    22 Dec 2020
    Sexual issues were loudly debated among anti-colonial activists in the Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curaçao and Aruba, said Chelsea Shields, a history professor at the City Universi
  •  “Colonial Logics” Remained for Black Women in “Liberated” Zimbabwe
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    “Colonial Logics” Remained for Black Women in “Liberated” Zimbabwe
    22 Dec 2020
    Black women “posed a problem” for the Black government that replaced white rule in Zimbabwe, because their bodies were thought to “disturb urban space,” said Rudo Mudiwa, a PhD in
  •  Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Meets African Liberation
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Meets African Liberation
    22 Dec 2020
    In the political hotbed that was Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1967, US Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael, who had not yet changed his name to Kwame Ture, made both friends and enemies among th
  • You Can’t Shame the Shameless Black Misleadership Class
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    You Can’t Shame the Shameless Black Misleadership Class
    17 Dec 2020
    The Black misleaders have been busy selling out Black people for half a century, but are still only barely tolerated by the rich man’s Democratic Party and its racist figurehead, Joe Biden.
  • Freedom Rider: Master Biden Speaks
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Master Biden Speaks
    16 Dec 2020
    The civil rights groups’ rather basic requests for voting rights protections and the need for federal intervention to address police brutality were minimized and dismissed by the president-ele
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us