Five decades since
the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) while the Pentagon and
NATO escalates its war drive on the continent
The following
lecture was delivered at the Africa & U.S. Imperialism Conference held in Detroit on May 18, 2013.
The event was sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War &
Injustice (MECAWI)
Image Patrice
Lumumba
May 25, 2013
represents the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African
Unity (OAU), the forerunner of the present African Union which formed in 2002.
This conference today is taking place at a critical time within the history of Africa and the Diaspora.
Even though there
has been tremendous progress in Africa and throughout the African world since
1963, the imperialists have devised mechanism to continue and expand the
exploitation and consequent oppression of African people on the continent and
indeed throughout Europe, North America and Latin America.
This conference sends congratulatory messages to the AU in the midst of this
anniversary.
African Heads of
State. Foundation of the OAU in May 1963
We are following
the situation surrounding the summit which begins on May 19 and extends through
May 27. The meeting in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia is
being held under the theme of “Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance,” in
an attempt to return the continental organization back to its political origins
born in the ferment of the African revolutionary struggle of the 1960s.
According to the
description on the African Union website publicizing the 21st Summit of the AU, it says that
“The year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary
celebration of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It
will also be a little more than a decade since the formation of the African
Union, which seeks to promote ‘an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a
dynamic force in global arena.’ Consequently, the Heads of State declared 2013
the Year of Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.
Africa and U.S. Imperialism
The Pentagon has been busy training African military
officers in the US,
much as it has for Latin American officers for decades. Its International
Military Education and Training (IMET) program has provided training to
military officers from Chad,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon
and the Central African Republic,
in effect every country on Sudan’s
border. Much of the arms that have fuelled the killing in Darfur and the south
have been brought in via murky, protected private “merchants of death” such as
the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor
Bout. Bout has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across
Africa. US Government officials strangely
leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched
despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.
US
development aid for all Sub-Sahara Africa including Chad, has been cut sharply in
recent years while its military aid has risen. Oil and the scramble for
strategic raw materials is the clear reason. The region of southern Sudan from the Upper Nile to the borders of Chad is rich in
oil. Washington
knew that long before the Sudanese government.
China and USA in New Cold War over Africa’s oil riches 
China Oil diplomacy
In recent months,
Beijing has embarked on a series of initiatives designed to secure
long-term raw materials sources from one of the planet’s most endowed
regions – the African subcontinent. No
raw material has higher priority in Beijing at present than the
securing of long term oil sources.
Today China draws
an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. That explains an
extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives which
have left Washington furious. China is using no-strings-attached
dollar credits to gain access to Africa’s vast raw material wealth,
leaving Washington’s typical control game via the World Bank and
IMF out in the cold. Who needs the painful medicine of the IMF
when China gives easy terms and builds roads and schools to boot?
In November last
year Beijing hosted an extraordinary summit of 40 African heads of
state. They literally rolled out the red carpet for the heads of among
others Algeria, Nigeria, Mali, Angola,
Central African Republic, Zambia, South Africa.
China has just done
an oil deal, linking the Peoples Republic of China with the continent's
two largest nations - Nigeria and South
Africa. China's CNOC will lift the oil in Nigeria, via a
consortium that also includes South African Petroleum Co. giving China
access to what could be 175,000 barrels a day by 2008. It’s a $2.27
billion
deal that gives state-controlled CNOC a 45% stake in a large
off-shore Nigeria oil field. Previously, Nigeria had been considered in
Washington to be an asset of the Anglo-American oil majors, ExxonMobil,
Shell and Chevron.
China has been
generous in dispensing its soft loans, with no interest or outright
grants to some of the poorest debtor states of
Africa. The loans have gone to infrastructure including
highways, hospitals, and schools, a stark contrast to the brutal
austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank. In 2006 China committed
more than $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, versus
$2.3 billion to all sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank. Ghana is
negotiating a $1.2 billion Chinese electrification loan. Unlike the
World Bank, a de facto arm of US foreign economic policy, China
shrewdly attaches no strings to its loans.
This oil-related
Chinese diplomacy has led to the bizarre accusation from Washington that
Beijing is trying to “secure oil at the sources,” something Washington
foreign policy has itself been
preoccupied with for at least a Century.
No source of oil has been more the focus of China-US oil conflict of late than Sudan, home of Darfur.
