We love you comrade M’membe, but stop supporting military coups in Africa
By Austin Mbozi
Maybe showing love to Socialist Party leader Dr Fred M’membe could sober him to stop supporting military coups in West Africa as shown in his recent video when he visited Burkina Faso’s military regime.
M’membe is a national asset. We need his continued opposition/pressuring my UPND party to serve well. First, Burkina Faso’s military ruler Ibrahim Traore could still have democratically removed his so-called ‘puppet’ regimes, as did Senegal’s President Bossirou Diamaye Faye. Democratic Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Algeria, Morocco etc better of than Burkina Faso.
Second, M’membe is safer, and has a better chance of ruling Zambia, under a democracy. Military coup plotters can’t hand over power to him. They can ban parties, including his. Third, militaries/dictators won’t last. Fourth, military rulers will become corrupt. Traore won’t fight any corrupt military officer who protects him.
Fifth, supporting military rulers insults Africa. Putin’s disrespect for African collective bans on coups has embarrassed even his friends like South African President Cyril Ramaposa. Ramaposa cannot dare help ECOWAS to remove coup rulers because that entails fighting Putin.
Six, Ibrahim Traore is lying that the majority support him. The majority supporters of overthrown leaders are too afraid to voice out. Even the 1972 military Ugandan killer Idi Amin was celebrated!
Seven, those West African military rulers like Traore and Abdourahamane Tchiani of Niger are actually the puppets of Putin; their survival in military and food aid relies on him.
Eight, it is a lie that France caused West African poverty. Most blacks are unproductive and consumption-oriented, surviving on monkey tricks. This is why their ancestors were colonised in the first place. Walter Rodney in his book; ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ (1972, page 88) admits that African chiefs sold slaves just to buy red scarlets (‘katambala’). King Dingane promised land to the Piet Retief-led Afrikaners trekking into Zululand on condition that they help him re-grab ‘his’ cattle from King Sekonyela. After they did, he killed 185 Afrikaner men, wives and children. Understandably, Afrikaners overthrew him and took some territory.
King Lewanika invited the BSA Company in his kingdom, then tried to fight the white British administer Major T. Coryndon when he told him to stop keeping (fellow black) slaves. After independence, Westerners helped with $1 trillion. But according to Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid (2009) black Africans squandered it. Following pressures from philosophers like Thomas Pogge, Westerners are slowly reforming the ‘unjust global order’ which Kwame Nkrumah feared as neo-colonialism. The 2000 US Congress-approved AGOA which allows African imports. Still, we fail to produce. Westerners cancelled our debts under HIPC. But we elected new PF-like demagogues who ‘chewed’ our savings, borrowing again. Some Western leaders have apologised for past atrocities, and softened IMF conditionalities, allowing UPND’s free education and health, increase in CDF and postponing our debt repayments. Yet, Zambians are complaining that President HH is not using their taxes to buy them mealie meal!
Nine, it is a lie that France forced its dominance on its former colonies. They chose France. In 1958, French President General Charles de Gaulle gave French colonies chance in a referendum to choose either to remain in a Federation with France or be totally independent. I use the word ‘remain’ because French colonial policy was ‘assimilado’, unlike British indirect rule through chiefs. All its colonies were mere provinces of France. Even a Black in colonial Africa enjoyed limited French citizenship. Once you earned full citizenship by ‘evolving’ via education and acculturalisation into French life, you lived and took up any job within French territories globally. The first Senegalese President Leopold Senghor lived in France, holding several government top posts in the French government, including serving as deputy of the National Assembly and Mayor of Thies. The first Ivory Coast President Felix Houphouet-Boigny was a minister of state. This is why some French speaking black African leaders were reluctant to fight for independence from France, and why France has many black soccer players. Niger, led by Hamani Diori, voted 88 per cent for De Gaulle’s Federation, rejecting anti-French advocate Djibo Bakary, like all other French colonies.
At the September 1970 Addis Ababa OAU meeting, President Diori supported French sale of arms to apartheid South Africa, preferring ‘dialogue’. President Diori and other French Africa’s military rulers relied on the French military. So, they voluntarily gave France the uranium mining contracts. In fact, African rulers also signed the $2.68 trillion FDIs with China Nuclear National Corporation and Petro-China for oil. Why are Putin’s puppet coup plotters also not chasing these Chinese?
Only Guinea under Sekou Toure voted against France with 95 per cent of the vote. When De Gaulle’s France withdrew, including pulling off telephone cables from walls, the cash-‘broke’ Guinea got a loan of 4.5 million Pounds from Nkrumah’s Ghana. So, France has every right to fight if Putin’s puppet gives French investments to Putin.
Ten. Even African states whom Russia helped fight colonialism are not obliged to obey Putin. Foreign policy is shaped by what you will gain in future, not what nations did in the past. South Africa’s apartheid and Zimbabwe’s Rhodesia bombed Zambia. We are friends now because their current leaderships are our friends. The now EU friends Germany, France, Britain etc. fought bitter wars. Zambia will befriend any country whose CURRENT and FUTURE ideals we share, not the PAST. So far, friendship with the West shows better promise. If military rulers provoke civil wars, West African people will seek Western aid, migrating to Western countries; not to Russia. Even comrade Fred M’membe used to run to the West when President Chiluba tormented him. And Westerners supported him with media awards. Now, let Dr M’membe reply/debate this article.
The author teaches good governance at the University of Zambia, with research interests in global justice. Phone: 0978-741920. Email: austin.mbozi2017@gmail.com
Ba Mbozi, your item 8 is a blatant lie. France has wreaked havoc and enslaved it’s former colonies through skewed agreements. One of them being that former colonies must deposit their forex earnings in French banks. He sounds such an apologetic for colonialists.
However, Dr. M’membe’s cozying up to the military regimes is unacceptable. It gives a glimpse into his soul. If (God forbid) he was to be the president, he would emulate the military leaders he so much admires. This means he would rule with a heavy hand.
I have watched some videos showcasing the development projects of this Traore. For me, he is just an immature gentleman embarking on meaningless grandiose projects which mean nothing to the people and are ultimately a waste of national resources. How do you buy thousands of tractors for people?
As usual, when these military strongmen go, the truth will surface and it won’t be pleasant.