The Re-Colonization of Africa. Berlin, 1884 and Paris, 2011 [View All]

[Starry Messenger]

http://mltoday.com/subject-areas/imperialism/the-re-colonization-of-africa-1208.html

Last week the world was treated to the spectacle of the Paris Conference where one Western leader after the other – together with a few token Arab dictators – patted themselves on the back for "liberating" Libya from the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. It quickly brought to mind the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884 at which Africa was sliced up among its European colonisers.

Quite rightly so, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma let it be known - as any self-respecting African should have done - that he would have nothing to do with this cynical circus initiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, ostensibly to decide Libya's future...as if Libyans and Africans themselves should not be doing that.

In the end there was a conspicuous absence of influential African leaders, with a number of African countries and the African Union (AU) having refused to recognise the Nato-installed National Transitional Council (NTC) as the new government of Libya. Libya's neighbour, Algeria, was there, but only as an observer and perhaps only because its shared border with Libya gave it a pressing reason.

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For many Sarkozy and Cameron's 2011-style "scramble for Africa" conference also brought to mind erstwhile ANC leader Chief Albert Luthuli's acceptance speech in Norway in 1960 when he received the Nobel Peace Prize and said: "Our continent has been carved up by the great powers. Alien governments have been forced upon the African people by military conquest and by economic domination".

Berlin Conference of 1884

http://wysinger.homestead.com/berlinconference.html