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Imperialism: Consuming Monster but not Invincible

13 years ago | 6557 Views
by Reason WAFAWAROVA

From the gruesome days of slavery, to the murderous and barbaric ordeal of European colonialism, now we have been shunted into the era of open exploitation under the neat cover of humanitarianism and democratisation.

Africa today faces the reality of economic bondage shrouded by pretensions of Foreign Direct Investment and the so-called humanitarian aid.

When Eric Gairy of Grenada led his country to independence in 1975 he earned himself the title Sir Eric Gairy from the Queen of England for his outstanding links and dependence on imperialism, a reality that translated into extreme poverty at home, characterised by massive unemployment, high malnutrition, illiteracy, backwardness, superstition, poor housing and health conditions, all combined with overall economic stagnation and massive migration. Quite a familiar tale with most former colonies in Africa and elsewhere one must say.

Closer home we had Sir Seretse Khama who was similarly honoured by the same Queen of England so he could preserve the interests of Britain in Botswana, a former protectorate of the British Empire. Today the son he fathered with a British woman is doing all in his power to safeguard the imperialist interests of the United States and Britain, not only within his scantly populated vast country but also within the region of Southern Africa, with the threat of his puppet behaviour causing mayhem in neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa, where revolutionary Julius Malema is on disciplinary trial after calling for the overthrowing of the "imperialist backed" Ian Khama government.

In Grenada the British ensured that the leftist New Jewel Movement did not form government at independence the very same way they wanted to ensure that neither ZANU PF nor ZAPU would form government at Zimbabwe's independence. They installed Sir Eric Gairy while in Zimbabwe they tried the short-lived 1979 government of reactionaries led by the late Abel Muzorewa.

ZANLA and ZIPRA forces intensified the liberation war in reaction to the Muzorewa regime, and the imperialist settlement was fought down, leading to the Lancaster House negotiations towards what was to the British nothing more than constitutional independence.

For Grenada it took a successful and popular 1979 revolution led by Maurice Bishop to depose of the neo fascist dictatorship of Sir Eric Gairy, who had manipulated the 1975 election result in his favour. It was what Fidel Castro called "a big revolution in a small country". Grenada had only 100 000 people then.

The Grenada revolution was about revolutionising the economy, politics and societal mechanism of the country. At that time we Zimbabweans were escalating the war leading to the Lancaster House Conference that started in September 1979.

At home the Grenada revolution was establishing people's rights, including social and economic justice, the right to work, the right to equal pay for men and women, and the right to democratic participation of the people in the affairs of running their country. Maurice Bishop also shared with other revolutions from across the world a firm commitment to the establishment of an international community based on the principles of opposition to colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, Zionism, fascism and imperialism.

Today South African apartheid is largely dead but the segregation and marginalisation of the indigenous people has not been abated. Colonialism is almost dead and buried except for places like Western Sahara and of course Palestine.

When the Non Alligned Movement still had real men of honour like Samora Machel, Maurice Bishop, Daniel Ortega, Thomas Sankara, Fidel Castro, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Robert Mugabe and many others the body had an unequivocal affirmation of a resolute stand against economic exploitation, foreign occupation and all forms of domination.

It is a Non Alligned Movement that affirmed its rejection of all military pacts or blocs designed to bolster or defend imperialism, expansionism, fascism and racism, standing resolutely on the side of independent nationalism, sovereignty, territorial integrity and equality of all races and peoples of the world.

The brazen aggression by France and Britain on the sovereign people of Libya would never have occurred when this NAM was still the fiery club of revolutionaries that it once was. Now we do not even have a voice in the name of NAM and the African Union is rendered irrelevant, having to catch up with events or risk being totally irrelevant as NATO and Western supremacists set the pace in recolonising a people that had worked so hard for so long in building a highly sophisticated society easily comparing with and surpassing much of European economic growth. It is sad.

Shameless and spineless leaders like Jacob Zuma now appear like perfect fools as they are totally ignored by the Western powers, regardless of whether they are supporting or opposing the resolve to make Libya a neo-colony to host Africom, itself a strategic launch pad for further aggression on the African continent. Simply put, the West does not care what the AU or Zuma thinks, and everyone can see it.

Speaking at the Sixth Summit Conference of the Non Alligned Movement in Havana, Cuba on the 6th of September 1979 Maurice Bishop had this to say about Zimbabwe.

"We record with pleasure the start made at Lusaka at the Commonwealth Conference last month and the United Kingdom's acceptance of her responsibility to deal with the problem of Rhodesia. We welcome the all-party talks which are about to begin in London on Monday. We anticipate that there will be no great difficulty in reaching a constitutional agreement. But we feel and believe that we are obliged to mention here today that there are still key problems that will remain even after the critical question of the new constitution is settled."

He was talking about the fate of the RF and the timing of and conditions under which elections that later brought independence were to be held. Bishop was talking about the 1978 Cyrus Vance and David Owen visits to the Patriotic Front, only to result in a sham election that installed Muzorewa as imperialism's puppet leader of the country.

Zimbabwe's liberation war politics proved one thing about imperialism. It knows how to manipulate and how to divide and rule.

Maurice Bishop gave his strategic advice on how Zimbabwe was to conquer the West's divide and rule tactic. He said:
"We feel that the Patriotic Front must be encouraged behind the slogan "Peaceful means by elections if possible, revolution if necessary, if the electoral method does not or cannot work."

This writer is almost sure that some within the Zimbabwean revolution still consider this advice very relevant for the future of the country, while others find the advice handy for their own personal and selfish interests.

Imperialism condemned and attacked the people of Kampuchea when they overthrew the Western backed murderous right wing dictator, Pol Pot; the very way it condemns Palestinians for throwing stones at the heavily armed ruthless and murderous Israelis, denying them the God given right to statehood.

Imperialism does not remind itself of the brutality of slavery, the ruthlessness of its puppet dictators in the developing world, the ruin left by colonialism, the madness of the US foreign policy, the insanity of the murderous brutality of Israel, the mass killing effect of economic sanctions against weaker nations like Zimbabwe or Iraq, and the trailblazing killing of civilians whenever the Western coalition embarks on any of its traditional invasion escapades, as they are doing right now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Today they do not want to remind themselves of the brutal crimes against humanity they committed in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the Congo, Kampuchea, Grenada, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua and other places far too many to mention.

Rather imperialism raises its ugly head again massacring about 50 000 civilians in Libya, all to stop Gaddafi from establishing the gold Dinar that would tilt economic affairs in the favour of developing nations, and of course to grab away the oil strength that gave Gaddafi so much mileage in his ambitions.

We are instead being coerced into listening to disgusting propaganda on humanitarianism and democracy from imperialists themselves, and we do have people willing to take this hoopla quite seriously in the name of "21st century democracy," whatever that means.

At the summit that Maurice gave his speech the US had advised the group that signed the Camp David agreement to attend the NAM Summit as representatives of the Palestinian people, and they sat in the third row while the PLO was occupying the seventh row, more like the NTC going to the UN General Assembly as the representatives of Libya last week.

NAM recognised the PLO of course but imperialism could not accept that. After the fall of Pol Pot his representatives also attended this very summit saying they were the true representatives of Kampuchea. Maurice Bishop objected and said accepting them "would be no different to accepting the Zionist Israel regime in our midst and in our movement."

But today France and Britain have the backing of the United States in coercing nations to accept Al-Qaeda leaders as the true representatives of Libya while the country is burning under a civil war triggered by NATO aggression at the instigation of France's bully boy Nicolas Sarkozy.

Those who overthrew Pol Pot took so long to be accepted at the UN General Assembly, as the Western backers of the ousted dictator tried to restore their fallen icon.

On October 13 1983 the US plot to persuade Maurice Bishop's deputy to rebel against his leader came to fruition. Bernard Coard demanded a power sharing deal with Bishop which was turned down, resulting in Coard's faction seizing power in a CIA backed coup.

Bishop was put under house arrest and the masses of Grenada came in their tens of thousands to free him from the house. He was briefly restored as the leader of the Grenadian revolution, only to be captured by a bunch of soldiers and to be summarily executed together with a group of his loyal Cabinet Ministers.

The style was later to be replicated by Blaisse Campaore of Burkina Faso when he killed his best friend and comrade in 1987 – the 36 year old indisputable revolutionary Thomas Sankara, again after being shamelessly bought by the CIA and the French intelligence. The traitor is still the leader of Burkina Faso today.

Before Bishop's deposition and murder Washington had indicated its intention to invade the tiny island on the pretext that it posed "an extra ordinary threat to the United States" for building an international airport; interpreted by the CIA to be a project meant to facilitate the landing of Soviet Union war planes in the region.

It turned out that the beneficiary of the murder of Bishop did not become the CIA-sponsored Bernard Coard. Rather it was Hudson Austin who took over power in a surprise military move.

Unsure of Austin's ideological leanings and intentions, the US used the murder of Bishop as a pretext for a military intervention code named Operation Urgent Fury, adding that US medical students who were studying in Grenada at the time had been taken hostage, something that was immediately exposed as a lie, but still stood as a pretext for about 8 000 US special troopers to descend on the island, killing so many civilians, among them all patients and staff of a local mental health hospital.

The US then installed Nicolas Brathwaite as the leader of the Interim Advisory Council after the invasion, itself shamelessly supported by Jamaican forces send by the US leaning Edward Seaga. Herbert Blaize was to take over as the US favoured Prime Minister in 1984.

It took Tillman Thomas to rename the Grenadian International Airport after Maurice Bishop in 2009, a symbolic gesture by the people of Grenada to say imperialism is indeed a consuming monster, but certainly not invincible.

Daniel Ortega's return to power in Nicaragua is yet another such message to imperialism. Closer home Michael Sata of Zambia just won an election against the West's favourite MMD and the win is an emphatic message that indeed imperialism is not invincible. Sata like Ortega and Bishop is driven by the desire to empower the people of his country at the expense of imperialism.

Zimbabwe will soon be heading for elections pitting the revolutionary people oriented ZANU PF and the Western-sponsored and change- preaching Movement for Democratic Change, and it is the hope of all justice loving people that imperialism will not consume the will the masses of Zimbabwe, themselves already in possession of their colonially stolen land, and eagerly waiting to take full control of their mineral and other natural resources, if ZANU PF does not falter in its preached policies.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

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Reason Wafawarova is a political writer. Feedback wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawarova.com
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Tags: Imperialism

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