EQUIPO NIZKOR |
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12Aug11
Defend the homeland - by Editor
The youth leagues of Southern Africa’s former liberation movements should be commended for speaking out in defence of the homeland when so many of their leaders have gone to sleep.
Africa’s leaders have dropped their guard of the African revolution. Many of them have gone to bed, while others have joined their former colonial masters in pursuit of self -serving agendas.
Were this not the case, the African countries that sit on the United Nations Security Council, for instance, would not have - like sheep being led to the slaughter - bought into the west’s military adventure in Libya by voting for the enforcement of a so-called No Fly Zone over Libyan skies.
Ironically, as things stand today, the hands of the three African countries that authorised the mayhem in Libya cannot escape responsibility for the blood of innocent women and children that are being butchered by western countries in their quest to lay their hands on Libya’s oil and strategic location in a region so vital to their imperial and colonial interests.
When former British Prime Minister Harold Mcmillan made his famous “winds of change” speech, Africans were elated that finally, their destiny was sealed as a free and independent people.
But decades later, the continent is far from being out of the woods. Africa is still grappling with subjugation, albeit subtle, as a bunch of homegrown foremen that answers to Europe and America sits comfortably at the helm with support from their masters.
Africa is very much under threat as the imperial west seeks to reverse the gains of the continent’s revolutions that rebelled against western hegemony and mass exploitation and ushered in freedom and independence.
Europe and the United States of America have never forgiven Africa’s freedom fighters for daring to challenge their misrule and colonial occupation of the African continent.
Theirs has been work in progress in order to continue the subjugation of the continent and its people and access its wealth. The west, under the leadership of the United States of America, is pursuing an agenda of domination of the African people and indeed the whole world.
Or, why else would America spread its military tentacles far beyond its borders and so wide across the globe if not for an expansionist and imperialist agenda?
Estimates put US military bases across the world close to 700 in over 130 countries. At any given time, the US stations more than 250 000 troops outside its borders at these bases.
Notably, these military bases are mostly found in countries where the US has fought wars and conquered. These countries include Japan which has a number of military bases, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Guantanamo, Cuba to newly-conquered states like Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan as well as other Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. There are a few such military bases in Africa, including one in Djibouti. The French are also known to have some of their units permanently stationed in a number of countries in West Africa.
This situation speaks to a world that is essentially under military occupation by one superpower, the United States of America aided by small units of French and British forces also deployed in some parts of the world.
It is this militarisation of the world and particularly of Africa that the youth leagues of the former liberation movements strongly oppose. And they are right.
Southern Africa is not up for sale. So is the entire Africa. Africom or United States African Command is not welcome in Southern Africa and any country in the region that seeks to get the Americans in through the back door is playing a dangerous game.
The youth leagues of the former liberation movements in Southern Africa must therefore step up the pressure and remain resolute in their rejection of foreign influence in our region. They owe this to the freedom fighters of Southern Africa whose immense sacrifices brought about the peace that we enjoy today. Southern Africa must remain free. It should not be curved into anybody’s sphere of influence or pander to the rivalry of world powers.
[Source: New Era, Namibia, 12Aug11]
 | This document has been published on 22Aug11 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |