Shameless

The Bush administration's plan to form an African military command reflects the detestation with which it treats the world's most impoverished continent, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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Liberians hold a poster of Chinese President Hu Jintao as he arrived in Monrovia for a one-day visit to Liberia, traditionally a close ally of the United States, on the second leg of an eight-nation African tour

America is falling out of fashion in Africa, and that is an understatement. Washington's Africa policy, like its diabolical Middle Eastern debacles, unquestionably brings out the "F" word -- excuse my French.

United States President George W Bush this week approved a fiendish plan to centralise military operations in Africa under American command. He expects, I suppose, that he will exact absolute obedience from his African lackeys.

The American-style democracy that has been forced by the US on Africa is a sham. There is no such thing as good governance in America for it to have the audacity to forcibly impose it on others. For starters, foreign funders with big business interests in Africa and local tycoons who have lined their pockets with ill-gotten gains decide the vote of presidential and parliamentary elections in their henchmen's favour. American-style multi-party democracy has not alleviated the distressing poverty of the people of Africa. Social injustice has intensified with privatisation, economic deregulation and democratisation. So to add insult to injury, the awkward Americans now want to police the continent they have long treated with antipathy and revulsion.

The Bush administration has apparently approved plans for a so-called command centre for Africa. This despicable idea smacks of the opprobrious "contra" policy practiced by the Americans in Nicaragua in the 1980s when they attempted by force to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega. Uncouth American gangsters such as John Negroponte and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates should not be permitted to run African affairs. It is the very same evil masterminds behind the contras who now rule the roost in Washington.

Negroponte, currently the director of US National Intelligence, faithfully carried out ex- president Ronald Reagan's despicable policy of destabilising the Caribbean and Central American region. Negroponte was US ambassador to Mexico (1989-93) where he presided over the war against the Zapatista movement of the indigenous people of Chiapas. More recently, Negroponte was appointed US ambassador to Iraq -- the bloody legacy of his ambassadorship in Baghdad (June 2004- April 2005) was characterised by the brazen occupation and brutish crackdown against the Iraqi resistance to US occupation. The thought of such a monster having anything to do with the new proposed Africa command is enough to make the blood curdle.

These vicious villains, like Gates and Negroponte, have the blood of countless innocent victims on their hands. These depraved butchers now call the shots in Washington and expect Africans to bow in obeisance.

African leaders are pretending to be the politicians they so obviously are not -- independent thinking America does not have a leg to stand on. Nor do the African leaders who will allow themselves to accept the proposed African command plan.

But the public reaction to the Bush administration's dubious militaristic plans for Africa was somewhat muted. Pundits in Africa have not yet extrapolated their opinions, but they will no doubt do so in the weeks ahead. One suspects that the real reason the Bush administration gets away with murder is that, alas, the pimps and prostitutes who rule the continent at Washington's behest and kowtow deferentially at America's every beck and call.

Africa's leaders have sold their souls to the very Devil. Utterly unabashed, they have succumbed to the amoral and abominable neo-liberal dictates of the beastly Bretton Woods institutions -- they have pauperised their own people and rendered them unemployed and unemployable. They have religiously implemented the economic deregulation dictates of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- the two Washington- based Bretton Woods Institutions that hold sway throughout the unfortunate continent and its hapless people. They have closed down factories, laid off workers in the thousands, and dumped poisonous and carcinogenic wastes on African soil. They have turned the continent into a disease-ridden refuse heap and a dumping ground for murderous weapons and cheap but deadly small arms, foodstuffs that are unfit for human consumption in the West, and genetically-modified grains. Moreover, many African countries have become utterly dependent on American food aid, and America, in turn has become increasingly interested in African energy. Africa supplies the US with 10 per cent of its energy needs. However, other powers are also keenly interested in Africa's energy and natural resources.

African leaders have become the laughing stock of the Western world. Perhaps only Arab and Muslim leaders are even more despised, derided and jeered at.

African democracy does not work by votes, and nor does America's -- both work by the bloody greenback. Why is America now interested in policing Africa? Hidden agendas and conspiracy theories abound. These same thoughts must surely have occurred to many Africans. America has left a trail of blood in many parts of the world, including its genocidal liquidation of its indigenous Native Americans -- not to mention the ruthless exploitation of African American slave labour. If that bloodstained history really is to be discovered by Africans, they can never put their trust in the Bush administration's plan or policing Africa.

Successive US administrations will be penalised for this heinous crime committed by the Bush administration, with its appalling record of blood and gore.

The African Union (AU) summit was eclipsed by the African tour of Hu Jintao. There is something about Chinese dealings in Africa that brings out the worst in the Western media.

Surely, there are better ways to manage the US's rivalry with China over Africa in the Western media than harping on endlessly China's poor human rights record. On the contrary, this has not done a disservice to China, nor harmed its business dealings with Africa.

The Western media should focus instead on American atrocities across the world. Why is Chinese interest in Africa's energy so baffling to Westerners -- China is after all is the world's economic powerhouse. And, at least China does not interfere in African politics and its aid, unlike America's, has no strings attached to it.