The Congo Basin and its Significance in The Fight Against Climate Change

Jean-Paul Kibambe, Ingrid Schulze, and Samuel Yagase discussed the impact and importance of the Congo Basin to the rest of the world, with host Lys Alcayna-Stevens presenting and leading the discussion. Each panelist has been involved in developing the Congo positively, such as bridging the divide between rural communities and intellectuals or working in or funding higher education and rainforest conservation. The Congo Basin stores more carbon than the Amazon and Asian rainforests combined and can affect the climate on other continents. This shows how significant the Congo Basin is. The discussion focused on topics of international funding, respecting the local agenda, and letting Congolese citizens be the leader of changing their communities.  

Click here to support flood relief in Isangi, DRC.

Connecting Our African + African-American Brothers & Sisters

The painful destruction of African families and tribes due to colonization is one that had irreparable effects on the Black community leading to generations of kids not having the privilege every other racial group did, knowing their history. Slavery was the colonizer’s history. Their shameful, bloody takeover of the land from the Native Americans was led by enslaving beautifully melanated Africans and forcing them to do slave labor. Even after years of attempts to liberate ourselves from the chains and whips, we still face brutality in a land forced onto us.

Acknowledging that African-Americans were stripped of knowing their real identity and ancestry, Africans can trace the country from where their families stayed from going generations back. We are all seen and treated the same but, we all have different stories and backgrounds. Learning to accept and embrace each other while respecting that some of our brothers & sisters were robbed of learning their true history is the key to building relationships and uniting for the strengthening of our communities to become one, as we always have and will be.

Azameet G
Communications Director
UC Merced

AFRICOM: Deadly Deception

On October 1, 2007, the United States under the presidency of George W. Bush and the military leadership of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, launched the Africa Command (AFRICOM). The command was based in Stuttgart, Germany. In the same vein as the 1884/85 Berlin Conference, AFRICOM was a wholly external concoction to be imposed on Africans without their input or consent. In fact, when African leaders first heard of the establishment of an African command, they overwhelmingly rejected its intent to expand U.S. military presence on the African continent. Even during President Bush's trip to the continent in 2008, African leaders roundly rejected US military expansion on the continent. The only country that was amenable to the presence of AFRICOM on African soil was Liberia under the leadership of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Although Bush appointed Morgan State University graduate, Kip Ward, an African American four-star general to head up AFRICOM and continued to claim that the intent of AFRICOM was not to establish US military bases in Africa, he still faced stiff resistance. Kip Ward waxed eloquently about AFRICOM being established to support humanitarian assistance efforts in Africa, build wells and prevent conflict.

In order for otherwise reasonable and critical people to buy the deception of the US military having as its main aim, humanitarian assistance support and peace and stability in Africa, they have to already subscribe to certain preconceived notions about Africa and Africans. In essence, the US military has traded in the notion that Africa is a poor continent in need of charity. Although the opposite is true - that Africa is a rich continent, in fact the richest continent on the planet in natural resources that has been plundered for the past 500 years, starting with the trafficking in African bodies and today with the super exploitation of oil, copper, cobalt, coltan, diamonds, gold, bauxite, timber and myriad other natural riches. The charity propaganda combined with the command being led by a Black man and then to be championed by a Black president with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the resistance to AFRICOM became exceedingly difficult. The path was cleared under the Obama presidency to the point where the US military presence on the African continent expanded nearly 2,000 percent under his presidency. In addition, under the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Susan Rice as US Ambassador to the United Nations, AFRICOM led the bombing of Libya in cahoots with NATO to effect "regime change" in Libya by removing Muammar Gaddafi from power. Hillary Clinton infamously stated on her visit to Libya after the murder of Gaddafi "We came, we saw, he died"
Today, Libya and the surrounding countries in the Sahel, particularly Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali are a living hell due to the fall out from the Nato/AFRICOM bombing campaign and subsequent government overthrow in Libya.

Should one make an objective assessment of one of AFRICOM's signature claims at its inception - to bring stability and assist in advancing peace and stability in Africa - one would have to conclude that AFRICOM has been an abject failure. However, knowledgeable people know that AFRICOM's real aim was never peace nor stability but rather strategic interests. The United States uses its military throughout the globe to bring about full spectrum domination and Africa is no exception. A case in point is the United States' recent push to acquire permission from Kenya to conduct drone strikes in its territory. Should Somalia serve as an example or model where US drone strikes have killed civilians, Kenyans would be forewarned to categorically reject this request from the US.

Today, Thursday, October 1, 2020 on the International Day of Action on AFRICOM:  Shut Down AFRICOM we encourage you to join the Black Alliance for Peace by going to their site, download the materials, disseminate the press release that came out today and encourage your networks to take action to SHUT Down AFRICOM.