LeiLani Dowell of FIST, Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of the Pan-African News Wire and Monica Moorehead, Managing Editor of Workers World Newspaper, at a study forum on African history in New York City on July 11, 2008. (Photo: John Catalinotto).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Diplomatic cables reveal role of successive administrations in undermining self-determination
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
A series of documents recently released by the WikiLeaks website under the direction of Australian national Julian Assange provides insight into the political maneuvers of the United States on the African continent. Although much attention has been paid to diplomatic cables on events in Saudi Arabia, Britain, Iran, etc., there are significant leaks related to the frustrations of the U.S. State Department in influencing developments in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Morocco and Algeria.
Going back 20 years, the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, under the former racist minority apartheid regime, sought to make direct contact with African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison in 1990. Mandela was let out of prison after 27 years in response to a world-wide movement in support of the South African masses in their struggle for national liberation.
According to the leaked cables published in the South African Mail & Guardian on November 29, “It took seven weeks of steady hounding to obtain an appointment for ambassador (William Lacy) Swing (U.S. ambassador at the time) with Mandela. “ In addition, to the slow pace of scheduling a meeting with the world renown South African former political prisoner, there were leading elements in the ANC at the time that believed “Mandela should refrain from meeting UK prime Margaret Thatcher.” (Mail & Guardian, Nov. 29)
The United States had been instrumental in the capture and imprisonment of Nelson Mandela in 1962 when he sought to organize a mass and armed struggle aimed at toppling the racist political system in South Africa. It was not until millions within South Africa and around world rallied to the banner of the ANC that the U.S. was forced to recognize the leading national liberation movement inside the country.
After visiting the neighboring African states and other fraternal countries in the immediate aftermath of his release, Mandela came to the United States for a tour in June 1990. During his U.S. visit he refused on numerous occasions to renounce the ANC’s longtime friendship with allies in the Palestine Liberation (PLO), Libya, Cuba and other revolutionary states and liberation movements.
In Zimbabwe, which gained its independence from Britain in 1980, the ruling ZANU-PF party embarked upon a radical land redistribution program in 2000. The program prompted the U.S., Britain, the EU and its allies to impose sanctions against the government of President Robert Mugabe.
During this period, the U.S. and its allies provided political and economic support to the western-oriented Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in an effort to topple the ZANU-PF government. However, former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, expressed frustration at the incapacity of the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to carry out the imperialist agenda inside this southern African state.
Within the documents related to the MDC, Dell said that there was no competent opposition to the Mugabe government. One communication cable entitled “The End is Nigh,” authored on July 13, 2007, Dell states that “Zimbabwe’s opposition is far from ideal and I leave convinced that had we had different partners, we could have achieved more already.” (Zimbabwe Herald, Nov. 30)
Dell stated that regime-change would have been possible if there was more “talent” among the opposition forces. He then goes on to claim that “you have to play the hand you’re dealt.”
The U.S. ambassador, who was extremely unpopular in Zimbabwe doing his tenure that ended in 2007, also noted that Tsvangirai was a “flawed figure and not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him.”
“He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short, he is a kind of Lech Walesa character: Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country’s recovery.”
U.S. Attitudes Toward ‘Friendly States’
Not only did the U.S. attempt to influence and redirect developments in states like Zimbabwe and within the African National Congress which had been viewed as communist-influenced national liberation movements and governments, even regimes such as the one in Kenya, a longtime ally of Washington, did not escape the scathing attacks by the world’s leading imperialist country. WikiLeaks released 1, 821 diplomatic cables on Kenyan relations between 1996 and 2010 which indicated clearly that the U.S. did not have high opinions of one its closest collaborators in East Africa.
After the eruption of intra-party violence in Kenya in late 2007 and early 2008, stemming from a disputed election, several leading states and political leaders on behalf of the African Union (AU) worked for several months to end the violence and establish a unity government. Nonetheless, according to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, “almost every single sentence from the U.S. embassy in Nairobi speaks with disdain of the coalition government.” (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 1)
Kenyan government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua expressed outrage at the content of the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from 2007-2008. Washington’s ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, was described by Mutua as misrepresenting “our country and our leaders. We are surprised and shocked by these revelations.”
Mutua later stated that “What we know is that true friends should tell you the truth all the time and should not tell you everything is okay on the one hand and on the other hand say the opposite or initiate programs against you.”
In the North African monarchial state of Morocco, another close U.S. ally in the so-called “war on terrorism,” leaked diplomatic cables show that there was little trust in the armed forces of this country. The U.S. assessment was that the Moroccan military was plagued by corruption “at the highest levels.” (Afrol News, Dec. 3)
One cable went as far as to relay to Washington that the commander of the Moroccan armed forces, General Abdelaziz Bennani, was using his position “to skim money from military contracts and influence business decisions. U.S. ambassador Thomas Riley also claimed that he discovered credible rumors that Bennani “owns large parts of the fisheries in Western Sahara.”
The Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony controlled by Morocco since 1976, has been waging a national independence struggle since the early 1970s. Riley noted that in order to win countries over to opposing the independence of the Western Sahara, whose liberation movement, the Polisario Front, had won the right to hold a yet to be realized national referendum on independence, Morocco willingly participated in so-called peacekeeping operations in Senegal and Niger.
These leaked cables also substantiates the long-held believes that Morocco, a former French protectorate, has moved closer to the U.S. Afrol News noted that “ties with the U.S. have continued to deepen, although Washington is also improving its relations with Morocco’s arch-rival Algeria.” (Afrol News, Dec. 1)
In specific relationship to U.S. relations with Algeria, another former French colony that won its independence through a protracted armed struggle between 1954-1961, the Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci objected strongly to the placing of its nationals on a list of those requiring special screening before entering the U.S. According to the leaked documents, “the Foreign Minister said that Algeria is a leader in the fight against terrorism and the measures taken by the United States are arbitrary and enshrine the principle of discrimination.” (Afrol News, Dec. 1)
Algerian Foreign Minister Medelci even stated that “These measures are contrary to Obama’s speech in Cairo, and the desire of his administration to work with Muslims. Some 14 countries were placed on a watch list after a purported plot to blow-up a plane bound for Detroit from Amsterdam on December 25, 2009.
State Department Engages in Damage Control
Since the release of the embassy cables by WikiLeaks in late November, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and other diplomats have apologized to U.S. allies around the world including those on the African continent. Yet what these documents reveal is that it is just as dangerous, if not more so, for African states to be friendly to the U.S. as opposed to being considered independent of Washington’s foreign policy aims in the region.
Overall U.S. foreign policy towards Africa is designed to maintain and enhance imperialist control over resource supplies that are integral to the profit-making capacity of the multi-national corporations. African leaders will undoubtedly take these revelations seriously in their future plans aimed at securing independence and sovereignty of its land, resources and waterways.
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