African steps to its complete liberation › World › Granma

From 1445 to 1870, Africa was the main source of slave labor, especially for Europe and America. Countless human and material resources have been extracted from the continent, depleting its weakest economic and social structure.

The plunder of resources did not end with slavery. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a period of brutal plunder by colonial capitals.

From the sweat and blood of Africa’s sons and daughters, and from the plunder of its natural resources, most of the money that made capitalist development possible in Europe arose.

Decolonization in Africa was a gradual and complex process of independence, extending largely from the late 1940s to the end of the 1960s.

However, the political liberation of African states from former colonial capitals did not mean the end of economic dependency: colonialism gave way to neo-colonialism.

Africa has the highest concentration of natural resources in the world: oil, copper, diamonds, bauxite, lithium, gold, tropical hardwoods and fruit forests, and has 60% arable land; But those fortunes remain in the hands of major Western multinational corporations.

Transnational corporations invest and extract resources, from which they accumulate enormous profits that are evaded into tax havens, under the complicit gaze of international financial institutions that, in addition, continue to demand the extinguishment of colonial debts.

In other words, Africans pay their former exploiters even for the right to breathe; The looted remain indebted to those who stole their wealth over centuries.

On the other hand, as when they were colonies, raw materials move west and then return transformed into finished products, losing the surplus value obtained in the process.

For example, most of the crude oil extracted from Africa is refined, which means that the continent still relies on importing products for its own consumption.

The people of the Niger Delta, a region very rich in this resource, live in poverty. The oil industry has polluted the land and water, the majority do not have access to electricity, and the average life expectancy does not exceed 54 years.

After independence, France established a type of contractual society with many of its former colonies. The relationship between the city and its former colonies was established on the basis of “cooperation” agreements.

Paris imposed the following conditions: establishing military bases, maintaining colonial debts, and issuing two different currencies under the name of the African franc, one for West Africa and the other for Central Africa.

Under these principles, Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Mali and Mauritania were born in 1960.

To understand better, the CFA franc plays a key role in economic influence: the French Central Bank can veto decisions made by African regional banks, and half of each country’s foreign exchange reserves must be deposited in the French national treasury. next to nothing.

The dependence of this currency on the euro prevents African countries from controlling public debts and fighting inflation, as they do not depend on it, but on foreign currency trends.

French companies also extract gold, metals, cotton, oil and uranium without limits, which is what the monetary exchange prefers.

What’s happening in Africa?

A wave of anti-imperialist sentiment sweeps Africa. The era of neo-colonialism and the apparent theft of natural resources seems to have come to an end.

More than 60 years after their independence, the former French colonies are demanding an end to the CFA franc and the military operation Barkhane that began in 2013.

In May 2022, Mali canceled defense agreements with France, which Burkina Faso imitated, after Ouagadougou issued a decision to terminate the treaties signed with Paris.

With this arrangement, the Nigerian authorities canceled the military agreement with the United States, which allowed North American forces to remain on Nigerian territory.

Meanwhile, the transitional government in Chad asked Washington to end its military presence.

Let us remember that the Pentagon has no less than 29 bases in 15 African countries, while France has a presence in ten countries on this continent.

The entry of new international actors, especially China and Russia, has opened up new options for governments in the region, reducing their dependence on the West, by encouraging alternative sources of financing, among other things.

In the Sahel region, the US withdrawal allowed other regional powers such as Algeria, Nigeria, and Rwanda to increase investments and conclude bilateral agreements on collective security projects and economic cooperation.

Major African economies have begun withdrawing their gold reserves from the United States. Recently, South Africa decided to repatriate her, a move followed by Nigeria, and a few days later, Ghanaian authorities made a similar decision.

As if that was not enough, in the international arena, the independent role of the continent emerged through South Africa’s position. By putting Israel on trial before the International Court of Justice, the main judicial body of the United Nations, on charges of genocide and war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Namibia also condemned Germany’s support for Israel when it was tried for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

In 2050, the population of Africa will exceed two billion people, surpassing India and China, so that the demographic weight of its population in the world combines with its spread as a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic continent, rich in traditions and values. This, as the motherland of humanity, will bring it one step closer to the complete liberation it needs and deserves, which The thieves raped him many times and for a long time.