France, Africa And Coups

By Muiz Banire SAN

Sitting quietly in the hotel lobby of Radisson Blu in Ikeja could be exhilarating and reflecting at times. As skimpily clad young ladies troop into the expansive space, seemingly oblivious of critical eyes of the elderly, the young men, in flirting gaiety abandon what modesty probably prescribes as all go about their leisure businesses in a manner quite difficult to wrap in approbative seriousness. While scanning the traffic of men and women that have made a pleasant sight to entertain the idle, tired, or fun-seeking, intrusive music rudely wafts from a corner in quick and carefully arranged succession of one artiste after another. Some I can identify, being an “old school” myself, while some are too modern for my archaic revelry to appreciate. In the course of this was the sonorous rendition by Bob Marley in the classic titled “War”. The terrifying prediction by Marley is an exact rendition of the speech delivered by the great Haile Selassie of Ethiopia on October 4, 1963, at the United Nations after the man religiously known Ras Tafari was deposed in a military intervention by Italy’s Mussolini. And as I listened to the lugubrious lyrics laced with the threats of war and violence, I could not resist humming along: “Until the philosophy which holds one race/Superior and another inferior/Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned/Everywhere is war, me say war.”

I realise that the challenge against discrimination, which may not necessarily be racial, as it may be ethnic, religious, creed-based, sex or caste, two great icons of all times, as echoed through the microphones of the United Nations the amplifiers of the stage performance by Marley are in unison that “until there are no longer first class/And second-class citizens of any nation/Until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significant than the color of his eyes” there will be war. The campaign for human rights as conceptualized by Haile Selassie in what later became a song that can easily pass as an African anthem is given lots of credence by contemporary events, which we shall discuss anon. This thoughtful speech that prescribes basic conditions for there to be lasting peace stated unambiguously that “until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race/Me say war.” There is no inelegance about it, and borrowing from a recent statement of The Honourable Justice Agim of the Nigerian Supreme Court, “the fact is common knowledge, is not reasonably open to question and does not require proof”, that “the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship/rule of international morality/” have remained “but a fleeting illusion to be pursued/but never attained”.

With the West prescribing rules of international morality that it does not consider binding on it but enforceable upon other countries; with the exportation of the rules of democracy when and where it pleases America and its allies; with the strict adherence of America to the Monroe doctrine in its international affairs when its interest in the Western Hemisphere is concerned; with the self-appointment as the world police and the dominance of the world by the United States preserving for itself the right to intervene in the internal affairs of other nations; with the criminal silence of the developed world on the continued colonialism of the fourteen African countries under French influence, it is certain that “until that day, the African continent/will not know peace”. The immediate challenge posed by Selassie and Marley against colonialism, against imperialism and neo-colonialism, demanded all African countries, and not just Angola, Mozambique and South Africa, mentioned in the song, to be immediately freed. The statement then might sound like a curse but it is a prophecy that is rather now being fulfilled more than forty years after the album “War” was dropped into our musical space by that great philosopher. Recent developments in Francophone countries of Africa like Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d’Voire, Niger and Congo, have emphasized the correctness of the speech of Ras Tafari and the song of Bob Marley.

As much as military government has become unpopular going by popular aspirations of the people to embrace democracy; as much as unconstitutional takeover of governments has been demonized and condemned by most constitutions of the various countries of the world, it is unfortunate that Africa is still being beleaguered by change of government through the barrels of the gun and martial music. At the time that we believed that democracy was paving way to good governance, we realised that our people would rather celebrate military takeover since civilian governments in many countries of Africa have woefully failed in bequeathing lasting legacies of good governance, abundance and prosperity to our people.

While we need to condemn military takeover, France’s dominance in African territories in its possession has become too worrisome to justify by any funny claims to protection of democracy. Since the political independence of Francophone Africa, the economic control of these nations has been tightly held by France. African nations, colonized by France, are made to deposit their foreign earnings in the French treasury and were only entitled to 15% of their earnings not more than 35% to be received as foreign loans at commercial interests. The French African territories were made to sign a colonial debt agreement by which they are made to continue paying France forever in unending indebtedness. Countries that refused to agree to this were devastated by France through violent and reckless destructions of all infrastructures developed under French government prior to the political independence of these countries. Leaders that refused to kowtow to French demonic interests were deposed in violent coups through the aid of robotic elements in the military that were willing to serve the French interests.

It was in a situation of this nature that the great Thomas Sankara was assassinated by the betrayal called Blaise Campaore in Burkina Faso. The destruction of Guinea infrastructural facilities by France when the emerging leaders of the country insisted on independence and refused to sign the colonial debt pact is a sour tale in the annals of international relations. The consequence is that peoples living under colonialism of France at the moment are worse than slaves. Their natural resources are exploited by France using French companies that only pay royalty of 5% to the owners of the natural resources while 95% balance are expropriated to serve France. The huge natural deposits owned by these countries serve no purpose to uplift from poverty the people of African colonies belonging to France.

The whole world was aware of this; the United States, the United Kingdom, the whole of Europe was aware of this but chose to keep quiet for France not to be hurt. Africans can die; Africans can perish; the equilibrium remains balanced once the colonial interests are not disturbed. Such evil relation was what led to the assassination of Sylvanus Olympio, the Togolese Prime Minister, in 1963. The coup d’etat that led to his death was allegedly sponsored and executed by France for his determination to resist continued exploitation of Togo by the colonial master, France. According to a recent publication, “For de Gaulle and Foccart, his adviser on African affairs, Olympio was the prototype of the surreptitiously anti-French head of state.” He must be eliminated. From Vietnam to Algeria, Ivory Coast to Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria, French foreign policy, according to Liz Walsh in the Article titled “The Crimes of French Imperialism” has been “increasingly muscular, particularly in its old colonial stomping ground.”

It is not only France that is guilty of this kind of nefarious practice. Patrice Lumumba of Democratic Republic of Congo desth was similarly traced or attributed to Belgium. It is rather the policy of the West to suppress all countries they are exploiting by force of arms notwithstanding their sanctimonious posture of Christian adherence. The personal interests that the West seeks to protect at the expense of good living among Africans are now at direct collision with the Russian interest at building a wider support base to resist American dominance of world politics and economy. Africa has become the battlefield with the Economic Community of West African States unwittingly straying into punny roles of waging war against itself.

African leaders are at the crossroads of ensuring self-interest preservation by making coups unattractive and undesirable among the populace and on the other hand ensuring the total liberation of Africa from the clutches of neo-colonialism. The choice they make determines where they belong. Whereas Russia has pledged its readiness to support the new putschist leaders in Niger, it is hardly acceptable that it is doing so for altruistic reasons. Everyone needs Africa.

Much of the uranium used in generating electricity to power the industrial complexes of France is gotten from Niger. The United States is equally profiting from the selfish policies that make Africans poor at the service of the European overlords. The policies of France are hardly any different from American strategies when it comes to self-interest preservation. Just as the US sponsored the coup that terminated the life and democratic regime of Salvador Allende in Chile on 11 September, 1973 and planted the ruthless demon called Augusto Pinochet who killed millions of Chileans in a most horrendous government of human desecration. The removal and killing of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in a crisis engineered by the US has left a progressive and developing nation wholly devastated and a whole region destabilized.

The assassination of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein under the guise of American search for weapons of mass destruction has left the world wiser that America in itself needs to be exorcised. The silence that had pervaded in the French African territories did not make us aware that France is another cankerworm by the “African continent will not know peace” until the recent coups d’etat that are now springing up like mushrooms in a fertile soil. Today, we are at the crossroads of embracing Russia to liberate the African colonies of France who in self-delusion, had been proclaiming themselves independent. We are also confronted with the demon of uncivilized and unconstitutional military intervention in politics which has never benefited Africa substantially.

The cases of Nigeria and many other countries only lend credence to military violation of human rights, extra-judicial killings and disappearance of human beings holding perspectives critical of military atrocities. Suppression of fundamental rights guaranteed under constitutional arrangement has consequences quite undesirable and therefore the clamour for military intervention must be discouraged and discountenanced. It is the foolishness of a child that makes him invite an external aggressor to kill a father suspected of overbearing. It was under a military regime that corruption became completely institutionalized in Nigeria.

The rest is history as we are yet to find comfort in our otherwise completely compromised national ethos. The leaders of Africa have a duty to stem the tide of military intervention in politics. They also have a duty to ensure that colonial interests in Africa are completely uprooted to enable Africans profit from their economic earnings. They also have a duty to ensure good governance which is the only antidote to naïve celebrations of putschists and military marauders. The leaders of ECOWAS must address the poor performances of their colleagues in their various countries in order to make life more abundant for their constituents. “Until that day, the African continent will not know peace” as prophesied by the dual Kings of Africa, Emperor Haile Selassie and Robert Nesta Marley. May their souls rest in peaceful power.