Africa, Europe, News Watch, Side Feature

Colonial Struggle for Africa Continues

The Telegraph Newspaper in Britain reports that diplomats and aid agencies warn the conflict is intensifying, spreading and beginning to echo the atrocities of 20 years ago.

The World Food Programme announced that the previous week alone some 20,000 had taken refuge in Chad, adding to a total of nearly 700,000 who have fled the country since April and another 2 million who have moved internally. Among those crowds, it was noticeable that the refugees were mainly women and children and their menfolk were missing.

One senior Western diplomat said the country is now seeing “extremely hideous and troubling ethnic violence, with widespread reports of atrocities against civilians on an ethnic basis”.

Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, last week told the United Nations: “We now are in peril of allowing history to repeat itself, yet again, before our eyes.

Comment:
When the west shows concern for Africa it is never more than a part of a thinly veiled plan to wrest more control over the continent’s abundant resources; natural and labour.

Europeans colonised Africa for its cheap and often free resources. After the Second World War America started competing with Europe for influence, in many states succeeding in taking control. America bankrolled the southern Sudan rebellion to gain control of the resource rich region. No amount of lost Sudanese lives could satiate American greed. China entered the arena investing in infrastructure, and extracting huge quantities of oil from Darfur alone, threatening to compete with the Western colonists if left unchecked.

Twenty years ago the Darfur conflict seemingly erupted out of nowhere and Western powers could not wait to send their “peace keepers”, so desperate were they to keep any piece of Sudan’s wealth they could get their hands on.

America and Europe have no shame in funding rebellions to divide a country if they see that it will serve their own interest; regardless of the human loss and misery such conflict causes. America’s attitude means it will try to gain control if it can, or deny all access to its rivals, if it cannot.

Yahya Nisbet
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain