policy - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-28T21:16:35Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/policyTHE GENOCIDAL FRUITS OF U.S. AFRICA POLICYhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/the-genocidal-fruits-of-u-s-africa-policy2012-07-13T07:00:00.000Z2012-07-13T07:00:00.000Zhakimhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/hakim<div><div id="node-13142" class="node odd full-node node-type-ba_radio"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><b>A Black Agenda Radio commentary by <a href="http://BlackAgendaReport.com" target="_blank">Glen Ford</a> ~<br /></b></font></div><div class="node odd full-node node-type-ba_radio"><div class="content"><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> </font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> Rwanda’s crimes against Congo are the subject of another United Nations report. The U.S., Rwanda’s ally and protector, “is also liable for the genocide in Congo.” Washington has placed its guns and money in the hands of an aggressive, minority regime – which is not surprising. “U.S. policy in Africa has almost always been to choose chaos in those places where it cannot rule directly.”</font></font></p><p> </p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="4"><b><font color="#280099">The Genocidal Fruits of U.S. Africa Policy</font></b></font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><b>A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford</b></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#2323DC">“<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>Why does the United States place its strategic interests in the hands of the elite of a warlike minority in the heart of Central Africa?”</i></font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">The United Nations has finally released </font></font><font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/07/u-n-report-links-rwanda-to-congolese-violence/"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">a report</font></font></a></u></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> detailing Rwanda’s latest destabilization of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. As usual, the delay was caused by the United States, which routinely blocks criticism of its military and political client-state, Rwanda, which has since 1996 been deeply complicit in the death of 6 million Congolese. The United States is, therefore, also liable for the genocide in Congo – the largest mass killings since World War Two.</font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Apologists for U.S. policy in Central Africa are fond of using the word “strategic.” The United States, they say, arms and protects Rwanda because America has “strategic” business and defense interests in the Congo’s vast mineral deposits. The infinitely corrupt Congolese strongman </font></font><font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Mobutu Sese Seko</font></font></a></u></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> used to be Washington’s attack dog in Africa. But, in the mid-90s, the Americans opted to back an invasion of eastern Congo by the Tutsi-minority regimes in Rwanda and Burundi, and the other U.S. client-state in the region, Uganda. Washington chose to put its strategic interests in the hands of a small but highly militarized people, the Tutsi, rather than help the Congolese government maintain control over its own territory.</font></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#2323DC">“<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>A formula for endless war.”</i></font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Why would the United States choose such allies to protect its so-called “strategic interests.” On the face of it, this would seem like a formula for endless war in the region. Even before the mass killings of Tutsis in 1994, they never comprised more than 15 percent of the population in Rwanda or in Burundi, where Hutu people make up the vast majority. Having lorded it over the Hutus during and prior to the arrival of European colonialism, and having</font></font><font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi_genocide"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">massacred</font></font></a></u></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> many Hutu in </font></font><font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">both nations</font></font></a></u></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> after independence, the Tutsi are not loved by their fellow countrymen. They have since become a primary source of destabilization and genocide in Congo. So the question is: Why does the United States place its strategic interests in the hands of the elite of a warlike minority in the heart of Central Africa? Why would Washington invest millions in minority-ruled governments of tiny countries like Rwanda and Burundi, which can only be sources of permanent instability in the region? Don’t the Americans understand that support for tiny, aggressive elites guarantees continued chaos?</font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">The answer is: Yes, they do understand. Since independence, U.S. policy in Africa has almost always been to choose chaos in those places where it cannot rule directly. And chaos brings genocide. The U.S. reasons that, at any given moment, chaos contains many options, an infinity of possibilities for superpower action – whereas stable regimes with broad popular support provide less room for the foreigner to maneuver, less possibilities for a quick change of policy or regime.</font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Which is one reason that China looks good to Africa and to much of the rest of the formerly colonized world. The Chinese do not foment coups, or encourage whole regions to become saturated in arms. They just want to do business in a stable environment. That’s why China has surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s trading partner, and why U.S. imperialism will ultimately be defeated. Because nobody wants someone around who spreads chaos and mass death everywhere he goes.</font></font></p><p><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.</font></font></p><p><font color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"><i>BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at</i></font></font></font><font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com"><font color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com</font></font></font></a></u></font><font color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"><i>.</i></font></font></font></p><div class="field field-type-text field-field-listen"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"><span id="swftools-swftools-4fffbd1ae33c8" class="swftools swftools-wpaudio swftools-wpaudio-processed"><br /></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>The gun and ship of enslavementhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/the-gun-and-ship-of2009-04-14T15:30:00.000Z2009-04-14T15:30:00.000ZAri Merretazonhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/AriMerretazon<div>The gun and ship of enslavement[<b>"Like a machine it transformed the lives of Africans and Europeans alike. Europeans came to America freely with a design of a new way of life in their hearts and minds." Africans were kidnapped and shipped in chains with their life design already made, in the hearts and minds of Europeans. So terrifying was this technology that it forced Africans to worship Christianity/Jesus Christ."</b>]The ruling classes of Western Europe were able to conquer the world between 1400 and 1700 because of two distinct and soon powerfully combined technological developments; the gun and the ship of enslavement. These two developments combined to produce the cast iron cannon and ships for the sea.According to Marcus Rediker, in his book Slave Ship, A Human History, the ship of enslavement was “the historic vessel (engine) for the emergence of capitalism, a new an unprecedented social and economic system that remade large parts of the world beginning in the late 15th century. The historical record shows it as the first major engine of capitalism that restructured the division of labor and wealth, and thereby, the world. Ships mounted with cannons were the vessel of terror.Like a machine it transformed the lives of Africans and Europeans alike. Europeans came to America freely with a design of a new way of life in their hearts and minds.” Africans were kidnapped and shipped in chains with their life design already made, in the hearts and minds of Europeans. So terrifying was this technology that it forced Africans to drop their indigenous religions and accept Christianity.No other metal product of African enslavement was of more great consequence, ruthless or irreversible than the gun. Firearms of all types were mass-produced to the standards of that period. The end result developed what is now the U.S. high-tech multi-billion-dollar weapons industry which has no equal. Africa was the most important overseas target of guns from Europe and America. Guns in Africa were used to kill, capture, and enslave.Over the course of the 18th century, the Gold Coast was de-populated of untold millions of Africans. It was the distribution of guns amongst the different groups of Africans that led to quarrels and subsequent capture and trade to European enslavers. These quarrels were called wars, and the word war was a euphemism for the organized theft of human beings.Walter Rodney observed in his history of the Upper Guinea Coast that local ruling groups made law “into the handmaid of the trade of enslavement. When it comes to guns and the domestic deaths of Americanized Africans, America is just as hostile. As conspiratorial as it may sound, there is a lot of similarity to the use of guns during African enslavement and the illegal guns that now saturate our communities. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but just look at the facts in time and space, only the faces and places have changed.</div>