Africa struggles to control its oil
From a talk by Donatien Bukuba at the Nov. 13-14 National
Fightback Conference.
As the Iraqi people are fighting in the streets of Falluja
for their sovereignty and independence from the U.S.
imperialist grab for oil, we must also look at Africa.
This week a struggle broke out in Ivory Coast when France
destroyed the small Ivoirian air force to the cheers of the
U.S. The Ivoirian government charged France with supporting a
rebel group.
A popular outpouring shut down Abidjan, the capital, and
defensively surrounded the president's residence. Ivoirians
acted to repel a feared overthrow of their president by the
French army with the full support of Washington.
The outbreak of this crisis indicates another chapter of
imperialist powers maneuvering to install a puppet regime
temporarily more to their liking. Although Ivory Coast's main
export is cocoa, it also has offshore oil and gas reserves and
is located in oil-rich West Africa.
On Nov. 16, a planned general strike by Nigerian workers
could stop all economic activity in that country, particularly
targeting oil production. This strike will include all sectors.
Nigeria's labor minister warned oil workers Nov. 8 not to join
the strike or risk losing their jobs.
The strike is being called to reverse a 25-percent increase
in fuel oil prices. It follows a successful four-day warning
strike last month. Although the October strike asked people to
stay home, the coalition of unions and community organizations
is calling for demonstrations for the upcoming
confrontation.
Only two years ago, hundreds of Nigerian women literally
took over U.S.-owned ChevronTexaco refineries-stopping
production of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day. They demanded
that Chevron Texaco provide their communities with electricity,
schools, water, health clinics, jobs, unemployment insurance
and pensions.
Nigeria is the top producer of oil in Africa, the
seventh-largest oil exporter in the world and the fifth-biggest
source of U.S. imported oil. Its oil is extracted for the
profit of Shell, ChevronTexaco, and ExxonMobil. U.S.
imperialism's worst nightmare is that Nigeria could take
control of its oil wealth and use it for the benefit of the
people, like Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution.
Africa faces stepped-up intervention by U.S. imperialism as
it seeks to elbow aside its junior partners in Europe. Until
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. seemed content to
play a more covert role in Africa--financing its
pro-imperialist puppets in Congo while supporting the racist
South African apart heid regime. Liberation struggles took
center stage in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and elsewhere.
But once the Soviet Union was gone, U.S. intervention in
Africa took a more direct form. In 1993, for the first time in
recent memory, U.S. troops landed on the continent under the
guise of providing food aid to Somalia. Of course, Somalia's
strategic location at the Horn of Africa, the gateway to Middle
East oil, had nothing to do with this---or so the imperialists
said! The Somali people forced the U.S. to withdraw. But today
Pentagon bases are being built in Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal,
and São Tomé and Príncipe.
The African people need the solidarity of all progressive
movements, especially in the imperialist countries, in their
struggle for the right to control their own resources and
economies. Shell Oil in Nigeria is the same Shell Oil appointed
by the U.S. occupiers of Iraq to manage those stolen oil
reserves.
Centuries of colonial and neocolonial plunder, including the
kidnapping of millions of human beings in the Trans-Atlantic
slave trade, requires not only that the U.S. and its junior
imperialist partners get out of Africa now--it requires not
only unconditional solidarity in action--it requires
reparations.
Reprinted from the Dec. 9, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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