Workers Resistance

Category: Africa

  • On the passing of Nelson Mandela, listen to his own words

    Nelson Mandela, a leader of the South African struggle for national liberation, passed away today, Dec 5. Mandela led the African National Congress, and along with South African communists, founded the armed struggle group Umkhonto we Sizwe, After 26 years in prison, the national liberation movement of the African masses, supported by a broad international anti-Apartheid movement, won his freedom. The official racial segregation and discrimination of Apartheid was brought down and Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa.

    The U.S. government supported Apartheid and opposed Mandela – keeping President Mandela on the U.S terrorism list up until 2008. The U.S. government has instituted laws such as the Patriot Act and NDAA and reversed other civil rights laws like the Voting Rights Act of 1964, reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.

    It is important to study and understand Nelson Mandela the freedom fighter in his own words:

    http://www.anc.org.za/list_by.php?by=Nelson%20Mandela

    Mandela On Struggle:

    “Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.”

    “It is revolutionary…precisely because the changes it envisages cannot be won without breaking up the economic and political set-up…to win the demands calls for the organization, launching, and development of mass struggles on the widest scale.”

    “The most vital task facing the democratic movement in this country is to unleash such struggles and to develop them on the basis of the concrete and immediate demands of the people from area to area. Only in this way can we build a powerful mass movement which is the only guarantee of ultimate victory in the struggle for democratic reforms”.

    “The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy.”

    Mandela on Apartheid, Racism, and Discrimination:

    “The Government takes measures to protect White people in one way and Black people not at all.”

    “Our most potent weapon against this [AIDS] virus is education. We have, perhaps, for some time, allowed ourselves to believe that like other epidemics it will come and go; that the great advances of our time in science and technology will offer us appropriate quick intervention. The key to our success is our own collective effort. The time for rhetorical arguments and victim blaming has passed. Now is the time for action.”

    “As long as…people are denied the democratic vote, they shall have to vote with their feet.”

    Mandela on Freedom:

    “No power on earth can stop an oppressed people determined to win their freedom.”

    “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

    Mandela on the U.S.:

    “If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”

    “What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”
    — Iraq War speech (2003)

    Mandela On Workers:

    “I think we may sometimes be at fault in not stressing and repeating the importance of the organized participation of workers in our struggle.”

    “What has characterized workers in our country, has been the determination not to be isolated from the rest of society, not to be misled that Unions must only concern themselves with shop-floor issues.”

    Mandela on Communism:

    “Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.”

    Mandela on Armed Struggle:

    “I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.”

    “50 years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights.”

    “Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”

    “As violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.”

  • Somalia’s prime minister ousted, cracks appear in puppet government

    Minneapolis, MN – U.S. attempts to establish a stable puppet government in Somalia were dealt a new setback Dec. 2, when Somalia’s parliament voted to remove Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon. Shirdon, who was locked in power struggle with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, received a no-confidence vote from the Parliament.

    Setbacks and defeats for the regime, along with corruption, have made the puppet government increasingly unstable.

    Lacking popular support, the Somali regime rules limited areas of the country with the help of foreign troops and their Western backers. The African Union Mission in Somalia, which supplies troops from countries whose governments are closely tied with the West, provides the military muscle to keep the Somali regime in power.

    In January of this year, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underscored the importance of the U.S. role in Somalia, stating, “We provided more than $650 million in assistance to the African Union Mission in Somalia, more than $130 million to Somalia’s security forces.”

    The U.S. special operation forces have carried out numerous attacks in Somalia and the country is often the target of drone warfare.

  • West carries out attack in Somalia

    Minneapolis, MN – There are widespread reports in the international press of Western special operation forces launching an attack in the Somali coastal town of Barawa, which is located about 100 miles south of the capital city Mogadishu.

    Reports indicate the Oct. 5 attack was aimed at the Al Shabaab, an organization that is fighting to remove foreign troops from the country.

    In Washington D.C., Pentagon spokesperson George Little said, “I decline comment,” according to UK newspaper The Telegraph.

    The U.S. and its proxies such as Ethiopia and Kenya are trying to impose a puppet government on Somalia, in order to strengthen U.S. domination of the strategically important horn of Africa.

  • U.S. Has Hidden Hand in Kenya-Somalia Crisis of Relations

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article by Abayomi Azikiwe of the Pan-African News Wire

    Billows of smoke emanated from the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya on the third day of a standoff between Kenyan, Israeli and United States forces (FBI) against the seizure of the facility by members of the Al-Shabaab Islamic resistance movement based in Somalia. Reports indicated that at least 62 people had been killed since the incident began on Saturday September 21.

    Eyewitnesses reported that a group of armed men and women stormed the entrance of the mall during midday shooting at random and tossing hand grenades. Members of the armed group were quoted as saying that their operation was in response to the ongoing occupation by approximately 2,500 Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) troops of southern Somalia.

    Kenya, which shares a border with Somalia, entered the troubled Horn of Africa state in October 2011 in what was called Operation Linda Nchi (protect the nation in Kiswahili). The Kenyan government at this time was led by President Mwai Kibai and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, two close allies of the U.S. administration.

    KDF forces bombed the strategic port city at Kismayo in the early phase of the operation. The city was a financial base for Al-Shabaab which controlled the lucrative charcoal exports from the country.

    Since the intervention of Kenya into Somalia, unrest has continued in the south of the country where resistance is escalating outside Kismayo involving Al-Shabaab guerillas who attack KDF positions on a daily basis. Even local politicians and elders not associated with Al-Shabaab have complained about the activities of the Kenyan forces which are accused of interfering in the internal affairs of the region as well as human rights violations against civilians.

    The Role of the U.S. in the Somalia Crisis

    The attack on the Westgate Mall is being portrayed by the corporate and capitalist government-controlled media in the U.S. and Europe as a new episode in the so-called ‘war on terrorism.’ Yet the role of the White House through the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) goes without mention.

    U.S. imperialism has been involved in attempts to influence the political situation in Somalia and the Horn of Africa for many decades. During the late 1970s, former Somalian military leader Mohamed Siad Barre was courted by the Carter administration and convinced that an invasion of Ethiopia, then in alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba, would result in Washington’s economic and military support to the beleaguered state which had attempted to adopt a socialist-orientation in 1969.

    The invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia in 1978, where a large population of Somalis lived, proved to be a monumental disaster for Mogadishu. Cuban internationalist forces then in Ethiopia to assist the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam fought alongside the national army of Addis Ababa defeating Barre’s forces.

    This ill-advised military adventure plunged Somalia into a deeper economic and political crisis that lasted for well over a decade. By early 1991, the Barre regime had collapse leaving a vast security and political vacuum inside the country.

    Later in December 1992, the administration of George H.W. Bush sent 12,000 Marines into Somalia in what was called ‘Operation Restore Hope.’ The intervention was sold to the people of the U.S. and the world as a ‘humanitarian mission’ designed to address problems stemming from the drought and famine which had long plagued the country.

    Nonetheless, by early 1993, Somalians had risen up against the intervention by the U.S., other western-imperialist states and United Nations forces occupying the nation. Dozens of Pentagon and UN troops lost their lives in a humiliating defeat that drove these military occupiers from Somalia in 1994.

    Since this defeat in Somalia, the U.S. has never given up on controlling this region of Africa. With the overthrow of the socialist-oriented government of Mengistu in 1991, Washington enhanced its influence through working with the federal government in Ethiopia then headed by Meles Zenawi.

    By 2006, the U.S. ‘war on terrorism’ was well underway with occupations taking place simultaneously in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. In order to avoid the political fallout of another direct intervention, the Bush II administration encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in order to displace the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which had begun to consolidate its influence and stabilize the country after years of war and factional strife.

    The main problem the U.S. had with the Islamic Courts was that it was operating outside of Washington’s influence. After two years of the intervention by Ethiopia, Somalia was again facing famine with the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at that time.

    Ethiopian military forces withdrew in early 2009 and sections of the Islamic Courts were won over to a Washington-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). A youth wing of the Islamic Courts arose known as Al-Shabaab (the youth) and began to wage war against the TFG demanding that all foreign forces be withdrawn from Somalia.

    Beginning in 2007, the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) was formed with the bulk of its forces coming from the U.S.-allied government of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Fighting has continued in Somalia since this time period with periodic and direct intervention by the Pentagon and the CIA.

    U.S. and British bombing operations have been carried out against alleged Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda bases in Somalia. The country is also a base of operations for the U.S. drone programs which extends from the Horn of Africa all the way into the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles.

    In addition, the CIA has a major field station in Mogadishu and has maintained detention facilities inside Somalia imprisoning purported suspects in the ‘war on terrorism.’ The combined AMISOM forces now consisting of some 17,500 troops, receives training and funding from Washington.

    The Somalia operation of the U.S. is part and parcel of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) which was formally started in 2008 under Bush but has been strengthened and enhanced by the Obama administration.

    Kenya’s intervention in southern Somalia in October 2011 had been planned for at least two years. The release of WikiLeaks cables in 2010 documented the plans and the role of the State Department.

    In an article published by the Kenyan Daily Nation on December 17, 2010, it reports that ‘The cables also say the military action took years of planning and was not a spontaneous reaction to abductions conducted by the Islamist group on Kenyan soil as repeatedly stated by government officials. The abductions seemed to provide Kenya with a convenient excuse to launch the plan, which, officials argued, was necessary to ensure protection against threats posed by an unstable neighbor.’

    This secret plan, dubbed ‘Jubaland Initiative,’ outlined the creation of an artificial state in southern Somalia in an effort to choke off Al-Shabaab from the border areas near Kenya. At a meeting in Ethiopia in January 2010, the Kenyan delegation led by the-then Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang’ula appealed for U.S. support in the operation.

    In addition to U.S. involvement in Somalia and Kenya, the state of Israel also has close ties with the government in Nairobi. Israeli economic interests are much in evidence in Kenya where tourism hotels and other businesses such as the Westgate shopping mall are owned by capitalists who are citizens of the Zionist state.

    Developments in Kenya and throughout the entire region of East Africa must be viewed within the context of U.S. economic and strategic interests in partnership with its NATO allies and the state of Israel. In recent years new findings of oil and natural gas all along the coast of East Africa is of course a source of imperialist interests in the region.

    At the same time flotillas of U.S. and European Union warships have been occupying the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia for several years under the guise of fighting piracy. Underlying this occupation of the Gulf of Aden is the vast economic resources that are transported through this waterway which is one of the most lucrative in the world.

    The current government of President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi was not the favored choice of the Obama administration during the elections in March. Washington supported former Prime Minister Odinga in the race and had issued veiled threats against Kenya if it did not vote the way the U.S. wanted.

    Both President Kenyatta and Vice-President William Ruto are under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Ruto requested and was granted an adjournment of his trial that was taking place at the time of the Westgate mall attack pending the outcome of the standoff.

    Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of human rights violations during the course of a violent dispute over the results of the previous elections held in late 2007. Their prosecution by the ICC has been rejected by the Kenyan government as well as the entire 54-member nations of the African Union.

    The ICC has been severely criticized by the African Union due to its exclusive pre-occupation with prosecuting continental leaders. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is also under indictment by the ICC and could be denied a visa by the State Department to attend the UN General Assembly in New York even though Washington is not a signatory to the Rome Statue that created the ICC.

  • The Egyptian people are waging a great struggle in the face of great dangers

    Over the past week the people of Egypt have been in the streets and waging a struggle that has assumed truly extraordinary dimensions. They have met austerity and repression with a mass heroism that people everywhere can learn from. The crowds that filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square and staged huge demonstrations across the country created the conditions for the end of the Morsi regime and pushed forward the national democratic process.

    The movement that has filled the streets and squares of Egypt this past week is a continuation of the movement that broke out Jan. 25, 2011 and toppled the hated U.S.-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.

    Despite these accomplishments, the movement of the Egyptian people now faces real challenges. It is a fact: President Morsi was removed from power by the Egyptian military. Was it in the context of a powerful mass movement demanding change? Sure, no doubt about that. It is also the case, at least for the short term, that the removal of Morsi via a coup, the suspension of the constitution, the ending of parliament and other measures taken against the Muslim Brotherhood, will strengthen the hand of the military – the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – in the struggle between different factions of Egypt’s elite.

    The strengthened role for military presents a real set of problems for the Egyptian people. The most important being that Egypt’s military is closely linked with the U.S. and it could care less about the national or class interests of the Egyptian people in particular or the Arab peoples in general. The military was the author of the shameful treaty with Israel that strengthened the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Its collaboration with Israel continues right up to today. Many of its ranking officers have been trained in the U.S. Second to Israel, Egypt received $1.3 billion in military assistance last year from the U.S.

    While the White House has ordered a review of the aid to Egypt – because U.S. law forbids assistance to governments that come to power via coups – it is worth noting that the administration is being careful not to say the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces carried out a coup.

    Progressives in the U.S. should extend their solidarity to the people of Egypt. Across the Middle East, from Syria, to Palestine, to Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain, people are resisting imperialism, Zionism and reaction of all kinds. They deserve our support. We demand an end to all U.S. aid to reactionary regimes in the Middle East, including Israel, and support the right of the Arab peoples to determine their own destiny.

    Victory to the struggle of the Egyptian people!

  • Egyptian Communist Party: Long live the struggle of the Egyptian people

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Egyptian Communist Party:

    Egyptian Communist Party: Morsi’s speech hammers the last nail in the coffin of his regime and his group

    The recent speech of (President) Morsi came shortly before the expiration of the forty-eight hours ultimatum indicating the size of disregard and lack of respect, if not hostility, of this man and his group towards all classes and sects of the Egyptian people who massively took to the streets in the thirtieth of June, unanimously in an unprecedented popular rising with unrivaled numbers. He set aside the Egyptians’ hope for a peaceful and smooth transition of power as demanded by these masses in by far the biggest revolution of human history, as witnessed by all observers and analysts.

    He refused to respond to any of the demands of these masses and decided to hold fast to power and even being ready to die for power.

    Perhaps, the word much repeated in this inauspicious speech was “LEGITIMACY” (198 times), but no one knows which meaning of legitimacy he meant!!

    Does it mean that his being free to destroy the country’s economy, cracking down on its institutions, detracting its sovereignty and sabotaging its national unity?

    Does it mean he stays roosting on the heart of the homeland, although he was completely rejected?

    The source of legitimacy is the people; all institutions of the state derive their legitimacy from the will of this people. It was clear the size and extant of its strength. In addition, this popular will, which is the essence of democracy and source of any legitimacy, only asked for an absolutely true democratic constitutional demand, i.e., holding early presidential elections, a tradition well known in all democratic experiences.

    This speech, in fact, was not directed to the Egyptian people, as they are no longer a concern of his. It was directed to his people and family of terrorists and their supporters to push them into more bloodshed of Egyptians, depending on what he thought of their numerical power and old terrorist expertise.

    As for his being supported by the U.S. or any other foreign powers for his existence – stressing his betrayal and infidelity of his country – he was disappointed because no one could ever stand in the face of the people, no matter what strength he might have. This people would never accept a ruler who rejects them no matter who stood behind him and supported him. No one in the world can accept to deal with a ruler rejected by his own people, regardless of his importance.

    We hold Morsi and his group responsible for any violence and any Egyptian blood shed or would be shed and reaffirm that they will pay dearly thereof. This blood shall increase Egyptians’ insistence to continue revolution till they get rid of them.

    Therefore, our party calls the hero masses of the Egyptian people to continue demonstrations in streets and squares, and immediately start comprehensive disobedience, besieging all centers of government including ministries, bureaus of governorates, councils of cities and municipalities etc. as this is the only way to eliminate all maneuvers and compromises that can empty the popular revolution of its content.

    Long live the struggle of the Egyptian people!!!

    Long live the Revolution!!!

    Death to terrorists, enemies of the people, enemies of life!!!

    The Egyptian Communist Party Wednesday morning, 03.07.2013