Black editor in Detroit on Somalia and Sudan

• Part 1. The rise of colonialism in Africa
• Part 3. Zimbabwe: Land redistribution & Western sanctions

From a talk entitled “A review of developments in Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the role of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament/Aspects of the politics of contemporary Africa in the era of continuing imperialism” delivered at a Detroit Workers World public meeting on Feb. 10 by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire.

Abayomi Azikiwe Photo: Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Azikiwe is a co-founder of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI). He can be heard on radio weekly on WDTW, 1310 AM, on Sundays from 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. in Detroit. In Toronto, he can be heard on Thursdays on CKLN, 88.1 FM, from 9:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. This broadcast can be heard online at http://www.ckln.fm

The talk was dedicated to the memory of the late Mama Adelaide Tambo, the African National Congress Women’s League leader and widow of the late Oliver R. Tambo, longtime acting president of the ANC while Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa. Go to www.workers.org/2007/world/colonialism-0222/ to read the first installment of this talk.

Prior to the advent of European colonialism the center of world economic activity heavily centered on the so-called Indian Ocean basin. It was the necessity of Europe to break out of this isolation that provided incentives for the expeditions and the slave trade. Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, was a major link in the Indian Ocean basin. This area was connected through trade, culture and transport with Mombasa, Beira and Aden, leading into Asia Minor, China, Malaysia and Japan.

During the colonial era in Somalia, the people resisted the onslaught of several western European powers. The people of Somalia were eventually divided among five different nations: Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland, French Somaliland, Kenya—which was colonized by the British—and Ethiopia, as a result of the expansion of the Abyssinian monarchy.

When the country gained its independence in 1960, it resulted in the unification of the sections that had been controlled by Britain and Italy. However, the areas controlled by the French eventually became Djibouti as an independent nation. Somalis living in Ethiopia and Kenya remained under the control of these states despite a longing for total reunification.

In 1969, a group of military officers responding to popular pressure seized control of the government in Mogadishu. Their politics were left-leaning in an effort to break with the legacy of colonialism that was imposed by the British and the Italians. By 1974, a Mogadishu Declaration was issued pledging to pursue a non-capitalist path and expressing solidarity with the overall struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism in Africa and the world.

Meanwhile in neighboring Ethiopia a general strike beginning in early 1974 led to the eventual collapse of the monarchy under His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie. A group of young military officers called the “Dergue” seized power in the absence of a well-developed nationalist or socialist political party that was capable of taking control of the state.

By 1977, the Dergue had declared itself socialist and moved towards an alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba. The government sent students into the countryside to engage in a literacy and development program. A military base controlled by the United States in Ethiopia was abandoned as the country brought in advisers from Cuba to help build up its security.

Unfortunately, when Jimmy Carter became president of the United States in 1977, a concerted campaign was launched to bring Somalia back into the Western sphere of influence. The government of Siad Barre was armed by the Carter administration and encouraged to attack Ethiopia in the Ogaden region, purportedly in support of ethnic Somalis suffering national oppression inside Ethiopia.

In the early months of 1978, the Ethiopian military, along with Cuban internationalist forces, entered the Ogaden region and put down the rebellion as well as defeating the Somalian military troops who had crossed over into Ethiopian territory. Despite promises by the U.S. to intervene on behalf of Somalia, they did not dare do so, remembering the tremendous defeats during 1975 in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as well as Angola. By the early 1980s, famine had swept through large sections of Somalia. In 1991, the government of Siad Barre fled, leaving the country stateless.

When the administration of George H.W. Bush invaded Somalia in December of 1992, this appeared to many as an effort to exert American imperialist influence in the Horn of Africa. When Bill Clinton inherited this occupation under the guise of providing humanitarian assistance from United Nations coordinated sources, the stakes became greater due to efforts aimed at disarming political factions hostile to America’s desire to establish permanent bases in this region of the continent.

After the United States military massacred over 50 Somali elders holding a meeting in Mogadishu on July of 1993, the Americans were on a collision course with large sections of the population. A clash on Oct. 3, 1993, in Mogadishu resulting in the deaths of many U.S. soldiers sent shockwaves through the country and led eventually to an American withdrawal from Somalia in 1994.

Today the Americans have intervened once again in Somalia. They are using the pretext of the involvement of al-Qaeda or other Islamic so-called “terrorists” as the cause of their involvement. As anti-imperialists and organizers within the anti-war movement, we realize that any statement of cause for American military involvement must be held to strict scrutiny on the basis of the many falsehoods utilized to justify invasions and occupations.

This is why the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice has raised the question of American involvement in Somalia right alongside the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the role of the U.S. in the overthrow of the Aristide government in Haiti in February of 2004.

Sudan was also colonized by Britain during the late 19th century. The imperialists’ methodology of divide and conquer was employed where the peoples of the south, north and west were taught that they were separate entities. Some of the earliest nationalist movements on the continent took place in Sudan, with rebellions after the conclusion of World War I extending through the early 1920s.

Some of the elements within the nationalist movement pushed for a unification plan with Egypt. Others sought a solution to the colonial problem through the breaking down of the barriers erected by British colonialism. On the eve of independence, which took place in 1956, the people in the south mutinied within the paramilitary colonial forces, hampering the potential for a national identity in the country. The conflict with the southern region of the country lasted from 1955 through 1972, when a negotiated settlement was reached.

However, a decade later, the conflict reemerged in 1983 and lasted for 20 years until a peace agreement was reached in 2003.

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army led the southern rebellion under John Garang. A government of national unity was established with the understanding that the people in southern Sudan would eventually vote whether the people would remain in the unity government or establish an autonomous region in the south. It was after the agreement between Khartoum and the SPLA was reached that the conflict in the Darfur region erupted. Two rebel groups surfaced. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had links with the National Islamic Front (NIF) that became an opposition force in northern politics. The NIF initially played a pivotal role in the Omar al-Bashir government inside the country.

However, a split occurred, placing the NIF in opposition to the president and also the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) that appeared to be independent of northern influences. Since 2003, the Darfur rebel movement has further fragmented with splits inside the SLM/A largely over a peace agreement with Khartoum.

The imperialist nations and their allied press agencies have sought to portray the conflict in Darfur as an African/Arab conflagration with fundamental racial dimensions. Nonetheless, Darfur is predominately Islamic, like the population in the north. There is no pronounced racial difference between the peoples of the country. It is the legacy of British imperialism and U.S. interference that is at the root cause of the current conflict. These divisions are politicized in an effort to provide a rationale for possible military intervention. Consequently, anti-imperialists should look at the struggle in Darfur in light of American and British imperialists’ aims in the region.

China has stepped up its economic investments in Sudan. The country is rich in oil and consequently provides the American government with an incentive to seek dominance over the resources. The only true and lasting solution to the Darfur crisis lies within the Sudanese people themselves and does not require a military occupation by the West.

Distributed by: The Pan-African Research and Documentation Center, 50 SCB Box 47, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; e-mail: [email protected]

• Part 1. The rise of colonialism in Africa
• Part 3. Zimbabwe: Land redistribution & Western sanctions