ZELENSKY FINALLY GETS TO ADDRESS (SOME) AFRICAN LEADERS
**Important Note: This article was originally written in June 2022**
In the month of May 2022, Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper bemoaned the fact that African nations are displaying a deep-seated antipathy towards Ukraine. US State Department threats apparently did not go far enough.
Fast-forwarding to June 2022, Ukraine and its NATO patrons manage to obtain an audience between the African Union and Zelensky, but only after months of intense lobbying. Out of 54 African heads of state invited to the virtual Africa Union-Ukraine meeting, only 4 agreed to attend. When the meeting finally began, it turned out that only 2 actually appeared in Zelensky's virtual colloquy, which was conducted in the video conference format.
The other 52 leaders either boycotted or sent some low public official to represent them.
So why the antipathy? Well, it is a mixture of reasons. Generally, all African countries (from Egypt down to South Africa) understand that NATO provoked Russia, even countries like Kenya that criticized the response of the Kremlin. What determines whether a country is “neutral” or “pro-Russian” depends not really on Russian influence in Africa, which is actually small to put it mildly, but on how that country feels about the United States, France and other European nations.
If you are from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Algeria and Mozambique, you will remember how the Soviets supplied weaponry to use in fighting either European colonial authorities who refused to grant independence or segregationist white-African minority regimes that refused to extend voting/social/political rights to the black-African majority.
You will also remember that successive US administrations starting with that of Dwight Eisenhower covertly backed the colonial side opposed by Africans during their struggle. If you are Congolese, you will remember that Eisenhower and the Belgians helped kill your leader (Patrice Lumumba) while the Soviets opened a brand new university in Moscow named after that murdered Congolese leader.
To recall such ancient history in 2022 is to reflexively take the side of Russia (the main successor state to USSR) in a conflict against NATO-backed Ukraine, regardless of the merits.
If you are a Head of State of an African country where colonialism ended peacefully, and there was no major conflict with the European colonial power (e.g. Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Gambia), then your interest is to maintain a balanced approach. You realize that NATO provoked Russia. You may or may not deplore the Kremlin's “overreaction”. But more importantly, you want to keep the balance by simply remaining officially “neutral”.
Although this official stance is often betrayed by the fact that you call Putin five times—in the space of one month—to discuss energy prices, fertilizer and wheat supply and ignore Zelensky for several months until the local Ukrainian Ambassador complains loudly about it. Then, for the sake of appearances, you place a one-off phone call to Zelensky in which you blandly express hope that the “two warring sides should meet on the negotiating table and resolve their differences”.
Of course at the United Nations, you will vote to condemn any violation of territorial integrity of a sovereign nation. After all, it is a principle enshrined in the charter of the African Union (AU) and the now defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU).
If you are from Mali, you will remember the 2011 Libyan War. You will recall that weapons belonging to Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama were air-dropped to Libyan jihadist fighters. You will remember that once Gaddafi was dead and gone, some of those NATO weapons passed from Libyan jihadists to Algerian terrorists controlled by Mokhtar Belmokhtar who then tossed the military gear over the desert border to the Republic of Mali where it turbocharged an Islamist insurgency, which then compelled the government of Mali and Tuareg separatist rebels to suspend their decades-long conflict and band together in the fight against the al-Qaeda intruders.
As a Malian, you will recall that before Gaddafi was overthrown, the African Union (AU) repeatedly warned in early 2011 that dropping weapons to Libyan terrorists will destabilize those parts of West Africa that lie on the Sahel Belt. You will recall that desperate attempts by AU to intervene in the NATO-induced Libyan Civil War with a Peace plan was brushed aside by USA, its European allies and its propaganda media organs, which kept claiming that the terrorists were “democracy-seeking freedom fighters trying to remove despot Gaddafi.”
You will recall that an aeroplane carrying African Union peace mediators to the Libyan capital city of Tripoli narrowly escaped being blown out of the sky by NATO jet fighters firing “democracy-seeking” missiles at the North African country, causing untold suffering and destruction of critical infrastructure, which is yet to be rebuilt, twelve years later.
As a Malian, you will also recall that when al-Qaida terrorists began to massacre Malian citizens with NATO weapons donated by slave-trading Libyan terrorists, France organized some EU troops to “help” defeat the terrorists. After suffering a few casualties and a crashed helicopter, the French-led EU troops stopped fighting the terrorists, claiming that sandstorms were getting in the way. These troops began spending most of their time in the military barracks, until the frustrated Malian government expelled them from the country.
As a Malian, you will recall that it is the supposedly “evil” Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group that are actually crushing the Jihadist terrorists since local Malian troops are next to useless and the French-led EU troops didn't achieve much before they were kicked out.
As a Malian, you will attend big rallies waving Russia flags and banners showing a handshake between Mali and Russia. You will display flags of France defaced with the Skull & Bones symbol and an extremely rude French language message, which the author of this article will not translate into English because he doesn’t necessarily agree with it.
But then, the author opposes censorship, and for that reason alone, he has decided to post one photograph depicting just one example of such a rally bearing said rude message in French :
THE END
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