adminfinally free but little did they all know that, Africa would until today remain not free economically.
The euphoria, the pomp and fanfare, brought about by the feeling of having finally dethroned apartheid, has now died down as Africa faces a new sad reality, about a more subtle colonial import by the West, led by the United States of America.
Having realised that brazen colonialism was untenable in modern day society, America and its allies are now fast identifying natural resource hubs, analysing the governments there and then effecting regime change, replacing them with governments that are compliant to their wish to plunder the natural resources.
There is an African proverb, which says clever birds build their nests with other birds’ feathers and America is quite astute, when it comes to that.
American foreign policy has serious predatory instincts, when it comes to plundering oil, platinum, uranium, land, gold etc, and the US will use its military sophistry and might to gain access to these resources.
The west made sure that Africa remained focused on Euro-centric democracy, good governance but not on how to, protect, control, exploit, market and do value addition on the vast natural resources.
The supposed democracy, good governance and a myriad of other terms are meant to provide a smokescreen behind which the new generation of imperialists, would hide their regime change antics and remove all African leaders standing as barriers in the resource exploitation chain.
The imperialists then formed numerous non-governmental organisations to put pressure of the political leadership, especially that which proves to be the vanguard of Africa’s dignity and humanity.
Any leader who has tried to stand up measure for measure with the imperialists has been dubbed a senseless dictator, inhuman and so forth.
Because of this African leaders have been put under unnecessary pressure to avoid real liberation paths, that would advantage the Africans and disadvantage the Europeans.
They had their different approaches to life in their countries and handled situations as best as they could but it was the West’s desire to milk those countries that landed these revolutionaries in trouble.
In modern day politicking, America, Britain and France have emerged among the worst dictatorial governments, trying at every cost to oust all African leaders who protect their natural resources against western plunder.
In fact, African politics are at the mercy of these countries and their allies and the African has been reduced to a punch bag.
The only strength left is to fight for the control of all natural resources and look for fair dealers, like Russia and China, who are concerned mainly with business deals and not internal politics.
Each African country should have an inventory of the natural resources it has put on the AU data base for assistance in proper mining and management, without being subjected to exploitation that is controlled by the US and it allies. For example why should the US dictate how Zimbabwe should get and export its diamonds, when America itself does not produce even 10 percent of the world’s diamonds?
How can a person without a cow to milk try and control the dairy market?
It goes to say that Africa has the resources that America and its allies desire and that America should not be allowed to dictate how and who Africa sells the resources to.
Americans should compete with other countries in buying resources so that Africa has the choice on who offers the better deal but at the moment America wants to take everything.
American urgently goes for regime change and craft laws and regulations meant to make it difficult for fair trade in Africa.
Today, Africa’s power lies in its ability to control its resources and use them as weapon for fair trade with Europe and the rest of the world. It goes without saying that Africa has its riches vested in these natural resources, hence the need to use them as weaponry for self-development and emancipation.
The author is a social worker in Tanzania.
DayAfrica.com
Online Reporter