It should come as a surprise to no one but the weakly naïve andpolitically untutored that the role of the US president in Africa is topromote and defend the interests of the United States, not Africans.This is so, even if the US president shares the skin color of Africa'smajority. What may not be so apparent, but which is true nevertheless,is that Obama represents the interests of his country's hereditarycapitalist families, banks, corporations and wealthy investors whoseresources and backing have brought him to power, and in whose intereststhe logic of imperialism compels him to act. It is Obama's goal asrepresentative of US capital to open, and keep open, Africa's vastresources to exploitation by Western, and particularly US, capitalwithout impediments of corruption, war and pan-African, nationalist orsocialist projects of independent development getting in the way. Hiscolor and African heritage give Obama a leg up on a white president,allowing him to immediately connect with an African audience. But hismessage is no less racist, imperialist and informed by the interests ofWall Street than that of his white predecessors.

Outright fiction

Obama used his speech to sell two fictions: (1) that Africa'sunderdevelopment has nothing to do with colonialism andneo-colonialism, but is rooted in corruption, tribalism and Africans'blaming others for their poverty; and (2) that Africa's developmentdepends on adopting institutions that allow foreign capital unfetteredaccess to African markets and resources.

"It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for (Africa's) problems on others," said Obama, explaining that,

"Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea's when I was born, have been badly outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent. In many places, the hope of my (Kenyan) father's generation gave way to cynicism, even despair."

During the years of its rapid economic growth, south Korea did notfollow the development path Obama prescribes for Africa today. Instead,it built five-year industrial plans that singled out industries thegovernment would nurture through tariff protection, subsidies andgovernment support. Foreign currencies necessary for importingmachinery and industrial inputs were accumulated through foreignexchange controls, whose violation was punishable by death. [1]

The government completely regulated foreign investment, welcoming itin some areas but banning it in others. Attitudes toward intellectualproperty were lax, with south Korean businesses encouraged to reverseengineer Western technology and pirate the West's patented products. 

This approach to development was the rule, not the exception.Virtually every developed country has followed the same path, usingtariffs, subsidies and discrimination against foreign investors, toindustrialize.

The first countries to adopt free trade, apart from Britain, whereweak countries on whom free trade was imposed by colonial masters. Thefree trade was typically one-way. Countries in Asia and Africa barelygrew economically during the period of colonial rule, while WesternEurope - the beneficiary of one-way free trade - grew rapidly. LatinAmerica also grew strongly, but at the time, followed animport-substitution model, not the open markets model industrialpowerhouses favored because it favored them.

Under the rule of Britain, the United States was treated much asAfrican countries are today. It was denied the use of tariffs toprotect its fledgling industry. It was barred from exporting productsthat competed with British products. And it was encouraged, throughsubsides, to concentrate on agriculture. Manufacturing industry was tobe left to the British. 

Alexander Hamilton rejected this model, creating an infant industryprogram that allowed the United States to industrialize rapidly.Hamilton's program - which remained the basis of US economic policy upto World War II - created the highest tariff barriers in the world. USfederal mining laws restricted ownership of mines to US citizens andbusinesses incorporated in the United States. (When Zimbabwe'sgovernment developed legislation to require majority Zimbabweanownership of the country's resources, along the lines of earlier USpolicy, it was denounced for grossly mismanaging the economy.)

Other developed countries also used foreign ownership restrictionsto help them industrialize. Prior to 1962, Japan restricted foreignownership to 49 percent and banned it altogether in certain industries.

In his speech, Obama created the impression that south Koreadeveloped rapidly because it followed policies the World Bank endorses,while at the same time Africa stagnated, because it didn't. This isdoubly false. Not only did south Korea not follow World Bank policies -in fact, it did the very opposite - Africa has been practically run bythe IMF and World Bank since the 1980s. Under their guidance, Africanliving standards have worsened, not improved. Over the same period, theWestern world's financial elite - which exercises enormous influenceover the World Bank and IMF - saw its wealth expand greatly. 

Corruption, Obama argues, and not the legacy of colonialism, hasalso held Africa back. There must, he insists, be "concrete solutionsto corruption like forensic accounting, automating services,strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers to advancetransparency and accountability."

These measures are desirable. But spectacular corruption inIndonesia, Italy, Japan, south Korea, Taiwan and China didn't holdthese countries back. The critical issue in development isn't whethercorruption happens, but whether the dirty money stays in the country.Mobutu took stolen money out of Zaire, wrecking the Zairian economy.But massive corruption and economic growth can co-exist, if the dirtymoney is invested in the expansion of the country's productive assets.

Moreover, corruption is more a consequence, and less a cause, ofunderdevelopment. Poor countries, because they're poor, pay meagersalaries to government officials. This increases the likelihoodofficials will stoop to corruption to pad their paltry incomes. Andlimited government budgets mean there are few resources to preventgraft. 

But Obama's concern about corruption has little to do with its rolein hindering development, and everything to do with safeguarding theinvestments of US banks, corporations and wealthy US citizens. USinvestors don't want to invest their capital in countries where thereturns can be stolen by corrupt government officials, any more thanthey want to invest in countries in which there is a high risk ofexpropriation by nationalist or socialist governments following pathsof independent development. A major foreign policy function of the USpresident is to create safe and stable overseas environments in whichUS businesses and investment can thrive. Corruption is inimical to thatgoal.

On top of corruption, conflict based on religious, ethnic and tribaldifferences is also keeping Africa poor, according to Obama.

"We all have many identities, of tribe and ethnicity, of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century."

It has long been a practice of imperialist countries to fomentethnic and religious tension as a means of keeping oppressed peoplefighting each other rather than their oppressor. The ancient Romanscalled it divide and conquer. The British elevated it to an art form,and used it to undergird their empire. It has always served to: (1)disrupt and disorganize a united front of the oppressed against theoppressor; and (2) to provide a humanitarian justification forimperialist countries to continue their domination of subordinatecountries.

The imperialist country must maintain a guiding hand, it's said,otherwise the ethnic and religious tensions that roil beneath thesurface will spill over into open warfare. The massacres in Rwanda haveserved the useful purpose for the West of reinforcing the imperialistidea that Africans are ready on the flimsiest pretext to go on bloodyrampages out of atavistic tribal bloodlust. Exploitation, oppression,unequal access to critical resources, and foreign meddling: none ofthese causes of conflicts in Africa figure in Western accounts.Instead, the causes of war are to be understood to originate inirrational hatred. And irrational hatred, the narrative goes, is bestheld in check by Western powers. 

While Obama attributed Africa's poverty to corruption and tribalism,he also, indirectly, and unintentionally, pointed to one of the truereasons for Africa's underdevelopment: one-way free trade. "Wealthynations," he said "must open our doors to goods and services fromAfrica in a meaningful way," which says the doors of wealthy nationsare not open in a meaningful way today. And they're not, and never havebeen. Despite African doors being pried open, usually by force, threator economic coercion by wealthy nations, the doors of Western countrieshave only ever been open to Africa on terms that benefit the West. Andthat's because there has never really been anything Africa could doabout the unfair bargain the West has forced upon it, except to uniteand pursue a path of self-reliant development, drawing upon its ownimmense resources and seeking out critical machine and industrialinputs from sympathetic countries. It didn't have the military power toforce the doors of Western Europe and North America open, as the Westforced its doors open. Nor could it use the tools of economic coercionto exact concessions from wealthy countries, for African economies,having been adapted to the requirements of their colonial masters inthe period of colonial rule, and never having escaped this legacy, havetypically been based on agricultural monoculture. What could Africancountries do - stop all exports of groundnuts, tobacco or bananas toforce the West to open its doors? Doing so would hardly hurt the West,but would deprive Africa of the foreign exchange it uses to import amultitude of goods it depends on the West to provide. To put itsuccinctly: the West has always had Africa over a barrel.

There are two other egregious misconceptions that Obama articulatedin his Accra speech: (1) That "the West is not responsible for thedestruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade..." and (2)that "African-Americans...have thrived in every sector of (US) society." 

The decline in Zimbabwe's economy since 2000 is attributed by USofficials to Robert Mugabe's mismanagement, an explanation amplified bythe Western media and treated by both the media and Western publics asindisputable. The year 2000 marked the beginning of Zimbabwe's fasttrack land redistribution program. The goal of the program was toreclaim prized agricultural land stolen by force by European settlers.The land was to be redistributed to indigenous farmers. And it hasbeen. Zimbabwe has democratized land ownership patterns, distributingland previously owned by 4,000 farmers, mostly of British origin, to300,000 previously landless families, of African origin.

In more sophisticated analyses, the root cause of Zimbabwe'seconomic difficulties is understood to lie in the disruption ofagriculture caused by land reform. According to this analysis, had theMugabe government not pressed ahead with its aggressive land reformprogram and settled for the sedate, glacial affair that characterizedland redistribution prior to 2000 - and which has marked agrarianreform elsewhere on the continent - Zimbabwe would not be in thestraitened circumstances it finds itself today.

Until 2000, land reform moved at a snail's pace. As part of anegotiated settlement with Britain, the independence movement agreed toa willing buyer-willing seller arrangement, whereby land could only beacquired for redistribution if the owner wanted to sell. Thisrestriction was to remain in effect for the first 10 years ofindependence. Since most farmers of European origin were unwilling tosell, little land was available to redistribute. 

Eventually Harare was free to expropriate land from farmers whodidn't want to sell. Britain had agreed to help compensate expropriatedfarmers but renounced the agreement, denying it was ever under anyobligation to fund land reform. Since Harare didn't have the funds topay for the land it needed for redistribution, it had two choices:Carry on as is, with land redistribution proceeding at a glacial pace,or expropriate the land and demand that expropriated farmers seekcompensation from London, which after all, was ultimately responsiblefor the theft of the land and had promised to underwrite the landreform program. The Mugabe government chose the later course, settingoff alarm bells in Western capitals. Mugabe couldn't be allowed to getaway with uncompensated expropriation of productive property.

Analyses that attributed Zimbabwe's economic disaster tomismanagement overlooked the reaction of Washington to the Mugabegovernment's lese majesty against private property. For not only didthe turn of the century mark the beginning of fast-track land reform,it also marked the passage of the US Democracy and Economic RecoveryAct (ZDERA.)

ZDERA is not a regime of targeted sanctions against individuals, asmany believe. Sanctions against individuals do exist, but ZDERA issomething altogether different. ZDERA has two aspects. First, itauthorizes the US president to "support an independent and free pressand electronic media in Zimbabwe" and "provide for democracy andgovernance programs in Zimbabwe." This is code for doing openly whatthe CIA used to do covertly: destabilize foreign governments. Second,it instructs the United States executive director to each internationalfinancial institution (the World Bank and IMF, for example) to opposeand vote against: 

(1) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe; or

(2) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by thegovernment of Zimbabwe to the United States or any internationalfinancial institution.

Since ZDERA was passed in 2001, Washington has blocked all lines ofcredit, development assistance and balance of payment support frominternational lending institutions to Zimbabwe.

When the act was passed, then US president George W. Bush declaredhis hope that "the provisions of this important legislation willsupport the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peacefuldemocratic change, achieve economic growth, and restore the rule oflaw." [2]

Since effecting peaceful democratic change meant ousting the Zanu-PFgovernment and restoring the rule of law meant forbidding theuncompensated expropriation of white farm land, what Bush was reallysaying was that he hoped the legislation would help overthrow thegovernment and put an end to fast-track land reform. 

ZDERA was co-drafted by one of the opposition MDC's whiteparliamentarians, and introduced as a bill in the US Congress in Marchof 2001 by the Republican senator, William Frist. The legislation wasco-sponsored by the Republican rightwing senator, Jesse Helms, and theDemocratic senators Hilary Clinton (now Secretary of State), JosephBiden (now Vice-President) and Russell Feingold.

Helms died in early July, 2008. He denounced the 1964 Civil RightsAct, was a spokesman for the tobacco industry and was a slum landlord.He opposed school bussing, compensation for Japanese Americans andCommunists. He complained that public schools were being used "to teachour children that cannibalism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infantsand the elderly are acceptable behavior." [3] Helms was also fond ofsanctions. He co-authored the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which tightenedthe blockade on Cuba.

The MDC had always been reluctant to admit that sanctions hadcrippled Zimbabwe's economy, and more reluctant still to call for theirremoval. This is to be expected. In opposition, the MDC's goal was toblame the government for the country's economic difficulties. If itcould do so convincingly, and at the same time persuade voters it coulddo a better job, it chances of prevailing at the polls would increaseaccordingly. Likewise, if it refused to add to the pressure on Westerngovernments to lift sanctions, and even encouraged Western governmentsto maintain or escalate them, the government would remain burdened withthe political liability of an ailing economy. But times have changed.The MDC has formed a coalition government with Zanu-PF, and the MDCcontrols the finance ministry. Sanctions are no longer in the party'sinterest, and the MDC has, as a consequence, changed its tune. Not onlydoes it now acknowledge ZDERA, the finance minister, Tendai Biti,complains about it bitterly. 

"The World Bank has right now billions and billions of dollars that we have access to but we can't access those dollars unless we have dealt with and normalized our relations with the IMF. We cannot normalize our relations with the IMF because of the voting power, it's a blocking voting power of America and people who represent America on that board cannot vote differently because of ZDERA." [4]

As bad as ZDERA is, it's not the only sanctions regime the UnitedStates has used to sabotage Zimbabwe's economy. Addressing the SenateForeign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee, Jendaya Frazer, who wasGeorge W. Bush's top diplomat in Africa, noted that the United Stateshad imposed financial and travel restrictions on 135 individuals and 30businesses. US citizens and corporations who violate the sanctions facepenalties ranging from $250,000 to $500,000. "We are looking to expandthe category of Zimbabweans who are covered. We are also looking atsanctions on government entities as well, not just individuals." Sheadded that the US Treasury Department was looking into ways to targetsectors of Zimbabwe's critical mining industry. [5]

On July 25, 2008 Bush announced that sanctions on Zimbabwe would bestepped up. He outlawed US financial transactions with a number of keyZimbabwe companies and froze their US assets. The enterprises included:the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (which controls all mineralexports); the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company; Minerals MarketingCorporation of Zimbabwe; Osleg, or Operation Sovereign Legitimacy, thecommercial arm of Zimbabwe's army; Industrial Development Corporation;the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe; ZB Financial Holdings;and the Agriculture Development Bank of Zimbabwe. [6] 

In early March 2009, Obama extended sanctions for another year, announcing that,

"The crisis constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved. These actions and policies pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States." [7]

It would be more accurate to say that US sanctions pose a continuingunusual and extraordinary threat to the economy of Zimbabwe.

Topping off the falsehoods in Obama's speech was his assurance toAfricans that "African-Americans...have thrived in every sector of (US)society." This is nonsense. Income, employment, education andopportunity are profoundly unequal in the United States, and inequalityis inextricably bound up with race. The per capita income of blacks inthe United States is 40 percent lower than that of whites. One in fourblacks live in poverty, compared to eight percent of whites. Theproportion of blacks without health insurance is twice that of whites.[8] And the official seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for blacksin June 2009 was almost twice as high as the jobless rate for whites.[9]

The degree to which blacks haven't thrived is evident in wholanguishes in the country's jails. While the United States has onlyfive percent of the world's population, it has one-quarter of theworld's prisoner population, and US prisoners are disproportionatelyblack. One-third of black males born in 2001 are expected to beimprisoned at some point in their lifetime, compared to six percent ofwhite males. [10] Poor, unemployed, without health insurance and inprison. That's hardly thriving. 

Jaw dropping hypocrisy

As leader of a country currently engaged in three wars of aggression(Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and which threatens to escalate itsaggressions against Iran and north Korea, one might think Obama wouldbe ashamed to lecture anyone on the importance of resolving conflictspeacefully. But US presidents know no shame. Boldly, Obama toldAfricans that "for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life,as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars overresources." Africans, he continued, must learn the "peaceful resolutionof conflict."

Indeed, there are wars over land and wars over resources, and this,the United States knows well, for over the course of its history it hasinitiated many of them, and most of the wars over land and resourcesover the past 60 years have been planned at the Pentagon. The UnitedStates' vast military, which Washington methodically nurtures throughthe misappropriated tax dollars of ordinary US citizens, allows thecountry to dominate and plunder much of the world, while at the sametime piling up profits for US corporations engaged in "defense"industry work.

Particularly galling is the reality that the United States had a hand in the bloodiest and deadliest war on the continent.

"In early May 1997, when it became apparent to western observers that the broad coalition of rebel forces in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) headed by veteran freedom fighter, Laurent Kabila, would eventually topple the Mobutu kleptocracy and establish ‘a popular government, linking all sectors of our society,' the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others in the corporate media slowly began to criticize the ‘excesses' of the CIA-installed Mobutu regime, in power since 1965. But at the same time they began a relentless campaign against Kabila and the rebel coalition.

"The Wall Street Journal spoke of Kabila as an ‘ideological throwback' to the politics of the 1960s. It decried his relationship with Che Guevara, who had gone to the Congo in the early l960s to work with a progressive coalition (including Kabila) to support the Patrice Lumumba forces and to oust another CIA-installed regime, which had been installed in the diamond-rich region of Katanga. The Journal warned that ‘western interests' would now be in jeopardy under Kabila.

"For thirteen months, Kabila sought to consolidate a broad coalition to democratize and develop the Congo. But by August 1998, two neighboring states, Rwanda and Uganda, aligned with ethnic forces inside the Congo, (and backed by Washington) invaded several towns and cities. Both invading countries charged Kabila with ‘corruption' and human rights violations, and with being ‘undemocratic.'

"Both Rwanda and Uganda are governed by de facto military regimes. Both governments are hosts to U.S. military training facilities and U.S. military personnel. The Congo has been regarded by leading scientists and economists as one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world. It contains roughly 70 percent of the world's cobalt. More than half of the U.S. military's cobalt comes from the Congo. It is the second largest producer of diamonds in the world and is known for large deposits of gold, manganese, and copper. The Congo's peculiar type of high-grade uranium was used by the U.S. to make the atom bombs that were dropped on Japan in WWII. And the U.S. dominates mining in that area even today." [11]

An estimated five million died in the war from 1998 to 2003. Theconflict continues, with 45,000 people dying each month fromwar-related causes, primarily hunger and disease. [12] And yet war inthe DRCongo is barely mentioned in the Western media. Instead,attention is focused on Darfur, home to vast oil reserves the UnitedStates does not control, but would like to lay its hands on. Raisingpublic alarm over Darfur is a way of manufacturing consent for Westernintervention in Sudan. The outcome - and unstated goal - of such anintervention would be to bring another oil-rich country underWashington's domination.

"The United Nations has estimated some 300,000 may have died in total as a result of the years of conflict in Darfur; the same number die from the Congo conflict every six and a half months. And yet, in the New York Times, which covers the Congo more than most U.S. outlets, Darfur has consistently received more coverage since it emerged as a media story in 2004. The Times gave Darfur nearly four times the coverage it gave the Congo in 2006, while Congolese were dying of war-related causes at nearly 10 times the rate of those in Darfur. "[13]

Washington also orchestrated a recent war in Somalia. In 2006, theUS-backed, UN-recognized government of Somalia was limited to theinland town of Baidoa. Mogadishu, the capital, had fallen to Islamicmilitias, who had formed a de facto government in June of that year.The militias' power wasn't based on their military strength, whichconsisted only of a few hundred armed pickup trucks and a few thousandfighters, but in their popular support. In the capital Mogadishu, theIslamists organized neighborhood cleanups, delivered food to the needyand brought dormant national institutions like the Supreme Court backto life. 

According to Ted Dagne, the African analyst at the CongressionalResearch Service in Washington, the de facto government provided "asense of stability in Somalia, education and other services, while thewarlords maimed and killed innocent civilians." What's more, "insteadof acting like the Taliban and ruthlessly imposing a harsh religiousorthodoxy" the Islamists delivered social services and pushed fordemocratic elections.

That's when General John P. Abizaid of the United States CentralCommand, or Centcom, flew to neighboring Ethiopia to meet PrimeMinister Meles Zenawi, who told the US proconsul that he could cripplethe Islamist forces in one to two weeks. Abizaid gave the Ethiopianprime minister the go ahead, and soon Ethiopian soldiers - trained byUS military advisors - were flooding over the border into Somalia. [14]The United States supplied battlefield intelligence, the US Fifth Fleetenforced a naval blockade, US Marines deployed along Somalia's borderwith Kenya, and US AC-130 gunships, operating out of Djibouti, strucktargets within Somalia. [15]

The invasion was a brazen affront to the United Nations Charter.Somalia hadn't threatened Ethiopia, and indeed, couldn't. With a fewhundred armed pickup trucks, Somali forces posed no danger tosurrounding countries. And yet there wasn't a peep a protest from the"international community".

The war created what has been called Africa's largest and mostignored catastrophe. One million Somalis were displaced. Some 10,000were killed. [16] And the United States, whose president counselsAfricans to learn to resolve conflicts peacefully, started it. 

To discourage what Obama views as Africa's addiction to war, the USpresident pledged to "stand behind efforts to hold war criminalsaccountable." What he didn't say was that he meant African warcriminals, and only the ones who aren't puppets of the West. Obama hasno intention of holding accountable either Meles Zenawi or Western warcriminals (his predecessor, former British prime minister Tony Blair,or himself) or CIA operatives who used torture and those who authorizedtheir crimes. Instead, he says, he would rather look forward, notbackward. White war criminals are to be forgiven; black war criminals,who fail to toe the imperialist line, are to be held accountable.

The body through which most African war criminals are to be heldaccountable is the International Criminal Court (ICC), a court theUnited States itself refuses to join, on grounds its soldiers andofficials would face frivolous prosecutions. If the United States wouldface frivolous prosecutions, why not other countries? The ICC hasreceived

"2,889 communications about alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in at least 139 countries, and yet by March 2009, the prosecutor had opened investigations into just four cases: Uganda, DRCongo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan/Darfur. All of them in Africa. Thirteen public warrants of arrest have been issued, all against Africans." [17]

Conspicuously absent from the list of opened investigations are theperpetrators of the world's most blatant recent war crimes: the US,Britain and Israel. 

Yes, but "there cannot be an African exception to (the Nuremberg)principles," argues David Crane, who was chief prosecutor for thespecial court on Sierra Leone (which is trying former Liberianpresident, Charles Taylor, for doing what practically every USpresident since World War II has done: support rebel troops in anothercountry.) Crane's "no African exceptions" cry is taken up by theWestern media. Referring to Taylor's trial, Guardian columnist PhilClark, wrote that "for many, the trial represents another victory forinternational justice and another signal for the end of impunity forthe likes of Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and AlbertoFujimori." [18] He might have added, but not for George W. Bush, TonyBlair, Bill Clinton, P.W. Botha, and Ian Smith. The Western media andstate officials don't seem to be concerned about the impunity of thesewar criminals. The reality that there have been many African exceptionsto humanitarian law - where whites are concerned - seems to haveescaped the notice of Crane, a white US citizen, who indicted Taylor, ablack African.

Martin Kargbo wonders why the West insists that black Africans beheld accountable, while celebrating the truth and reconciliationcommissions which have granted impunity to white war criminals.

"Impunity has not been an issue in DRCongo where the wars waged by Rwanda and Uganda between 1996 and 2003 on behalf of America and Western interests have led to an estimated five million deaths in Congo...

"Impunity, again, was not an issue when South Africa decided in 1994, in the interest of national peace and stability to forgive the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity - people who had terrorized and killed black Africans for 50 long years during the apartheid era. And no human rights group said it was wrong to forgive P.W. Botha & Co.

"Impunity was also not an issue when Zimbabwe decided in 1980 in the interest of national peace and stability to forgive the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity - people who had terrorized and killed black Africans for decades before independence. And no human rights group said it was wrong to forgive Ian Smith and Co.

"Impunity was again not an issue when Namibia did the same thing in 1990 - to forgive the atrocities committed against black people during the pre-independence era. And no human rights group spoke against Namibia's act of forgiveness." [19]

Obama also promised to "support strong and sustainable democraticgovernments" while supporting the strong, but hardly democratic,Egyptian government, with $1 billion per year in military aid.Washington has also been instrumental in undermining the popularlyelected Hamas government. These two examples - and only two of many -show that Washington has no commitment to democracy abroad. It's allrhetoric. Washington supports governments which enlarge the interestsof the US ruling class, whether democratic or not, and opposes foreigngovernments which don't, whether democratic or not. US democracypromotion, a multi-million dollar per year industry that does what theCIA used to do covertly, is simply a cover for regime change carriedout by non-military means in countries that are open enough to allow USagents and fifth columns sufficient room to maneuver. Obama'sadministration will continue to run "democracy promotion" programs,working to ensure that foreign governments that pursue independentpaths of development, including those in Africa, are overthrown. 

Promoting the profit interests of US capital

Washington wants Africa to be a profitable place in which UScorporations, banks and investors can do business. Africans wantforeign investment to help Africa develop. It seems like a win-winsituation. If Africa does what's necessary to help foreign investorsreap handsome profits, corporate America gets profits and Africans getinvestment.

But the history of Africa's engagement with the world economy hasn'tbeen the win-win situation US politicians and the West's mass mediapromise. Instead, foreign capital has profited and Africans haveremained deeply mired in poverty.

That's because foreign capital can win bigger if it doesn't have toshare the economic surplus it expropriates with the people who produceit. So, it goes for the big prize.

And why wouldn't it? Foreign capital, like all capital, wants tomaximize profits. So it demands a low wage environment, unburdened bycorporate taxes or stringent environmental regulations, in whichprofits can be taken out of the country, and in which governmentsabjure efforts to meet social goals by making demands on corporationsand investors. Those with capital to invest don't want to pay hightaxes (or any taxes at all if they can get away with it), comply withexpensive environmental regulations, pay high wages, or be forced totake on local partners. They don't want to have to invest any of theirprofits in the host country if a higher return on investment can beobtained elsewhere. Neither do foreign corporations and investors wantlocal governments to give local businesses a hand up by offeringsubsidies and tariff protections. And they don't want profitable areasof investment - like energy, telecommunication and banking - placed offlimits. In short, all of the measures a local government mightimplement to satisfy local development needs - mandated re-investmentof profits, state-controlled enterprises, foreign investmentrestrictions, price controls and meaningful minimum wage laws, aheavily graduated tax, and so on - are anathema to foreign capital. 

In addition, foreign corporations, banks and investors want abusiness environment that is free from the threat of disruption by war,strikes and insurrections, and in which private productive property isprotected from corruption and expropriation. Delivering what businesseswant is called good governance.

As Obama explained,

"No country is going to create wealth (Obama means: for investors) if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt."

In Washington's view, good governance is created when societies aresufficiently open to domination by those who own the most wealth - thatis, by those who own and control the world economy. For example,multi-party electoral democracy is lauded because it allows those whoassume a leadership role in representing the interests of capital, tohave the best chance of being elected. They're able to attract thefunding that allows them to run effective campaigns. And what, as aconsequence, ends up being a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, hasenormous apparent legitimacy because it is based on an electoralexercise. 

Likewise, a "free" society in which "anyone" can open a newspapercan seem to legitimately have independent journalists, even though theonly people in a position to open their own newspaper and command amass audience are members of the class that owns the society'sproductive property. An open society with a vibrant civil society whichparticipates in the society's governance is also one in which thewealthy can pursue their interests by furnishing the funding on whichcivil society depends. This allows capital to influence the agenda ofcivil society through its funding decisions. In short, any governmenttrying to achieve authentically democratic goals can be more readilyopposed if it provides sufficient space for foreign capital to operatethrough strong parliaments, independent journalists and a vibrant civilsociety.

Accordingly, Obama speaks glowingly of institutions that open up space for foreign money to operate.

"In the 21st century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success - strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in peoples' lives."

In point of fact, what matters in peoples' lives - that is, in thelives of ordinary people, and not the bankers, corporate lawyers andCEOs that Obama cares about - is having enough to eat, a job, shelter,clothing, health care, recreation, time with friends and family,dignity and social justice. Strong parliaments, journalists employed bythe capitalist press, and a strong private sector, create environmentsadapted to capital accumulation; they have little to do with restoringstolen land to its rightful owners; investing the economic surpluscreated at home in local development; and using state-owned enterprisesand fiscal and monetary policy to satisfy social welfare goals. 

Sound advice, if taken literally

"Just as it is important to emerge from the control of anothernation," observed Obama, "it is even more important to build one'sown." And yet most African countries remain economic colonies of theWest, their independence limited to political forms (their own flag,parliaments and political leaders) but whose economies are dominated byWestern banks, foreign corporations, and the descendants of Europeansettlers; whose militaries are trained and funded by the United States,Britain and France; and who rely on aid from Western governments, andreceive it, in return for political and economic concessions. Africancountries that have followed Obama's advice to build their owncountries have been harassed, undermined, destabilized, sanctioned andin many cases have seen their governments overthrown by the US andformer colonial masters who pay lip service to independent development,but are deeply hostile to it. US presidents don't want Africans tobuild their own countries. They want them to turn their countries overto the US business elite, and to continue to do so indefinitely.

Under the leadership of Zanu-PF, Zimbabweans have tried to buildtheir own country according to their own needs, expropriating landconfiscated by European settlers when the former colonial master,Britain, reneged on its promise to fund land reform. Zanu-PF has alsoled efforts to bring Zimbabwe's resources and economy under the controlof indigenous Zimbabweans, following methods reminiscent of the onessouth Korea used to industrialize. But while south Korea's subsidies,tariff protections and foreign ownership restrictions were tolerated byWashington as a necessary evil of the Cold War -- south Korea needed tobe given space to develop into a capitalist showpiece on the Cold War'sfrontlines - Washington has been unwilling to tolerate Zimbabwe'sefforts to follow the same path.

 Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana, the first African country to achieveindependence, argued that the less developed world would not becomedeveloped through the goodwill and generosity of the developed world.Instead, it would only become developed by struggle against theexternal forces - foreign corporations, banks and investors - that hada vested interest in keeping it underdeveloped. [20] Nkrumah would haveagreed with Obama that "Africa's future is up to Africans." He wouldsurely have disagreed with Obama's prescription for how Africa ought toarrive at its future.

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References 

1. Discussion of south Korea's development strategy, free trade, andcorruption based on Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of FreeTrade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Bloomsbury Press, New York,2008.
2. "President Signs Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act,December 21, 2001.www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/200111221-15.html
3. The Guardian (UK), July 4, 2008.
4. The Herald (Zimbabwe) May 5, 2009.
5. TalkZimbabwe.com, July 16, 2008.
6. The New York Times, July 26, 2008; The Washington Post, July 26, 2008; The Sunday Mail (Zimbabwe), July 27, 2008.
7. "Obama extends Zimbabwe sanctions," TalkZimbabwe.com, March 8, 2009.
8. US Census Bureau Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, August 2008.
9. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.
10. US Bureau of Justice Statistics, cited in Hannah Holleman, RobertW. McChesney, John Bellamy Foster and R. Jamil Jonna, "The Penal Statein an Age of Crisis," Monthly Review, Vol. 61, No. 2, June, 2009.
11. Elombe Brath and Samori Marksman, "Conflict in the Congo: AnInterview with President Laurent Kabila," Covert Action Quarterly,Winter, 1999, Issue 66.
12. Julie Hollar, "Congo Ignored, Not Forgotten,"
Extra, Magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, May 2009.
13. Ibid.
14. Stephen Gowans, "US fomenting war in Somalia," What's Left, December 15, 2006, http://gowans.blogspot.com/2006/12/us-fomenting-war-in-somalia.html
15. Stephen Gowans, "Another US military intervention," What's Left, January 11, 2007, http://gowans.blogspot.com/2007/01/another-us-military-intervention.html
16. Stephanie McCrummen, "With Ethiopian pullout, Islamists rise againin Somalia," The Washington Post, January 22, 2009; Stephen Gowans,"Spielberg: Chauvinist in humanitarian drag," What's Left, February 13,2008. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/spielberg-chauvinist-in-humanitarian-drag/
17. "Selective Justice," The New African, No. 484, May 2009.
18. Phil Clark, "Can Africa trust international justice?" The Guardian (UK) July 16, 2009.
19. Martin Kargbo, "The case against the ICC," New African, July, 2009.
20. Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., London, 1965. http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/neo-colonialism/index.htm

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