Reflections on All African People’s Revolutionary Party Presentation at the World Anti-imperialist Platform Panel on WW3
For a large part of the world, imperial war, world war never ends. War on the Global South is an ongoing struggle for sovereignty against Imperial domination, since the colonial era. There are also ongoing proxy, economic, and political wars being waged by Western Imperialism against the advance of socialism, in China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela etc.
Today when people talk about World War 3 they are speaking of a looming symmetrical war, war against nuclear world powers, an aggressive war waged by Western Imperialist powers led by the United States, against those economic powers and interests the West sees as a threat to their hegemony, namely China and Russia. White we agree with the current analysis that the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the brazen attack on Iran by the Zionist Entity and the United States, are conflicts that could bring about a new World War. We think the characterization of the possibility of a World War leaves out an analysis of Africa and the Global South’s relationship to Imperialism.
We want to talk about the ongoing asymmetrical wars that constitute World War for Africa and the global south. The colonial wars in Africa and the Global South were our WWI. Millions were killed, 14 million killed in Congo alone. The first peace treaty among warring imperialist powers in Africa was the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Africans were not at the table. Why weren’t these colonizing inter-imperialist wars called Imperialism’s first world war. We could also include the settler wars against the more than 500 indigenous nations of the western hemisphere. Here we will keep our intervention to Africa given our time restraints.
We want to emphasize that the history of Europe is not the history of the world. The development of the League of Nations and the United Nations followed the interest of Western Imperialism. That is the reason why a United Nations in 1948 could so easily hand over Palestinian land to the Zionist. The United Nation members were overwhelming colonizers. Their definition of peace is no war against Imperialist powers, no death and suffering in Western Europe and the United States.
Imperialist world wars weakened Europe and set the stage for Socialist Revolution in Russia, China, North Korea and advanced National Liberation struggles in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Africa’s Pan-African coordinated continental and diaspora national liberation struggles against Western Imperialism could be called WW2 for Africa and Africans. Africa was at war with Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the United States simultaneously between 1945-1994. Africa faced the combined forces of NATO, who assisted the weaker powers like Belgium and Portugal. Africa received Russian and Chinese political and military support. The African diaspora led by Cuban soldiers played a pivotal role especially in Angola and the Southern Africa region, tens of thousands of Cuban troops, technicians and medical personnel fought and assisted the national liberation struggles in Africa. The African populations in the Americas and Caribbean were also resisting colonial domination.
The Neo-colonial phase of Imperialism began in South America and was adopted by Imperialism in Africa after the successful resistance struggles of the Land and Freedom Party AKA Mau Mau in Kenya against the British and the Algerian war of independence from the French led by the National Liberation Front (FLN).
“To arrest genuine liberation and to maintain economic control in the face of resistance, Imperialism conceded their government structures under colonial rule to privileged classes or created a privileged class who helped maintain foreign interests, and economic control. “
Pan-Africanism and Class Struggle A-APRP
Imperialism’s Counter-Insurgency in Africa
The “counter-insurgent” Imperialist war against revolutionary Pan-Africanism and national liberation in Africa, and the African Diaspora, is highlighted by imperialist coups, (Ghana, Mali, Guinea etc.) and the assignations of Patrice Lumumba, Pio Gamma Pinto, Tatina Silla, Amilcar Cabral, Josina and Samora Machel, Maurice Bishop and Jacqueline Creft, Walter Rodney, and many more. There were imperialist military invasions and occupations; (Angola, Namibia, Sahrawi etc.). Economic warfare was employed in the form of sanctions and price fixing on cash crops and psychological warfare was carried out through media like BBC and Voice of America.
Neo-colonialism affects the whole of Africa whether the territory is under a neo-colonial government or not. The progressive forces are surrounded by foreign military bases and surveillance apparatus in neighboring African States/Countries. The African Union like the United Nations is dominated and controlled through imperialist donors and neo-colonial client states who vote in the interest of Imperialism.
The rise of China as an economic power created space for new partnerships in Africa and the Global South that upset the hegemony of Western Imperialism and their corporate elites. As China increased its economic trade with Africa, imperialism fanned the flames of resource wars in Africa.
World War 3 in Africa
Between 1998 and 2003 more than 5 million Africans died in a war between the United States neocolonial proxy forces of Rwanda and Uganda, and the former National Liberation forces of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, who fought to defend the Congo from the invasion. This phase of struggle in Africa was and is heavily influenced by the growth of trade between Africa and China as stated above. From my analysis this is where Africa enters the prelude to WW3, some 20 years before the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders.
This is important in the sense that Africa is essential to the economic survival of Western Imperialism. Britain, France. and the United States relies on Africa’s resources and labor. The United States is 100 percent reliant on 16 critical minerals from Africa, including magnesium from Gabon, platinum from Azania/South Africa and cobalt from Congo. France gets 70 percent of its uranium historically from Niger, Gabon and Namibia. The African CFA is a large source of capital for France with 50 percent of 14 African countries CFA held in France. The Congo is supplying most of the rare earth minerals for its industries. British industries are also tied heavily to mining extraction from Africa; https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/TheNewColonialism.pdf
Western Imperialism sees the Russian Federation as a key political enemy. The West would like to control Russian oil and natural gas also but today their economies are not built on this long time imperialist aspiration.
Zionism is a pitched battle to control West Asia, along with their Settler-colonial ally the United States. The Zionist Entity sees Iran as the only obstacle to the total domination of West Asia. The U.S. sees Iran as a gateway to destabilise its economic rival China and strategic rival Russia.
These two factors are critical in understanding the current situation on the possibility of another World War. The third factor and perhaps the most crucial factor is Africa in particular and the global south in general. Controlling Africa for Western Imperialism is a matter of survival. That is why WW3 for Africa has already become. Africa is the apex. All Anti-imperialist forces must be clear about the need for the consolidation of our forces around Revolutionary Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under Scientific Socialism.
The reality is that Western Imperialism is committed to using military means to maintain imperial power. The deeper reality is the United States has not won a protracted war in many decades. They lost in North Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Now they are stuck in Iran. If the United States and their allies can only topple, and assassinate leaders in a country,what will they do with a sustained Anti-imperialist alliance spanning across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. We saw glimpses of this with the “Axis of Resistance” in West Asia and the Alliance of Sahel States in Africa. The world has advanced against Imperialism during every World War. We the working classes and anti-imperialist don’t want war because of the death and destruction it brings. But if it keeps coming let us turn these Imperialist aggressions into wars of liberation
When the great revolutionary Sekou Toure said Imperialism would find its grave in Africa he was correctly stating that if Imperialism is stopped in Africa it is finished. Africa has 30 percent of the world’s valuable resources and 65 percent of the world’s productive land. The growing conditions for the next world war will continue to have Africa as a frontline against Imperialism.
Organize Organise Organize
Kamaradi Sobukwe Shukura A-APRP
