Africans in Chad call for removal of French troops; French military base not welcome

French troops are stationed in various parts of Africa, not to help Africans but to facilitate France's imperialist interests.

CHAD — “Africa doesn’t need protection from Europe. Africa needs recognition of the crime which Europe committed in Africa.”

When the former French colony of Chad, gained so-called independence on August 11, 1960, French imperialism obviously had its own economic and political interests in maintaining some form of its illegal activities in its former occupied land in Africa. France left division and hatred between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South.

François Tombalbaye, the first president of Chad, was forced by France to sign a defense cooperation. That agreement gave France the power to set up military bases in Chad. This mechanism allowed France to have a huge number of troops well-trained and ready to intervene anywhere in Africa to defend its imperialist interests.

In 1990, French president François Mitterrand legitimized the regime of Chad’s current president, Idriss Déby. This was not done because Hissène Habré’s regime before it was a dictatorship, but because he had questioned the benefits expected by Elf Petroleum when oil was discovered in Chad since the mid-70s.

The crimes that French troops have committed are well documented. It was a French military base that gave orders and support to Idriss Déby to send our troops to Congo-Brazzaville where they carried out the massacre of thousands of civilians.

It was a French military base that was involved in regime change in the Central African Republic. French military bases in Africa are involved crime and genocide in Rwanda. The list goes on.

The true face of Chad’s neocolonialism

According to France, Chad is a democratic republic, and it must be protected from any military coup d’etat. In fact, Déby and his cohorts monopolize power and suppress any suggestion of a challenge.

Since November 2006, the regime has restored the state of emergency and restrictions in most of the country and has jailed several journalists and members of opposition. To criticize this parody of democracy, the political oppositions had boycotted the presidential election on May 3, 2006. They had also rejected Déby’s fraudulent victory.

In all actuality, the regime is not working for the interests of African people in Chad. It survives only through military support from France. France armed and legitimized the Déby regime because Déby works for French interest. Therefore, French military bases in Chad are illegal.

Imperialist-imposed Darfur crisis impacts Chad

The conflict of Darfur is war over resources between China and Europe with its ally America. Everything in the region of Darfur — the country, the people, the animals — is affected by the crossfire of these powerful imperialists.

The term of Arabs against non-Arab tribes is also a myth. Darfur has become cinema and theatre for the world. It has also become a place of business.

Western food programs exported countless Westerner’s products including rice, milk, millet and oils to East of Chad. The local farms closed their business because they cannot compete with the subsidized westerner products.

Food being imported from the United States and delivered to the refugees of Darfur is unacceptable. The United Nations World Food Programme should buy food from Africa’s farms if it wants to help refugees in Africa.

French’s traditional evil behavior contributes much to the crisis of Darfur. On one hand France supports the rebels of Darfur via its agent Idriss Déby. On the other hand, the Sudanese government responds back aggressively to rebels.

France’s citizens are even playing their part in deepening the crisis. Last Thursday, a French plane loaded with more than a hundred children was arrested by Chadian police at Abeche Airport. A French association called L’Arche de Zoe (or Zoe’s Arc) tried to illegally smuggle the 103 children from Darfur to France.

European Union would deepen crisis in region for its own interests

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner’s suggestion to deploy European Union (EU) troops to East of Chad is nothing more than the enforcement of French military bases in Chad. While the protection of refugee camps in Darfur is relevant, history does not tell us that the European Union and the UN are working for the security of this world.

Where were they during the genocide in Rwanda? Where were they during the genocide in the Balkan countries of Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania? Why don’t they protect civilians in Iraq?

If the EU and UN can prevent the conflict of Darfur it is only because they are the creators of the conflict. Sending EU and UN troops to East Chad is not an option to prevent conflict in Dafur. Instead, it will put more woods into the fire.

France wants the deployment of the EU and UN force because its aim is to control the areas of oil in Darfur on the border with Chad. It also intends to control the uranium and diamond mining areas North of the Central African Republic.

French troops out of Chad!

The Chadian oppositions, civil servants, trade unions, students and all Chadian workers are tired of the menace of foreign troops. What Chadian people want is to have the French troops out of Chad. Foreign military bases are not welcome here.

The myth that says Africans cannot help themselves is out of time. Africa is suffering because former colonizer countries are still exploiting via their lazy agents.

Africa’s poverty, conflict and disease are artificial and man made. These crises can only be ended when European countries stop their traditional looting.

We ask French citizens to urge their government to withdraw French military bases from Chad and everywhere else in Africa. We ask all Africans to join our struggle against the illegal French military base in Chad!

Uhuru News is the online voice of the International African Revolution. It is dedicated to giving voice to the struggles of the African working class from around the world through its programming in an effort to unite and inform the struggles of African people and forward the International African Revolution.

The African Brain Drain , Slavery and Racism

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said he was not interested in students from his country receiving scholarships "only to have them fly off to France."

The violence, corruption and generalised poverty marring more than three decades of independence in Portugal's five former colonies in Africa have been the main obstacles for development in these countries, but not the only ones.

Brain drain is another phantom that is slowly but inexorably destroying hopes for progress and wellbeing for the people of Guinea-Bissau, which became independent in 1974, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, which became independent in 1975 .

Skilled and academically qualified people from African countries where Portuguese is an official language often give up their status in their unstable home countries to build a new life in peaceful Portugal, even if it means sacrificing their former careers and having to take up a hastily learned, lower skilled job.

Brain drain does not only affect the former Portuguese colonies, but is a problem throughout the developing South. The editor of the monthly magazine Africa 21, Joao Matos, describes it as "planetary apartheid."

"Nicolas Sarkozy...asked on a recent visit to Senegal if it could be considered normal that there are more doctors from Benin in France than in Benin itself."Africa needs its élites, because if they all end up in France one day, who will concern themselves with the development of Senegal?"" said the Angolan writer who lives in Lisbon. But according to Matos, the French president's statements were "of doubtful sincerity." He said he does not believe that "Sarkozy would make do without the doctors from Benin who are working in France: what he really doesn't want are poor and indigent migrants, mostly from Africa."

The shaky economies of most African countries "are largely a consequence of the plundering of the continent's resources by the West, which continues to this day. It began with its most valuable resource, people, millions of whom were taken by force to far-off lands, which they helped to develop with their slave labour," Matos said.

In a article published by Angolan professor Jonuel Gonçalves, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, in the latest issue of Africa 21, entitled "Negroes and Mestizos in Latin America Today Gonçalves points out that Latin America "is the region of the world with the highest degree of 'mestizaje' (mixed ancestry), from both the biological and cultural points of view, because it was the destination of the greatest flow of slaves in history, and the way in which slavery was abolished left deep marks that still endure."

"There was no consistent programme in Latin America to help former slaves integrate into society, which condemned them to poverty and illiteracy that have lasted, to a greater or lesser degree, through the successive generations," Gonçalves says.

One of the characteristics of Latin American social structures that demonstrate this "is the extremely low representation of descendants of slaves, blacks or mestizos in decision-making," the article says. "Brazil is one of the most striking examples, in spite of having the second largest population in the world of blacks and Afro-descendants, who make up at least 45 percent of its population of 188 million. It is surpassed only by Nigeria," with 131 million people, Gonçalves says. "Cuba, for three centuries another major destination for the slave trade, has similar characteristics," because, in spite of the 1959 revolution and the country's socialist system of government, "the number of black people in the governing bodies remains very small,"

Matos acknowledges that Africans themselves are not entirely free from blame because since independence they have not managed to turn their countries into "good places to live, beginning with our own citizens, especially the young.".

Former secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan , of Ghana, spoke of the problems of destructive self-racism and of "our tolerance" of African tyrants.

Angolan intellectual Arlindo Barbeitos frequently deplored the tendency for Africa to reproduce "the same ideas and models imposed by the colonial powers, such as racism, but in reverse."


Check out Socialist Banner. Features "COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS focussing on Africa To persuade others to become socialist and act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access .We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism."

Monthly Action Alert: Hands Off Obadele Kambon!

http://www.abibitumikasa.com/Obadele.pdf

FALSELY ACCUSED!!!

Title: Support Obadele Kambon facing trial on Dec 10 2007!
Time Frame: 1 Month

Plan of Action: Protect/Support Obadele Kambon as he faces a police corruption induced trial on December 10, 2007.

Purpose of Action: Be involved in a continued fight against Police Brutality and corruption in our communities by helping to support our warrior brother.

Background:
On the evening of June 25, 2007 at 9:45PM, Obadele Kambon and his pregnant fiancée, Kala Mujibha, were stopped by the Chicago police allegedly for a broken turn signal light. Without explanation, Obadele and Kala were told to get out of the car and were unlawfully searched, handcuffed, and detained by the police while the car was illegally searched without expressed or implied consent and without probable cause. Though Obadele safely transported an unloaded weapon in a closed container within the trunk of his car with papers of ownership, the police confiscated the weapon, arrested Obadele, and impounded his car. Because the police had no probable cause to perform the illegal search in the first place, they decided to manufacture probable cause out of thin air. In an untruthful report, the police claimed that in stopping Obadele and Kala they visibly saw the weapon in the cabin of the car. Furthermore they said it was loaded, allowing them to pursue felony charges. Due to the lies of the police and the malicious prosecution of the state's attorney, Obadele now faces a serious felony charge with a minimum of five years imprisonment.

Obadele Kambon, who has given so much to our communities, now needs our support. Our young, brother-warrior has been an uncompromising fighter and activist for the Afrikan community all of his 28 years of life. He has not only acquired five Afrikan languages, but has taught these languages of our ancestors to Afrikan communities all over the world; including Ghana, The Gambia, Senegal, the U.S., Canada, Belize, Australia, and England. In Chicago alone he currently teaches at seven institutions from pre-school to middle schools to alternative high schools to the university level. Our brother, who has taught our youth and adults how to defend themselves as a Capoeira instructor and Outdoor Survival instructor in Chicago and Mississippi, and has started an Afrikan Language Institute and African Liberation Forum online to provide our people with courses, resources, and information for the purpose of our re-Afrikanization, can face five years in jail. As a PhD candidate, who has never had any prior criminal records in his life, Obadele is now being erroneously accused of having a loaded weapon in the cabin of the car. This concocted story filled with holes changed the scenario from a case of transporting a weapon in a manner consistent with federal guidelines to a trumped up aggressive unlawful use of a weapon charge with the potential to enact harm to the Black community which he serves. What do lack of probable cause to search, illegal search tactics and blatant lies on a police report and in front of the grand jury get the Chicago police? A day off of work and a monetary bonus for finding a weapon. While the story of the police couldn't be further from the truth, we know who the real criminals of our communities are….


The Chicago police department is notorious for their brutal and unlawful acts of harassment and murder within our communities. The reported death toll since 2000 is 85 from shootings alone much less the deaths as a result of Jon Burge-like murders from torturous police interrogation methods that go unreported. We can only imagine the number of innocent lives that have been lost physically, spiritually and emotionally in Chicago alone due to acts of genocide and false imprisonment at the hands of the Chicago police. According to the Chicago Reporter, a reported 45% of police who have been involved in wrongful death lawsuits were previously sued for police misconduct; in some cases multiple times. Obadele Kambon's case is a case of gross police misconduct. Will the police go unchecked in their lies and misconduct only to be the next officers to take liberties and innocent lives as in the case of the recently disbanded Special Operations Section (SOS) of the CPD?


The Prison Industrial System has increased arrests of our brothers and sisters claiming the lives of thousands of our youths. These police officers, often backed and supported by the legal system, have gotten away with the murder of our youth and the murder of the souls of our youth through incarceration with impunity. Meanwhile, many of these incarcerated thousands of our people have been wrongly accused but do not have the funds to obtain the proper legal aid needed to protect them from this nefarious system.


Let's not allow this corrupt system to stop another of our sons from doing the work of liberation for our people! Support Obadele Kambon as he faces trail on December 10th 2007!

PARTICIPATE!
We Need Your Help:

1. Make A Financial Contribution to Obadele Kambon's Legal Defense fund- Click the Donate Button Below:
and follow the instructions to make a contribution to the paypal legal defense fund online, or send your contributions to the following Address:

Obadele Kambon Legal Defense
C/O PO Box 1256, Wendell NC, 27591 (773) 696-5765

Because of these concocted charges, Obadele has had to postpone his wedding, incur costly charges of legal fees, vehicle impoundment, bond and more totaling more than $10,000. In the 1960's the police used the underhanded tactic of draining individuals and organizations that were doing the work of our people through various means; physically through false incarceration, monetarily through trumped up charges, emotionally through harassment and terrorism and more. Their tactics have not changed. Have we changed our response?

2. Support by attending the Dec. 10th trial: The trial is being held in an area outside of Chicago that is notoriously racist. A large presence would be an empowering influence for Obadele, and will send an effective and powerful message to the court. The more people of our community present in support of our brother the better. Let them see how many people are in support of Obadele and against these corrupt actions! Please wear royal Afrikan attire or wear All Black or ALL white in solidarity.

Date: December 10, 2007
Location: Fifth District Courthouse -- (773) 974-6800
10220 S 76th Avenue, Bridgeview, IL 60455
Time: 9:00 AM Sharp!

3. Tell Others: Inform your family members, friends, community organizations, Black-owned establishments, related email list serves, media contacts, and others know about what is happening on December 10th. Ask for their participation and support for Obadele Kambon. Information about this trial, info about police brutality, and how to protect yourself when stopped by the police, etc. can be downloaded and handed out. (See below).

4. Educate and Participate: Obadele's case is one of thousands of examples of the historical police brutality and genocide against our people. Educate yourself about the issues going on locally, nationally, and internationally concerning police brutality in our communities, know your legal rights when approached by the police. Participate in organizations and/or community events addressing such issues.
Click HERE to Discuss Action Alert with Others Online

Download Fliers Below

Please Read and Distribute Widely
http://www.abibitumikasa.com/Obadele.doc Word Version
http://www.abibitumikasa.com/Obadele.pdf PDF Version

Distribute Widely

Facts and Info on Police Brutality http://abibitumikasa.com/yabb/YaBB.p...1194713377/0#0 - to view article

What to do if you get stopped by the police http://abibitumikasa.com/yabb/YaBB.p...1194720728/0#0 - to view article

Know your rights when approached by the Police - Video



Goals & Outcomes

Goals

1. To have the charges against Obadele Kambon dropped, and his record cleared.
2. To raise the funds to help obtain the legal aid urgently needed for and after the trial.
3. To mobilize an empowering force for the trial in support of Obadele and against Police corruption/white supremacy To spread information to educate our community about Police Brutality and the Prison Industrial System

Outcomes

Charges dropped against Obadele Kambon so he can continue doing the work of liberating our people.

Greater level of education and activism surrounding issues of police corruption and the prison industry.

*We are asking for the Unity and collaboration of all Pan-Afrikans, Afrocentricists, Grassroots organizations, websites, mailing lists, news services, individuals, students and etc. to get involved with This Monthly Action Alert Campaign.

Putting Reparations on the Socialist Agenda

According to the International Monetary Fund(IMF), in 2006 the United States of America had a GDP of more than $13 trillion and thus ranking it as the largest national GDP in the world. GDP, or gross domestic product, is the value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given time period. Yet, this wealth is becoming gradually concentrated as yearly statistics show. According to State of Working America, in 2004, 12.7% of the population, 37 million persons, were considered poor. Not only is wealth in America unequally distributed, but poverty is as well also, with 30 percent of Blacks being poor, 20 percent of all Hispanics, but only 9 percent of Whites. How did America generate and continue to generate this vast amount of wealth and is there a connection between that process and it's disproportionate allocation?

Slavery and Primitive Accumulation of Capital

Primitive, or "original accumulation", refers to the initial process that led to a 'critical mass' of accumulation that enabled capital to be set in motion. It's a concept developed by Karl Marx to explain how the capitalist mode of production came into fruition. Marx says we must envision an accumulation of capital that was not a consequence of capitalist production but was the starting point of capitalist production. He called this "primitive accumulation of capital".

So what is this primitive or original/previous accumulation of capital? According to Marx it was the,

discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all things which characterize the dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation. [Marx 1977, p. 915]

Capitalist development was due to the brutal exploitation of Blacks and indigenous people as consumers and workers. African slaves were forced to perform free labor for almost 250 years. Karl Marx notes,

Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that has given the colonies their value; it is the colonies that have created world trade, and it is world trade that is the pre-condition of large-scale industry.
-The Poverty of Philosophy: A Reply to M. Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty, New York, International Publishers, n.d., pages 94-5.

This constant expropriation of surplus value, at a high rate of exploitation, was the driving force behind capitalist development, as well as the underdevelopment of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Where did the reproduction and growth needed for capital investment come from after the abolishment of slavery?

Abolition and Permanent Accumulation of Capital

After the abolishment of the slavery mode of production in the South, the United states still continued to generate wealth. Rosa Luxemburg proposes that the cause of this continual generation of wealth is due to what is called, permanent accumulation of capital. The difference between Marx and Luxemburg is that, for Marx, primitive accumulation is the starting point for capitalism proper, whereas for Luxemburg it is an ongoing process. Even after Black Americans were "freed", they still were subject to economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement. This was accomplished by the racist/capitalist state through, but not limited to, Black Codes, convict lease, peonage, Jim Crow laws as well as institutional racism. The rate of exploitation was higher for black workers than white workers, allowing capitalists to accrue higher profits from black workers than their white counter-parts. This discrepancy still occurs today, according to State of Workign America, "For every dollar of whites’ income, minorities receive only 56 cents. For every dollar of networth that whites control, minorities control only 27 cents."

A Call for Reparations

The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America(NCOBRA) views reparations as a "process of repairing, healing and restoring a people injured because of their group identity and in violation of their fundamental human rights by governments or corporations. Those groups that have been injured have the right to obtain from the government or corporation responsible for the injuries that which they need to repair and heal themselves. In addition to being a demand for justice, it is a principle of international human rights law. As a remedy, it is similar to the remedy for damages in domestic law that holds a person responsible for injuries suffered by another when the infliction of the injury violates domestic law". Economist Larry Neal, estimates that unpaid net wages to blacks before emancipation amount to $1.4 trillion today. While, University of California at Berkeley calculated the gains of whites from labor market discrimination from 1929 to 1969 to total $1.6 trillion. In total, there are estimates that blacks are owed up to 10 trillion by the US government. Yet, through all of NCOBRA's legal routes and tribunals , blacks have yet to receive any compensation. Nor, is it for certain that the government ever will.

Revolution is the Solution

There is a direct correlation between the development of capitalism and the underdevelopment of Black America. The exploitation of blacks if the motor for the United States rapid accumulation of capital. The high rate of exploitation, combined with the expropriation of surplus value from black labor is not only the cause of America's vast amount of wealth, but also the reason why that wealth is disproportionately allocated. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the capitalist class to continue to accumulate profit through division of labor according to race. The legal route for reparations and the development of Black America is a dead end. The only solution is a socialist revolution.

In that sense, reparations for Africans and indigenous people must be included on the socialist agenda. The only way compensation and development will be achieved is through the destruction of the vary economic system and state apparatus that is the cause of the underdevelopment of Black America. One of the first tasks of a socialist society would not only to meet the basic needs of the people, but to develop historically oppressed communities. The socialist society will give preference to developing these areas not to recreate inequality, but to raise the standards of life for everyone in society. This task cannot be completed in a capitalist society, but only a post-revolutionary socialist one.

Cheers.

"Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back - and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!"
-Malcolm X

Fallen Soldiers Friday: Mao Tse Tung

Every Friday I will post a biography of an honored hero in the revolutionary struggle. Some will be well-known freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth or James Baldwin, others, so not well known. Because not all believed in the same strategy to achieve liberation, we will see a conflict of ideas. Something that we can draw upon to construct our views today.

Mao Tse Tung (1893 – 1976)

The son of a peasant farmer, Mao Tse-tung was born in the village of Shao Shan, Hunan province in China. At age 27, Mao attended the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, in July 1921. Two years later he was elected to the Central Committee of the party at the Third Congress.

From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped established the Chinese Soviet Republic in SE China, and was elected as the chairman.

Starting in October 1934, "The Long March" began – a retreat from the SE to NW China. In 1937, Japan opened a full war of aggression against China, which gave the Chinese Communist Party cause to unite with the nationalist forces of the Kuomintang. After defeating the Japanese, in an ensuing civil war the Communists defeated the Kuomintang, and established the People’s Republic of China, in October 1949.

Mao served as Chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic until after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, in 1959. Still chariman of the Communist Party, in May 1966 Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution with a directive denouncing "people like Khrushchev nestling beside us." In August 1966, Mao wrote a big poster entitled "Bombard the Headquarters."

Served as Party chairman until his death in 1976.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul....

"China's Two Possible Destinies" (April 23, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III p. 253.

All our cadres, whatever their rank, are servants of the people, and whatever we do is to serve the people. How then can we be reluctant to discard any of our bad traits?

"The Tasks for 1945" (December 15, 1944).

Our duty is to hold ourselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people's interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected - that is what being responsible to the people means.

"The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan" (August 13, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 16.

In order to build a great socialist society it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.

Introductory note to "Women Have Gone to the Labour Front" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. I.