AFRICOM threatens the sovereignty, independence and stability of the African continent

Mark P. Fancher, Jeffrey L. Edison & Ajamu Sankofa  

(January 31, 2008) The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) concludes that the  mission of Africa Command (Africom) infringes on the sovereignty of  African states due to the particularity of Africa’s history and  Africa’s current economic and political relationship to the United  States.  

Further, Africom is designed to violate international law standards  that protect rights to selfdetermination and that prohibit unprovoked  military aggression.  

Africom is also likely to become a device for the foreign domination  and exploitation of Africa’s natural resources to the detriment of  people who are indigenous to the African continent.  

NCBL opposes Africom in the strongest terms and calls upon people of  African descent in the U.S. to avoid military service to ensure that  they will not be ordered to carry out missions on behalf of Africom,  or any military unit or program engaged in violating international  law, committing crimes against humanity, or committing crimes of any  kind that threaten the peace of any continent.  

What Is Africom?  

Africom is a project that will substantially change the nature of the  U.S. military presence in Africa by establishing a single U.S.  military command headquarters that will have Africa as its sole focus.  

Africom has become a Rorschach Test because while the U.S. government  sees it as a vehicle for bringing peace and prosperity to the  continent, it is seen by others as Africa’s greatest new threat.  

Because of vague, confusing official statements, it has been  difficult to ascertain precisely what the U.S. government claims that  Africom will actually do. Africom’s website describes the project as   a vehicle for the Defense Department to collaborate with “partners to   achieve a more stable environment in which political and economic  growth can take place.” That description raises more questions than  it answers. The following official statement sheds little additional  light: “Africa is growing in military, strategic and economic  importance in global affairs.  

However, many nations on the African continent continue to rely on  the international community for assistance with security concerns.  From the U.S. perspective, it makes strategic sense to help build  the capability for African partners, and organizations such as the  Africa Standby Force, to take the lead in establishing a secure  environment. This security will, in turn, set the groundwork for  increased political stability and economic growth.” Some critics are   highly suspicious of the reference to “economic growth.”  Specifically, does that refer in real terms to the economic health of  Africa’s poor, or instead to expansion of opportunities for  multinational corporations to exploit Africa’s natural and human  resources as they have for decades?  

It has been suggested that the Bush Administration actually has three  primary items on its agenda: 1) making Africa another front in the Administration’s war on  “terrorism”; 2) protecting U.S. access to African oil, mineral wealth and other  raw materials; and 3) putting the U.S. in a better position to compete with China for  domination of Africa’s resources.  

It is further suggested that the Bush Administration has no interest  in accomplishing any of these objectives directly, and that Africom’s   purpose is to identify and nurture the development of African  governments that will function as U.S. surrogates. In this regard,  Africom is off to a very bad start.  

As of the date of this writing, the Africom concept has been received  with everything from skepticism to hostility by significant African  governments, and NCBL is aware of only Liberia as having expressed a  clear willingness to provide a location for Africom headquarters.  

TransAfrica Forum spokespersons have astutely suggested that Africa’s   cool reaction to Africom may well reflect shared memories and  opinions that: “[d]uring the cold war, African nations were used as  pawns in post-colonial proxy wars, an experience that had a  devastating impact on African democracy, peace and development.  

In the past Washington has aided reactionary African factions that  have carried out atrocities against civilians. An increased U.S.  military presence in Africa will likely follow this pattern of  extracting resources while aiding factions in some of their bloodiest  conflicts, thus further destabilizing the region.” Why NCBL is  concerned If there is any principle that runs like a thread through  all of the work of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, it is  that protecting the human right of self-determination for all people  must be given the highest priority.  

NCBL also recognizes that crimes against peace are among the most  serious of all international criminal law violations. NCBL’s  principles have motivated the organization to consistently oppose  military intervention into the sovereign territories and internal  affairs of other countries.  

NCBL has opposed military operations against the Palestinians,  instituted litigation against the Reagan administration in the  aftermath of the invasion of Grenada, and also provided a consistent  voice in opposition to the efforts by several administrations to  destabilize Cuba through covert and military means. NCBL has opposed  threats of military intervention and the use of mercenary proxies in  Nicaragua, Angola and elsewhere.  

NCBL vigorously opposed the kidnapping of Jean Bertrand Aristide from  Haiti, and has sounded an ongoing note of concern about the shrill  threats made against the current government of Zimbabwe. Lastly, NCBL  has opposed the war in Iraq, and regards it as a crime against peace.  It is against this backdrop that NCBL has grave concerns about  expansion of U.S. military operations in Africa.  

The U.S. in Africa – The Historical Context To say that the U.S.  enters Africa with unclean hands understates the reality. The full  extent of U.S. crimes against African governments and leaders during  the past 40 years is likely yet unknown.  

However, in 1978, former CIA agent John Stockwell provided for many  their first peek into a deadly, ruthless U.S. foreign policy that  destroyed what could have been a far more promising political and  economic future for the continent.  

In his book, In Search of Enemies, Stockwell explained that U.S.  policy in Africa was driven heavily by cold war concerns. Socialist  forces in Angola and Mozambique were prime targets, and the favored  method of suppression was use of mercenaries. Stockwell wrote:  

“Mercenaries seemed to be the answer, preferably Europeans with the  requisite military skills and perhaps experience in Africa. As long  as they were not Americans...” He went on to describe a collaboration   between the CIA and South Africa’s apartheid regime in a campaign to   crush emerging progressive Black leadership in Southern Africa.  

The use of proxies and mercenaries to carry out U.S. objectives in  Africa became a standard practice as a new class of socialist leaders  emerged during the early years of African independence.  

In his book, Stockwell referenced the CIA’s complicity with  dissidents in Ghana who overthrew Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first   president. Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, received  special attention from the highest levels of the U.S. government  after he announced plans to nationalize major industries in his  country and to pursue a path of nonalignment in the then raging cold  war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  

Author Ludo De Witte wrote: “On 18 August 1960, during [a] National  Security Council meeting, [President Dwight] Eisenhower had made it  clear, without explicitly saying so, that he favored Lumumba’s  elimination. An assassination operation was planned with the support  of CIA chief [Allen] Dulles.” Thereafter, the CIA concocted elaborate   schemes to kill Lumumba by, among other things, putting poison in his  toothpaste.  

Ultimately, the CIA saw its objectives accomplished by henchmen of  the agency’s stooge, Joseph Mobutu. After Lumumba was killed, Mobutu   went on to become head of state in Congo, and his more than three  decades of tyrannical reign was one of the bloodiest Africa has ever  seen.  

John Perkins, a former operative of the National Security Agency, has  explained that the U.S. has routinely resorted to everything from  bribery to cleverly-disguised assassinations in cases where heads of  state have in some way threatened the profit-making potential of U.S.- based corporations.  

This raises special concerns because the threat to Africa’s political   and economic integrity comes not only from the U.S. government, but  also from the multi-national corporations that are the beneficiaries  of government policies.  

In recent years, this is seen most dramatically in Congo. In 2005,  Human Rights Watch issued a report that from 1998 to 2003, a war to  control gold fields in northeast Congo resulted in the deaths of more  than 60,000 persons along with “ethnic slaughter, executions,  torture, rape and arbitrary arrest...” The report goes on to  attribute significant responsibility for this carnage to two foreign  corporations that financed and fueled the conflict. They were Metalor  Technologies, a Swiss refinery; and AngloGold Ashanti, a  multinational corporation that, notwithstanding its name, is  overwhelmingly directed and managed by non-Africans.  

All of this raises critical questions of whether, with Africom, the  U.S. is now positioning itself to become more directly involved –  with or without proxies – in protecting corporate access to Africa’s  resources. In many other parts of the world, the U.S. has engaged in  “regime change” as a matter of course for more than a century as a   method of protecting the interests of the corporate world.  

What’s really at stake?  

The list of Africa’s valuable mineral resources is endless: gold,  diamonds, chromium, copper, etc. However, the continent’s vast oil  reserves have attracted perhaps the most attention from the U.S.  government. In 2002, Walter Kansteiner, former U.S. assistant  secretary of state for Africa, declared: “African oil is of strategic   national interest to us and it will increase and become more  important to us as we go forward.” It is easy to understand why that   perception exists. Currently, the amount of oil imported by the U.S.  from the Persian Gulf is about 16 percent of its total imports. By  the year 2015, it is projected that 25 percent of U.S. oil imports  will be from West Africa.  

It is clear that, on this issue, the U.S. puts its money where its  mouth is. There is a stark correlation between U.S. aid to African  countries and the oil producing potential of recipient African  states. To be more concrete, as the two largest oil producers on the  continent, Nigeria and Angola receive the most U.S. aid.  

More disturbing however (particularly for purposes of this  discussion) is the level of U.S. military involvement in the  protection of access to Africa’s oil. The U.S. spends about $250  million a year on military assistance programs in Africa.  

This assistance is not only in the form of “peacekeeping training”   but it also involves direct arms sales. As a major oil and natural  gas supplier Algeria has been allowed to acquire large quantities of  counter-insurgency weapons.  

Why the U.S. concern with “security” for Africa’s oil? U.S. access is  threatened for various reasons, but one that has been of great  concern is guerrilla activity in the Niger Delta.  

An organization calling itself the Movement to Emancipate the Niger  Delta (MEND) has, in recent times, been accused of destroying oil  pipelines, kidnapping oil company personnel, stealing oil and  assorted other acts. MEND has complained of oil industry economic  exploitation and environmental destruction. It was reported that  during the last year, many oil fields were shut down because of the  attacks, and oil production fell short by more than 340 million barrels.  

All of this prompts NCBL to view with great suspicion U.S. military  statements that imply that the security objectives of Africom will be  focused on Al Qaeda or other organizations that fit popular  contemporary notions of terrorism. It will be all too easy for  Africom to target groups like MEND, or even other political  formations in Africa that pose no direct threat to oil operations,  but which in a broader sense threaten corporate hegemony in Africa.  

NCBL has been quite clear about its interest in eliminating the  domination of Africa’s natural resources by foreign corporations, and   the idea that organizations that may engage in political work to  bring about that objective might somehow become the targets of U.S.  military operations is unacceptable.  

The legal concerns

As an association of lawyers and legal activists,  NCBL is particularly concerned about the potential Africom presents  for routine and ongoing violations of international law.  

With disturbing frequency, the U.S. has in recent decades launched  unprovoked military attacks on other countries, or intervened in the  internal affairs of other countries through the use of mercenaries or  covert action designed to destabilize foreign governments or the  economic, political or social order.  

Notions of self-determination and sovereign integrity are closely  intertwined, and international law has attempted to protect both by  proscribing military aggression and other actions that constitute  crimes against peace. In fact, the treaty that governs the  International Criminal Court has designated aggression as one of  “...the most serious crimes of concern to the international community   as a whole.” Nevertheless, the International Criminal Court is  currently unable to punish the international law crimes committed by  the U.S. because the Bush Administration has steadfastly refused to  submit to that court’s jurisdiction.  

The absence of a method of prosecuting such crimes only heightens  NCBL’s concerns about the likelihood that Africom will engage in  criminal acts with impunity.  

The United Nations Charter is one of the most authoritative sources  of international law, and it explicitly acknowledges the sovereign  equality of all countries and provides that aggression which  threatens international peace and the territorial integrity and  independence of sovereign states is prohibited.  

So strong is this concern about respect for independence that the  United Nations even prohibits itself from injecting the U.N. into the  internal affairs of member states unless very specific circumstances  are present.  

However, even with those purported safeguards in the U.N. Charter,  serious questions have been raised about the legality and usefulness  of certain U.N. interventions over the years, providing additional  reasons for the acute concerns about Africom, a far less restricted  entity.  

The U.S. claims that Africom is a response to African countries’  continuing requests for assistance with security. However, this is at  best a distortion given the cold shoulder that Africom has been given  by most African countries.  

If assistance has been requested, there is apparently little interest  in such assistance coming in the form of Africom. This means that if  the U.S. goes forward with Africom, even without malicious intent, it  will essentially become an unsolicited, unwelcome intrusion that  threatens the ability of African states to exercise rights to self- determination.  

It is more likely however that the ulterior motives of the U.S. that  have been suggested by various commentators are the driving force  behind Africom, and it will be difficult for that agenda to be  carried out without military action, either by U.S. troops, or by  surrogates.  

This threat to the peace, independence and stability of Africa is  inconsistent with both the letter and spirit of applicable provisions  of the U.N. Charter, and NCBL is therefore compelled to oppose  Africom on legal as well as policy grounds.  

What is to be done?  

While NCBL will continue to call upon all people of good will to  voice their strongest opposition to Africom, there is also a  practical realization that the Africom train has already traveled a  good distance down the track and the chances of it being voluntarily  recalled are somewhat remote.  

It is with that fact in mind that NCBL assumes a posture comparable  to that which it assumed with respect to the Iraq war. NCBL strongly  encourages Black youth to decline any recruiters’ requests to enlist   in the U.S. military. If Africom cannot be stopped at the outset,  then certainly there is no reason for Africans born in America to  participate in the destabilization and exploitation of a continent  from whence their ancestors were kidnapped for purposes of enslavement.  

The call for Black youth to boycott the military has been raised not  only by NCBL, but also by countless unnamed ministers, educators,  youth counselors and other leaders in the Black community. There is  also evidence that these pleas have not fallen on deaf ears. Whereas,  Blacks constituted approximately 25 percent of Army personnel until  the year 2000, by 2004, less than 16 percent of the Army’s recruits  were of African ancestry.  

In a study conducted by the Army itself, the conclusion was reached  that the continuing decline can be largely attributed to the  unpopularity of the Iraq war among members of the Black community who  are respected by the youths. This has had a significant impact on the  military’s ability to maintain troop levels in Iraq.  

Finally, for those persons of African descent who are potential  recruits, or who are already members of the U.S. armed forces, NCBL  pledges to make its best efforts to arrange for pro bono legal  representation if they are threatened, disciplined or prosecuted for  refusing Africom assignments, or for exercising their right to  conscientiously object to military service.  

This is a position paper of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. It was prepared by NCBL members Mark P. Fancher (principal drafter), Jeffrey L. Edison and Ajamu Sankofa. It is  Distributed by the Pan-African Research and Documentation Center, 50  SCB box47, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202. Information  about NCBL can be found at http://www.ncbl.org