By Merlyn Mwanza
Over our dead bodies will the United States set their military base in this land, says Socialist Party (SP) leader Fred M’membe.
Addressing a media briefing this morning, Dr M’membe wondered when the United States of America got interested in protecting Zambia’s sovereignty, saying Zambians must not forget history that this was the same country which sided with those who perpetrated colonialism and apartheid and supported racist minority rule in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Angola among other countries.
Dr M’membe wondered where the US was when the country was being bombed in Chikumbi by the racist I an Smith regime in the former Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, saying they killed all the progressive leaders on the continent for simply defending African sovereignty, such as Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Kwame Nkhruma in Ghana, Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, Amil Kabral, and that not very long ago the world witnessed the barbaric murder of Muammar Gadaffi in Libya.
He said the same country working with its partners has sponsored coups, and today they are coming in the name of defending our security, saying the main threat to Zambia’s security was them.
“Have they come to protect us from themselves?” Dr M’membe asked, saying all this was being done for Minerals because today Zambia and the DRC own 70 percent of the cobalt mineral which was strategic for 21st century technologies. “That is what they are after. This is not new.”
Dr M’membe said just as Cecil Rhodes came to Zambia with his soldiers and massacred the Ngonis in Eastern Province after the natives there refused to give him access to the resources there, “the United States is also bringing an army.”
“Let’s learn from history. Yes, we have nothing against the United,” Dr M’membe said, adding that as the US was protecting itself and trying to serve itself, the other countries should be given the same benefit. “The Minerals they are trying to come and seek here are ours, given to us by the creator. They were also given, infact they have been given a lot on that subcontinent they occupy. They have more than what we have. Why do they want to come and take the little we have? Are they not tired for centuries they have been looting the continent? They want to continue this in the 21st century again, and probably in the 22nd century.”
Dr M’membe urged Zambians to wake up and rise to the challenge of the 21st century.
“Our eyes are open, more wider than Ngoni warriors. Over our dead bodies will they set their base in this land. We repeat, over our dead bodies will the USA have a military base in this soil…we will fight. That we pledge,” said Dr M’membe.
And SP secretary general Dr Cosmas Musumali said it was obvious that the US Embassy and the Ministry of Defence were worried about the reaction from the Zambian public and were therefore trying to clear the air that there will be no military base in country but the new office of Security Cooperation.
He said the minister was also trying to threaten those commenting on the matter as issuing alarming statement, saying what was not lost in all this was why AFRICOM was widely rejected by the African masses.
Dr Musumali gave a short history of where the AFRICOM started, saying in 2003, an American by the name of Neil Gardner produced a white paper called US Military Association for Africa for a better solution, arguing that the US should create a US Africa Command that will intervene in Africa when vital US national interests were threatened, in the same manner it was done in Latin America and the Caribbean with the establishment of the Southern Command.
He said in 2007 then US President George Bush realised that when he announced despite opposition from the African nations on the militarisarion of the relations with the US.
Dr Musumali said Botswana and Liberia indicated willingness to host the Command but they backed off following opposition from South Africa and the African Union. He said regionally, SADC issued a position against AFRICOM, something which was reaffirmed by late president Levy Mwanawasa when he stated that “none of us is interested in hosting the Command.”
He said the North African Community of the Sahel, the Arab Union and even ECOWAS opposed the same, and as a result AFRICOM is still based in Germany but has found ways of operating despite the rejection.
Dr Musumali said the Sahel region for instance experienced a lot of conflicts following the NATO intervention in Libya, saying maybe driven by the same emergence and using the pretext of the same conflicts, France set up the G5 in the Sahel, the military arrangement that included Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Mauritania with expanded military bases in Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso.
He said the USA has also built a drone base in West Africa which conducts drone strikes and aerial surveillance across the Sahel and Sahara desert, and that the US has also found itself in the African Union by sending an attache to that body.
Dr Musumali said Nigeria which had initially opposed AFRICOM invited the US to set up the Command, and that the only thing missing was they did not indicate where the Command was going to be based, to help fight militants in the region.
He said in Ghana, despite opposition in that country, the President there committed that country to an agreement, SOFA, and that as it was happening in Zambia, there were also simultaneous and coordinated arguments from the government and the US Embassy that there wasn’t going to be a military base, but that right now a part of Ghana’s main airport was reserved for the US military, through which supplies to the 1800 US troops in the region were fed with supplies from German.
“AFRICOM does not mean well for the African continent. And here in Zambia also we reject the new office for security cooperation. First the US provided direct and indirect military support to Zambia for a long time using its existing Embassy facilities…there has been no felt need for a new office within the Embassy,” Dr Musumali. “The setting up of the new office escalates the role of AFRICOM in Zambia.”
Dr Musumali said such an arrangement was raising anxieties in the SADC region, and that there was a real danger of the country’s military doctrine being hijacked.
He said for a long time the military doctrine been a product of the country’s post independence insights gained through exposure from the United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Russia, India, Pakistan and Tanzania as well as threats posed by colonial racist regimes sponsored by Europe and the US.
“Today’s doctrine has to be built on this past, with the country’s changed geopolitical situation. It will be extremely dangerous and futile to turn Zambia’s military into an extended arm of the American military,” Dr Musumali said.
He said the US and their western allies were more preoccupied with African resources to the benefit capitalism.
Dr Musumuli said the world found itself in a new Cold War, with China having increased its commercial interests in Africa and with Chinese firms consistently outbidding western firms, and therefore the US was pressured to contain China on the continent.
He said the US employed it’s military to protect its interests, but that the Zambian military must protect the country’s economic interests and those of Africa.
“This is not a time to take sides. Zambians need to have a say over this increased Ministry Cooperation with NATO countries. NATO countries enslaved, colonized and exploited the continent,” said Dr Musumali.
