Now is the Time for All Anti-Imperialists and All Justice Loving People to Stand Unequivocally in Defense of Burkina Faso

Une version traduite en français est disponible ci-dessous

Now is the Time for All Anti-Imperialists and All Justice Loving People to Stand Unequivocally in Defense of Burkina Faso

It is no surprise to the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) that aggression is stepping up against the countries in the anti-imperialist Alliance of Sahel States. This was reflected in the flagrantly baseless accusations against Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traoré. On April 3, 2025, U.S. AFRICOM Commander Michael Langley testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee and claimed without evidence that interim President Traoré is misusing the country's gold mineral wealth in exchange for protection. Langley provided no details on how these supposed exchanges are carried out or from what Traoré needs protection.

The imperialist modus operandi is at play here and starts with demonizing and criminalizing the leader of a country as the war propaganda pretext for more direct intervention. We have seen this script before. Commander-In-Chief of Economic Fighters League of Ghana and Steering Committee member of the USOAN, Ernesto Yeboah refutes the liberal framing meant to arrest dissent against what is at stake:

“This is not about military vs. civilian rule. This is about imperialism vs. liberation. This is about Africans standing up — finally — and saying: Hands off Africa." 

The BAP Africa Team and USOAN are heeding the call emanating across Africa to unite in defense of Burkina Faso. And we further call on all anti-imperialist forces around the world, especially Black forces, to sound the alarm and publicly denounce these designs before this all too familiar strategy takes root. In 2011, Black anti-imperialist forces were unable to effectively counter the heinous plan of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination to destroy the revolutionary Pan-Africanist nation of Libya. BAP’s USOAN refuses to allow this fatal mistake to be repeated.

This time the complicity of silence by ECOWAS, the African Union, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the African (Black) comprador class around the world must be exposed.

This is a pivotal time for the struggle against imperialism in Africa. The emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the revolutionary example of self-determination being set by the people of Burkina Faso represents a historic breakthrough for Pan-Africanism that the U.S. and NATO have been eager to eliminate. The U.S./EU/NATO axis is desperate to re-colonize Burkina Faso and to halt any further influence across Africa set by the example of the Alliance of Sahel States. What the U.S is angling to undermine is a popular process of decolonization.

Under President Traoré’s leadership, Burkina Faso has advanced toward food sovereignty, established a national gold refinery, and taken critical steps to reclaim its resources for the benefit of its people. The vague and opportunistic accusations issued by AFRICOM are designed to undermine these gains and set the stage for imperialist subversion. When U.S. officials speak of “strategic interests,” they mean the unfettered right to plunder Africa’s mineral wealth, dominate markets, and exploit African labor, all without the consent of African peoples. We must not allow the absurdity of the U.S. and NATO, currently complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, to pose as moral arbiters in Africa.

BAP and USOAN call on all anti-imperialist forces to join in active defense of Burkina Faso, demand the expulsion of AFRICOM from the continent, and ensure that no African nation suffers the fate that befell Libya in 2011.

The time to act is now!

Le moment est venu pour tous les anti-impérialistes et toutes les personnes éprises de justice défendre sans équivoque le Burkina Faso

L'equipe Afrique de l'Alliance Noire Pour la Paix (Black Alliance for Peace-BAP) ainsi que la coalition USA Hors d'Afrique! (USOAN) ne sont pas surpris de constater que l'agression s'intensifie contre les pays de l'Alliance anti-impérialiste des États du Sahel. Cela s'est traduit par des accusations flagrantes et sans fondement contre le dirigeant du Burkina Faso, le capitaine Ibrahim Traoré. En effet, le 3 avril 2025, Michael Langley, chef du commandement américain pour l'Afrique (AFRICOM) livrait devant la commission des forces armées du Sénat américain un témoignage dans lequel il affirmait, sans fournir la moindre preuve, que le président par intérim du Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, utilisait abusivement les richesses en or du pays en échange de protection. M. Langley n'a fourni aucun détail sur la manière dont ces prétendus échanges sont effectués ni sur les raisons pour lesquelles M. Traoré a besoin de protection.

Ce faisant, Langley reproduit le modus operandi classique des impérialistes: la diabolisation et la criminalisation d'un dirigeant étranger s'inscrit dans la campagne de propagande de guerre visant à justifier une intervention plus directe. 

Ce scénario, c'est du déjà-vu. Comme l'explique Ernesto Yeboah, président de la Ligue des combattants économiques (League of Economic Fighters) du Ghana, et membre du comité directeur de la coalition USA Hors d'Afrique! :

"Ce qui est en jeu, ce n'est pas l'opposition entre un régime militaire et un régime civil. Il s'agit d'une lutte de libération contre l'impérialisme. Il s'agit, pour les Africains, de se lever - enfin - et de dire : "Ne touchez pas à l'Afrique!"

L'équipe Afrique de la BAP et l'USOAN entendent l'appel émanant de toute l'Afrique à s'unir pour défendre le Burkina Faso. Nous appelons également toutes les forces anti-impérialistes dans le monde, en particulier les forces noires, à tirer la sonnette d'alarme et à dénoncer publiquement ces projets avant que cette stratégie trop familière ne prenne racine. En 2011, les forces anti-impérialistes noires ont été incapables de contrer efficacement l'odieux plan de l'Axe de domination États-Unis/UE/OTAN visant à détruire la nation révolutionnaire panafricaniste de Libye. L'USOAN et BAP refusent que cette erreur fatale se répète.

Cette fois-ci, la complicité, par le silence, de la CEDEAO, de l'Union africaine, du Caucus noir du congrès américain et de la classe compradore africaine (noire) dans le monde entier, doit être exposée.

La lutte contre l'impérialisme en Afrique se trouve à une période charnière. L'émergence de l'Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) et l'exemple révolutionnaire d'autodétermination donné par le peuple du Burkina Faso représentent une avancée historique pour le panafricanisme que les États-Unis et l'OTAN cherchent à éliminer. L'axe États-Unis/UE/OTAN cherche désespérément à recoloniser le Burkina Faso et à mettre un terme à l'influence exercée par l'Alliance des États du Sahel sur l'ensemble de l'Afrique. Ce que les États-Unis cherchent à saper, c'est un processus populaire de décolonisation.

Sous la direction du président Traoré, le Burkina Faso a progressé vers la souveraineté alimentaire, a créé une raffinerie nationale d'or et a pris des mesures cruciales pour récupérer ses ressources au profit de son peuple. Les accusations vagues et opportunistes lancées par l'AFRICOM visent à saper ces progrès et à préparer le terrain pour la subversion impérialiste. Lorsque les responsables américains parlent d'"intérêts stratégiques", ils entendent par là le droit absolu de piller les richesses minérales de l'Afrique, de dominer les marchés et d'exploiter la main-d'œuvre africaine; le tout sans le consentement des peuples africains. Nous ne devons pas permettre l'absurdité des Etats-Unis et de l'OTAN, actuellement complices du génocide des Palestiniens, de se poser en arbitres moraux en Afrique.

La BAP et l'USOAN appellent toutes les forces anti-impérialistes à se joindre à la défense active du Burkina Faso, à exiger l'expulsion de l'AFRICOM du continent, et à s'assurer qu'aucune nation africaine ne subisse le sort qui a frappé la Libye en 2011.

Il est temps d'agir, maintenant !

##

Banner photo: BAP demonstration in Washington DC gathered outside the Embassy of Burkina Faso, in defense of the Alliance for Sahel States, October 2024.

U.S. War on Africa Rages on with Somalia in the Crosshairs

U.S. War on Africa Rages on with Somalia in the Crosshairs

February 10, 2025 — The new Trump administration has wasted no time continuing the U.S. war on Africa. Just one month into his second term, the U.S. has launched at least six airstrikes in Somalia’s Puntland region. While AFRICOM and the Somali government claim these strikes are “authorized” and therefore legal under international law, this so-called authorization is nothing more than a hallmark of neo-colonial governance. Comprador regimes installed and maintained by Western imperialism do not exercise genuine sovereignty but instead serve as facilitators of foreign domination.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Africa Team and the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) unequivocally condemn this renewed aggression. These strikes, backed by the Puntland regional government, have nothing to do with “security.” They serve U.S. neo-colonial domination, enforcing foreign control and keeping Somalia divided.

Under Trump’s first term, the U.S. launched over 200 airstrikes in Somalia—more than Bush, Obama, and Biden combined—fueling instability and strengthening al-Shabaab. The 2020 troop withdrawal was a reorganization of imperial strategy, ensuring AFRICOM continued operations through drone warfare and proxies.

For decades, the U.S. has worked to keep Somalia in crisis. It has exploited divisions between Somalia and Somaliland, manipulated conflicts in the Horn, and propped up corrupt regimes. The Somali government, like all comprador regimes, trades sovereignty for military aid, including its recent $600,000 contract with BGR Group, a Washington lobbying firm.

BAP previously warned that Trump’s second term would bring a more aggressive U.S. posture in Africa. As BAP Africa Team Co-Coordinator Netfa Freeman stated:

“The Trump administration enters office at a time when China and Russia have significantly deepened their strategic partnerships across the continent and with the continent no longer in the same position of weakness as before. The rise of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has shown the world that African nations can reject Western domination and military occupation. These factors mean that the U.S. will likely pursue a much more aggressive military strategy in Africa, being that all they know is drone warfare, proxy militias, and strategic partnerships with neo-colonial regimes to maintain its grip.” 

This attack is part of a broader U.S. offensive against the growing movement in Africa for self-determination. Trump has already moved against South Africa, cutting aid under the racist pretext of defending white Afrikaners while punishing the country for challenging U.S. and Israeli settler-colonialism. The same empire that protects apartheid landowners in South Africa continues to wage war on Somalia and militarize the continent. Meanwhile, AFRICOM’s role in destabilizing Africa extends beyond Somalia. In Libya, U.S. military forces are deepening their partnership with the comprador regime in Tripoli, strengthening military ties under the tired pretext of “security cooperation.” AFRICOM’s continued presence in Libya, where U.S. and NATO forces devastated a prosperous country in 2011, ensures that Libya remains fractured, occupied by competing factions, and is a staging ground for imperialist military operations across North Africa and the Sahel.

The U.S. and its allies have turned Somalia into a perpetual warzone, a playground for private mercenaries, and a military testing ground for AFRICOM’s latest weapons and drone technology. They have done so under the guise of “fighting terrorism,” when in reality, they have created the very conditions that allow groups like al-Shabaab to thrive. BAP rejects the false choice between U.S. military occupation and endless war. The Somali people have the right to build their own future, without Washington’s bombs, without AFRICOM’s presence, and without the interference of Gulf States acting as Western proxies.

Shutdown AFRICOM!

U.S. Out of Africa!

No Compromise! No Retreat!

Banner image: photo of Trump pointing up superimposed on photo of military aircraft and pilot with jihadist rebels in background; courtesy @middayindia.

Organizations Globally Condemn the Fascism of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM): Launch of A Month of Action

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Media Contact
press@blackallianceforpeace.com
(201) 292-4591

Organizations Globally Condemn the Fascism of the 

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) 

Launch Annual Month of Action to Shut Down AFRICOM

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024 — October 1, 2024, marks the start of the 4th International Month of Action Against AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command), organized by the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP). Every year, hundreds of organizations around the world endorse and participate in this Month of Action, standing united against the United States’ ongoing military presence in African nations across the continent.

International Month of Action Against AFRICOM will kick off with an international webinar featuring voices from the African continent and diaspora expressing the need for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops and a complete end to the combatant command. Following the webinar individuals and organizations will engage in a month of autonomous and semi-autonomous actions and events designed to elevate this issue in the public consciousness around the world and encourage the continuation of the resistance against U.S. imperialism.

AFRICOM is the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation, the think tank also known for the creation of Project 2025. The plan was incubated twenty-one years ago, with an eye towards low-priced natural resources and control over African security affairs under the guise of the “Global War on Terror.” Launched by the George W. Bush administration and brought to full operation by the Barack Obama administration, AFRICOM is most known for the destruction of Libya resulting in tens of thousands dead, and millions displaced. The U.S. continues to refine and expand the tactics employed in Libya across the continent.

This year’s Month of Action Against AFRICOM comes at a pivotal geopolitical moment for Africa. The continent is experiencing widespread anti-neocolonialist movements including: (1) the successful expelling of AFRICOM from Niger, (2) admission and evidence that U.S. ally Ukraine has supported terrorism in Mali, and (3) popular mass mobilizations against governments propped up by the U.S. that are facing state repression, ie. Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda etc.

The Month of Action Against AFRICOM does not represent the full extent of BAP’s work against the neocolonial occupation of Africa. BAP continues to call for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures. Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all Peoples can exercise their sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.

BAP’s Demands include:

• The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

• The demilitarization of the African Continent;

• The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

• The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.

To learn more about BAP’s International Month of Action Against AFRICOM, please visit our web page. You can also see informational materials about the Month of Action in our media kit.

Responsibility for the Kenya Crisis Lies At the Feet of US Neo-Colonialism

Responsibility for the Kenya Crisis Lies At the Feet of US Neo-Colonialism

The excessive support and public adoration the U.S. government has given to Kenya’s President William Ruto represents the racist contempt this settler state has for all of Africa and for the domestic population of descendants from the continent. Two days before African Liberation Day on May 25th and one month before the Kenyan police’s brutal crackdown on protests against the US-IMF backed Finance Act that increases taxes up to 35% on essential goods, U.S. President Biden rolled out a red carpet for Ruto at a White House state dinner.

The debt that this bill is supposed to address only exists because of the incessant and indiscriminate borrowing by the previous government of Kenya, for which Ruto was vice-president. Ruto is a Grade A lackey for U.S. interests reminiscent of the dictator Mobutu of the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) who U.S. imperialism supported for 32 years in order to plunder the Congo.

U.S. neo-colonialism praised as an “endearing” and “enduring” democracy, the Ruto presidency, a puppet government that unleashed its notoriously vicious police to reportedly arrest more than 300, kill as many as 23 and injure dozens of Kenyan citizens in the demonstrations over the past week. These police are the same force U.S. imperialism has maneuvered into being dispatched to Haiti to contain the people’s resistance against imperialism in that Caribbean nation.

An elevation in the parlance of U.S. statecraft is the paternalistic promise of granting Kenya the status of a “Major Non-NATO Ally,” a role granted to the African Union’s African Standby Force. This designation is in sharp contrast to the Alliance of Sahel States newly formed confederation which is a declaration of African self-determination.

The Africa Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the organizing arm U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) stands in uncompromising solidarity with the masses of Kenyans fighting against the proposed Finance Bill 2024. We denounce in the strongest terms the complicity of the U.S., especially its Black misleaders in Congress, in passing this legislation. In fact the day the bill was introduced in the Kenyan parliament, members of the  U.S congress were present including Barbara Lee. 

Ruto must go! U.S. Out of Africa! BAP and USOAN salute the courage and determination of the masses of youth throughout Kenya "Gen Z"! The blood spilled will not be in vain. Our martyrs are alive along-side of the living. We stand unwaveringly with the Gen Z Movement, our people of Kenya!

##

Banner photo: A police officer with a walkie-talkie confronting a protest against the Finance Bill 2024. courtesy: Mathare Justice Center

Black Alliance for Peace’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Deplores Plans to Expand U.S. Drone Atrocities in West Africa

Black Alliance for Peace’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Deplores Plans to Expand U.S. Drone Atrocities in West Africa

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) opposes in the strongest terms the U.S. plans, in collusion with West Africa’s comprador class, to further violate Africa’s sovereignty and right to self determination in the form of three new military drone bases in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Benin. Further, we condemn the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) for not publicly renouncing this proposal in particular, and the existence of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in general. Their silence around this development confirms their complicity and betrayal of Pan-Africanism and the interests of the African masses struggling against the ravages of neo-colonialism.

More U.S. drone bases in Africa spell more violence, vicious anonymity, and "collateral damage" from drone assassinations. It spells enhanced surveillance capabilities for imperialism to use against any threat to the neocolonial order. U.S. maneuvering to expand its already massive military drone operations is consistent with the U.S. incessant drive to wage war globally and its militarization of the planet. U.S. drone and air strikes in Africa have primarily been in Libya and Somalia with the numbers of confirmed civilian deaths from drones as high as 3,200 in these two countries, and studies have shown these conditions “have inadvertently aided the growth of terrorist groups in the region.” This is what the U.S. proposes now for West Africa.

There are clear and disturbing geostrategic implications regarding the countries they have chosen for these U.S. drone bases. The bases will form a border along the three countries of the Alliance of Sahel States – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – countries which have been adopting an anti-imperialist disposition. In fact, Burkina Faso’s entire southern flank would be surrounded by these U.S. drone bases. The last two administrations as well as members of Congress have clearly stated in policy declarations and legislation that the U.S.' primary objective in Africa is to counteract the presence and influence of China and Russia in order to maintain its full spectrum dominance of all regions of the world. This is also consistent with the Global Fragility Act that states the Biden administration’s first sites of focus would be Haiti, Libya, and "West African coastal states," where the U.S. seeks to place the drone bases.

The bases will not be there to end so-called terrorism of extremists in Africa; they will be there for the U.S. to terrorize the region. It is folly to believe that the settler criminals who rule the U.S. state, who can justify the genocidal assault on Gaza, and who systematically murder, sanction, and attack nations globally to maintain white supremacy and global capitalism, are spending hundreds of millions to “fight terrorism” in Africa.

Rather than “an urgent effort to stop the spread of al Qaeda and Islamic State in the region,” according to American and African officials, the USOAN contends that this is more likely a contingency plan to preserve drone capabilities in the event of losing their $110 million U.S. drone base in Agadez, Niger. Niger has also recently temporarily suspended the granting of new mining licenses and ordered an audit of the sector, a move that would invariably raise the eyebrows of the U.S.-EU-NATO axis of domination, concerned over the future of exploitative access to the mineral resources there, such as uranium. Resource sovereignty runs counter to the true colonialist objectives of U.S. foreign policy.

BAP and the USOAN call on all who support African sovereignty to denounce the U.S.’ latest imperialist moves in Western Africa as well as the neocolonial African governments and collaborators like the Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo who, face-to-face with U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken, openly begged for the U.S. to violate the sovereignty of the countries in the Alliance of Sahel States.

BAP and the USOAN will continue to expose the puppets of neocolonialism in Africa and the misleaders masquerading as Black representatives in the legislative branches of the U.S. setter state. We maintain that the U.S. and its Western Europe progenitors are the root cause and primary sustenance for the poverty, displacement, despair, and violence in Africa, born from decades of colonialist plunder.

 #ShutDownAFRICOM!

#USOutofAfrica!

Banner photo: 3 U.S. drones docked on an airfield in Asia. Courtesy didpress.com

All Africans Should Condemn the Call for an ECOWAS-led Military Invasion of Niger

All Africans Should Condemn the Call for an ECOWAS-led Military Invasion of Niger

The Africa Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) condemn the threats of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to lead a military intervention into Niger. We believe this would be an act of subservience to U.S./EU/NATO interests. As Western imperialism seems to be losing its neo-colonialist grip on Africa, it is trying to expand its use of puppets and proxies to undermine resistance.

The military coup in Niger on July 26 deposed President Mohamed Bazoum and installed General Abdourahamane Tchiani as the country's new leader. In power since 2021, Bazoum and his party were reliable servants of French and U.S. imperialism. This may help explain why the United States and its NATO allies seemed overly concerned about this particular coup.

The West’s hypocritical claims of standing for “democracy” in Niger fall flat when compared to its response to the military coup in Sudan as well as the political repression faced by the popular movement in that country. The United States (and its Western partners) has had a hand in orchestrating countless coups in Africa, such as those against democratically elected leaders Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, to name a few.

The objective of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is colonial control of Niger and the Sahel region. France and other EU countries rely on Niger for 15-30 percent of their uranium imports, critical to Europe's nuclear energy sector. Meanwhile, the majority of Niger’s population doesn’t even have access to electricity. Furthermore, Niger is the last state in West Africa where a large number of Western soldiers are stationed under the U.S. “War on Terror” regime. The $100 million U.S. base in Agadez, Niger, is where the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) operates its drones, and is just one such AFRICOM facility in that country.

As Ezra Otieno, member of the Revolutionary Socialist League in Kenya and BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Steering Committee, says:

“For all of these factors, France, the EU, and the U.S. are keen to maintain control over Niger. They aim to push the new authorities to restore their puppet Bazoum or to reach an arrangement with General Tchiani to maintain his predecessor's pro-Western stance. If these preparations fail within the next few days, Western imperialists want to intervene militarily with the support of their foot soldiers in the Nigeria-dominated ECOWAS bloc.”

It is clear that the United States and France have decided to draw a line here before France is expelled and U.S. interests are threatened. Without NATO, the United States or France, ECOWAS would not be able to intervene. It is telling that, of all the coups in Africa, ECOWAS is ready to intervene militarily in Niger. This is because their masters in the West demand it. Apparently, ECOWAS member states have chosen servitude to imperialism over the people's will.

In Haiti, the imperialists use Kenya and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as cover for their intervention. To do the same for the coup in Niger, they have the President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and ECOWAS. Now they are facing a united front composed of Burkina Faso, and Mali, whose leadership have all expressed support for Niger’s sovereignty. While the CNRD of Guinea, Comité national du rassemblement et du développement (National Committee of Reconciliation and Development) is not part of the front, their Spokesperson, Aminata Diallo said that if “…requested by ECOWAS to send troops that we would refuse…”

ECOWAS is working as a comprador structure, along with the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), which has levied financial sanctions against Niger and the coup leaders. The situation in Niger demands an African response, not the imperialist-led and anti-people militarized one suggested by members of ECOWAS.

The Black Alliance for Peace October 2023 International Month of Action against western militarization of the African continent, demanding that the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is shut down, will be more important than ever before. The annual Month of Action is an opportunity for political education and action that links the domestic war being waged against African peoples in the United States with the war that the United States wages on the continent of Africa and globally.

From Haiti to Niger and beyond, we must build an understanding of Pan-Africanism and illuminate the interdependent geo-political and economic interests among African/Black people in Haiti, the Americas, the African continent, and among those domestically colonized in the enclaves of the imperialist countries.

No to imperialism in Black face. Yes to Pan-African self-determination. U.S. Out of Africa!

Banner photo: Supporters of Niger's ruling junta gather at the start of a protest called to fight for the country's freedom and push back against foreign interference in Niamey, Niger, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023. (Courtesy AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

Amidst the Biden Administration’s Forever-Wars Policy in Africa, BAP Launches a Month of Action Against AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command)

For Immediate Release:

Media Contact
communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022—October 1, 2022 is the 14th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Yet, jihadist terrorist violence on the African continent has increased since the founding of AFRICOM and NATO’s destruction of Libya resulting in civilian casualties and instability, which the West has used as pretext and justification for the continued need for AFRICOM. Since its founding, coups carried out by AFRICOM-trained soldiers have also increased.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is organizing an International Month of Action Against AFRICOM in October. This is an effort to raise the public's awareness about how the presence of U.S. military forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.

Despite its rhetoric, the purpose of AFRICOM is to use U.S. military power to impose U.S. control on African land, resources and labor to service the needs of U.S. multinational corporations and the wealthy in the United States. It also serves as a major boon to “defense” contractors.

AFRICOM is a direct product of NATO via the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which originally took responsibility for 42 African states. In 2003, NATO started expanding; four years later, in 2007, EUCOM commander James L. Jones, who was also NATO commander of operational forces, proposed the creation of AFRICOM.

NATO has become a huge global axle in the wheel of the military industrial complex, which includes more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world as well as  joint bases or relationships with almost all African countries. These are all controlled by the U.S. empire for realizing the U.S. policy of Full Spectrum Dominance, which is driven by the ferocious appetite of international finance  capital.

NATO continues today in the form of AFRICOM facilitating wars, instability and the corporate pillage of Africa. This hypocrisy explains why 17 African nations abstained from the March 2 United Nations resolution condemning Russia. One African state, Eritrea, even voted no. Their experiences with NATO and AFRICOM ensure skepticism of self-proclaimed noble motives.

Motives such as bill H.R. 7311, the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act',' a racist affront to African sovereignty designed to dictate what bi-lateral relations African states are permitted to have.

That is why we call on our friends and allies to endorse this month as an individual or organization. Beyond that, we are calling on you to participate each week using our calls to action, for which we have provided materials on our webpage. Each week’s call to action ranges from watching our kick-off webinar to organizing mass actions like banner drops, facilitating teach-ins using our materials and spreading the word using BAP’s custom graphics.

The Black Alliance for Peace calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures. Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.

We demand:

• The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

• The demilitarization of the African continent;

• The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

• The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Massacre of African Migrants by U.S.- Backed Moroccan Armed Forces

For Immediate Release

Media Contact                                                                                                    

press@blackallianceforpeace.com                                                            

202 643-1136

July 5, 2022 - Video images captured the horrific actions of Moroccan security forces armed and trained by the United States through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and working on behalf of the Spanish government, systematically beating and slaughtering African migrants on June 24, 2022. The migrants' only crime was attempting to cross from Morocco to Europe via the Spanish held enclave of Melilla. For that, at least 39 human beings were beaten to death, as recorded by the NGO Walking Borders. This racist barbarism by a U.S.-backed neo-colonial regime and the lack of swift and unambiguous condemnation by the U.S. State demonstrates, yet again, that human life, especially African lives hold no value for U.S. officials. 

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) denounces first, the Moroccan government’s security forces and the Spanish government for their collaboration in this massacre and their ongoing dehumanizing treatment of African asylum seekers. We must note that, as the Moroccan police were beating and hog-tying the African migrants, AFRICOM was carrying out “Operation African Lion'' - military exercises in Morocco with more than 7,500 troops from Western nations and African neo-colonies. Soon after, NATO nations (the coterie of U.S. minions) held their meeting in Spain, with no acknowledgement of the massacre.

We especially condemn the United States government for its unmitigated hypocrisy in claiming that its presence and policies in Africa are to “promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.” The only securing and stabilizing AFRICOM and U.S. policy are doing in Africa are for the prosperity of international finance capital and hegemony of U.S. interests. We know that U.S. militarism - which guarantees European imperialism on the African continent, while giving cover to the repressive actions of neo-colonial states such as Morocco - will continue to be the main cause of escalating violence for the African people.

“All evidence suggests that U.S. militarism and training of police, and other repressive forces in Africa has only intensified death and destruction;” says Netfa Freeman, Co-Coordinator of BAP’s Africa Team 

BAP extends solidarity to all the African migrants and their families, victims of the brutal racist attack. We also demand a full independent investigation and indictment of the actions of Morocco, Spain, and the U.S. And we demand, once again, that the U.S. get out of Africa and that NATO and AFRICOM be shut down!

The Black Alliance for Peace calls on all anti-imperialists to join the U.S. Out of Africa Network to help us achieve this imperative.

U.S. Out of Africa!

Shut Down AFRICOM!

No Compromise! No Retreat!

###

Banner photo: Riot police cordon off area after people crossed fences separating the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco (Javier Bernardo/AP)

Black Alliance for Peace Calls on U.S. Government to Shut Down U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

October 1, 2018—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has launched U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM, a campaign designed to end the U.S. invasion and occupation of Africa.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of AFRICOM, short for U.S. Africa Command. Although U.S. leaders say AFRICOM is “fighting terrorism” on the continent, we believe geopolitical competition with China is the real reason behind AFRICOM’s existence. AFRICOM is a dangerous structure that has only increased militarism.

When AFRICOM was established in the months before Barack Obama assumed office as the first Black President of the United States, a majority of African nations—led by the Pan-Africanist government of Libya—rejected AFRICOM, forcing the new command to instead work out of Europe. But with the U.S. and NATO attack on Libya that led to the destruction of that country and the murder of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, corrupt African leaders began to allow AFRICOM forces to operate in their countries and establish military-to-military relations with the United States. Today, those efforts have resulted in 46 various forms of U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations.

Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, first and former deputy of AFRICOM, declared in 2008, “Protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market is one of AFRICOM’s guiding principles.”

We say AFRICOM is the flip side of the domestic war being waged by the same repressive state structure against Black and poor people in the United States. In the U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign, we link police violence and the domestic war waged on Black people to U.S. interventionism and militarism abroad.

"Not only does there need to be a mass movement in the U.S. to shut down AFRICOM, this mass movement needs to become inseparably bound with the movement that has swept this country to end murderous police brutality against Black and Brown people,” says Netfa Freeman, of Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Freeman represents PACA, a BAP member organization, on BAP’s Coordinating Committee. “The whole world must begin to see AFRICOM and the militarization of police departments as counterparts."

It costs $267 million to fund AFRICOM in 2018, according to Vanessa Beck, BAP research team lead and Coordinating Committee member.

“That money is stolen from Africans/Black people in the U.S. to terrorize and steal resources from our sisters and brothers on the African continent,” Beck said. “Instead, that money should be put toward meeting our human needs in the U.S. and toward reparations for people in every African nation affected by U.S. imperialism.”

BAP makes the following demands:

1. the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa,

2. the demilitarization of the African continent,

3. the closure of U.S. bases throughout the world, and

4. the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) must oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent.

We ask the public to join us in demanding an end to the U.S. invasion and occupation of the continent of our ancestors by signing this petition that we will deliver to CBC leaders.

This campaign is BAP’s effort to help shut down all U.S. foreign military bases as well as NATO bases. BAP is a founding member of the Coalition Against U.S Foreign Military Bases.

Visit blackallianceforpeace.com/USoutofAfrica for resources.

---

Media Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

The Black Alliance for Peace Calls on Congressional Black Caucus and Leadership of Poor People’s Campaign to Demand the Dismantling U.S. African Command (AFRICOM)

On May 25, African Liberation Day, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) called on the United States government to dismantle the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) and withdraw all U.S. forces from the African continent. This demand is in line with the main objective of the newly formed Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases—of which BAP is a founding member—which was formally launched in January. The coalition demands the closure of 800-plus U.S. military bases in other countries, which would save more than $150 billion that could then be re-allocated to realize the economic human rights of the working class and poor in this country.

In our statement on African Liberation Day we called on the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to publicly oppose the aggressive militarization of the African continent, ramped up by the Obama administration and being continued by the Trump administration.

During the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) actions to end the War Economy, Militarism and the Proliferation of Gun Violence that began this week, BAP is calling on the campaign to take an unequivocal stance in opposition to AFRICOM. Just as we called on the CBC to take a public position against the aggressive expansion of U.S. militarism in Africa, we are also asking the PPC leadership and all activists supporting this week of actions to join us in demanding the United States pull out of Africa and close all U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

For BAP, it is clear the U.S war on “terrorism” in Africa was and remains a subterfuge to expand U.S. influence and its physical presence there. The destruction of Libya, the ongoing war in Somalia, the dismemberment of Sudan, the millions of lives lost in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the widespread political instability throughout the continent is the concrete result of U.S. policies and not some internal or externally motivated “terrorism” and therefore must be opposed by all who claim to represent the interests of Black people.

The PPC states “[t]he truth is that instead of waging a War on Poverty, we have been waging a War on the Poor, at home and abroad, for the financial benefit of a few.” There certainly has been a war. However, it is not “we” who are waging this war but them, the racist capitalist oligarchy that has been operating against the interests of the majority of the people in the United States and throughout the world.

BAP sees a clear connection between the war being waged against Black and poor people domestically through the Obama and Trump administrations’ Department of Defense 1033 program, which has resulted in the obscene militarization of the police, and the U.S. commitment to “full spectrum dominance” that translates into a permanent war against colonized people of color globally. That is why we agree with the PPC’s focus on gun violence, but we say the focus must be even more explicit.

Netfa Freeman, organizer with Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and a member of the BAP Coordinating Committee, points to both the internal and external on issues of militarism and gun violence: "The double standards and dirty-trick twists and turns of the U.S.'s industrial-police-military-intelligence complex has operated on two complementary and parallel tracks when it comes to war, repression, and militarism in Africa and in Black communities within U.S. borders,” he says. “Those tracks are militarized domestic repression in the form of over-policing, police murders and mass incarceration, and in Africa the phony war on terrorism.”

The PPC’s clear demand for “demilitarization of our communities” including “ending federal programs that send military equipment into local and state communities” is in sharp contrast to the support of repressive federal policies by a majority of Black lawmakers at the national level.

In July 2014, two months before the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, 80 percent of the CBC voted against ending the 1033 program; last July, a majority voted in favor of the obscene increase in the military budget that exceeded the $54 billion increase demanded by Trump; and just a week or so ago, a majority of the caucus voted in favor of a right-wing federal “Blue Lives Matter” bill, making “assaults” on police officers a federal hate crime!

The Democratic Party that vehemently opposed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he finally broke with the Johnson administration and the party establishment to oppose the Vietnam War, and which gave political cover to and justifications for the murderous assault against the Black Liberation Movement, is the same party that today supports the war agenda of the corporate and financial oligarchy. It is the same party that under Obama accelerated the 1033 program and prosecuted only one of the dozens of killer-cops that executed black, Latinx and Native people across the country.

BAP is not fooled by the diversionary politics of the Democratic Party. We are clear that opposition to war, militarism and all forms of gun violence requires taking on both parties representing the two wings of the ruling class. A bill providing a blank check to the Trump administration to wage war across the planet in the form of the new “authorization to use military force” is an example of the bi-partisan commitment to permanent war and repression as U.S. policy.

Moral stances also require explicit political positions. Opposition to war and gun violence requires that real political connections are made and concrete positions taken against policies that perpetuate the moral offenses that we oppose.

It also means that those who claim to represent the oppressed must be held to account. The members of the Congressional Black Caucus have failed to represent the interests of their Black constituents who have consistently opposed war and domestic militarism.

BAP applauds the effort by the PPC to recapture the moral ground lost to the right-wing counter-revolution of the 1970s and ‘80s as well as to the moral bankruptcy of the Obama presidency. However, we believe that in this era of right-wing ascendency represented by Trump and the liberal authoritarianism of the Democratic Party, it is important the interests and politics of the working class and poor are clearly delineated from those of the capitalist oligarchy. This means that our politics must be clear and our rhetoric devoid of liberal ambiguities in order to expose the nature and interests of the oppressive system and state.

Our task today is even more pressing than it was 51 years ago when Dr. King called on the oppressed and their allies to defeat “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism.”

That is why during this week of action called for by the PPC, BAP is making a clear call for the U.S. to leave Africa and for the people to control the police in their communities. Nothing short of this would reflect the morality and politics of the original Poor People’s Campaign and the revolution of values advocated by Dr. King.

For media inquiries, email info@blackallianceforpeace.com

On African Liberation Day, the Black Alliance for Peace Demands U.S. Out of Africa!

No U.S. bases in Africa, shut down U.S. African Command (AFRICOM)

African Liberation Day (ALD) grew out of the attempts to establish the continental unity of Africa and all African people 55 years ago and is now celebrated every May 25th around the world.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), a project that centers a radical approach to the fight for collective people(s)-centered human rights that centers self-determination, the right for revolutionary change and anti-imperialism is commemorating ALD by demanding without equivocation that the United States close all U.S. bases and withdraws its forces from the African continent.

Why this Demand?

The African continent will never be free to develop its enormous potential as a revolutionary force for the advancement of all African people and all of humanity as long as U.S. imperialism is allowed to operate without restraint.

Today the U.S. is involved in an aggressive military re-conquest of Africa though its United States Africa Command, AFRICOM, formed in 2008 with the goal of enhancing U.S. influence throughout the African continent. AFRICOM has made African nations vassal states following the dictates of U.S. foreign policies, which are antithetical to the needs of African people.

According to Maurice Carney, executive director of “Friends of the Congo” and BAP member, "Due to the US and Europe's inability to compete with China economically on the African continent, the U.S. launched AFRICOM to protect its strategic interests. Although AFRICOM representatives present a benign, humanitarian facade of building wells and training soldiers in human rights practices, its ever-expanding presence (estimated 2000 percent increase since its inception in 2008) has been devastating for the oppressed masses on the continent.”

Blocking the military expansion of the U.S. settler-colonial state must be seen by all serious revolutionary Pan-Africanists as a primary objective. However, BAP members understand that it also means that the internal contradiction represented in the collaboration of the comprador, neo-colonial criminals that run so many of the micro-states on the continent must also be targeted.

It means as well that we must call out the members of the Black elite in the U.S. who collaborate with imperialist power.

Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report and member of the BAP Coordinating Committee points out that “Congressional Black Caucus members were once known as "the conscience of the Congress." Unfortunately, most of them voted for the Trump administration's $80 billion increase to the defense budget in 2017. Those funds will not only deprive the people of the U.S. the numerous governmental programs which provide for their well-being but will also be used to continue wars in Somalia, Congo, Kenya and Niger and result in death and destruction for millions of people.”

Therefore, we demand that as the 10th anniversary of AFRICOM approaches, the Congressional Black Caucus take a public stand in opposition to AFRICOM and cease its support of U.S. militarism and warmongering in Africa but also in the streets of the U.S.  

So, on this African Liberation Day, join us in demanding that AFRICOM be dismantled and this country's predatory actions against millions of Africans end immediately.

For media inquiries, email info@blackallianceforpeace.com.

Photo credit: Paul Schmick. Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post