Africa’s independence was a charade, says Arikana Chihombori-Quao, one of the continent’s most outspoken critics of the Western world’s relationship with the continent.
Speaking on the theme: ‘Imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism – the three axes of evil for Africa,’ at the 14th Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures & Congregation in Cape Coast, Ghana, organised by the University of Cape Coast (UCC) on Monday, 19 August 2024, the former African Union Representative to the United States said despite the continent’s independence several decades ago, it is still being colonised indirectly.
“Between the 1950s and 1960s, we saw African countries, one by one, become independent [but] guess what my brothers and sisters, sons and daughters: we were given fake independence. We were given independence by name,” she noted.
The CEO and founder of Bell Family Medical Centers in the United States pointed out that the “multinational companies that existed during colonisation have never left Africa to this day.”
She indicated: “They simply lay low,” lamenting: “Economic liberation was blatantly denied to the Africans. We were meant to believe that we were free; free from what?”
Buttressing her point, the Zimbabwean activist, who has been a harsh critic of the Berlin Conference that took place in Germany in 1885, through which Africa was partitioned among the colonial powers at the time, said the colonisers never left Africa despite the continent’s independence.
Also known as the Congo Conference or the West Africa Conference, the Berlin Conference was convened by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and was attended by representatives from 14 European countries, as well as the United States. The primary objective of the conference was to regulate European colonisation and trade in Africa during the period of New Imperialism and to avoid conflicts among the colonial powers.
According to Pakenham, T’s book, The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912, the Berlin Conference formalised the “Scramble for Africa,” a period during which European powers rapidly divided and claimed African territories. It set out rules for the annexation of African land, requiring any European power that claimed any territory to notify the other powers and establish effective control over the area.
The conference also sought to ensure free trade in the Congo Basin and free navigation along the Niger and Congo rivers, which were crucial for accessing the interior of Africa. The Congo Free State, under the personal control of King Leopold II of Belgium, was recognised as a neutral zone open to all European trade. (Hochschild, A. (1998). King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin).
It was the Conference that set the stage for the Whiteman’s colonisation and exploitation of Africa as well as the imposition of European culture on Africans and the arbitrary drawing of borders that often ignored existing ethnic and cultural boundaries. These artificial borders are the cause of some conflicts in today’s Africa.
While slavery and colonialism were more frontal, neo-colonialism is rather subtle as in the case of France’s continued colonisation of its former colonies post-independence.
Those countries, Ambassador Chihombori-Quao noted, “got it worse” since “As they were receiving their independence from France, they were made to sign a document which they call ‘The Pact for the Continuation of Colonisation’. On the one hand, ‘We [French] want you to sign this document telling you that you are free but on the other hand, we want you to sign this other document called ‘The Pact for the Continuation of Colonisation’ that simply says, ‘You agree to be colonised in a different way.’ The animal simply changed clothes.”
“And what was so bad about the Pact for the Continuation of Colonisation?” wondered Ambassador Chihombori-Quao sarcastically.
“It says, ‘Your minerals, discovered and yet-to-be-discovered belong to France [and] French companies have the first right of refusal. Your bank reserves – at that time it was 80 percent – are going to be deposited with France; and should you need some of those funds, you have to put in an application for a loan with the French Central Bank and if approved, you can only access 20 percent of what you deposited the previous year as a loan at the commercial interest rate.’”
She emphasised: “You have been depositing money for the past five years, the past ten years and when you need your own money, you have to apply for it as a loan at the commercial interest rate and you can only access, if approved, 20 percent of what you deposited the previous year. The rest is gone. France is keeping it.”
According to her, the “records show that France would invest those funds in the French Stock Market with returns in excess of 300 billion a year and France kept all that since the 1950s to this day.”
Additionally, she continued: “Your military could only be trained by France. Your military equipment could only be bought from France. Your language of instruction could only be French. So, if you were to be a president of any of the former French colonies, [on] your first day in office, your chief of staff will come to you and say, ‘Mr President, I must read to you what is stipulated by the ‘Pact for the Continuation of Colonisation’ because if you do not follow this, your head could find itself hanging from a tree,’ so, Mr President, you have to deposit 85 per cent of your bank reserves with France. Mr President, you cannot do anything about your natural resources, French companies have the first right of refusal. Mr President, your military can only be trained by France. Mr President, you can only buy military equipment from France. If you [stick to] those main basic things, Mr President, you are free to run your country any way you want.’”
“What kind of president is that?” she exclaimed.
Ambassador Chihombori-Quao, however, said despite everything being wrong with that kind of arrangement from the African perspective, some Africans, shockingly, defend it.
“… As I travel around the United States and the Americas and I would talk about what was happening in Africa, to my surprise, the Africans [would say], ‘But Madam Ambassador, the African leaders are corrupt.’”
She, however, said such generalisation was an unfair basis to justify the Pact arrangement. “I get it. We have some [African leaders] that are corrupt but we also have some that are good leaders. But the question is: ‘What kind of a president do you have who has given up natural resources, who has given up financial resources, who has given up control of [everything]? What kind of a leader is that?”
Furthermore, she said: “In addition to that Pact, in addition to the constraints that are being put on African leaders, in addition to the fear of having coups and African leaders being eliminated when they try to do that which is right for their people, we also have to deal with multinationals that never left Africa since colonisation to this day. We, too, must call them out because they, too, are another axis of evil. They are robbing Africa to the tune of trillions every year. They use safe havens to hide their returns. They are using illegal means to loot out of Africa.”
Citing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as an example, she said: “You have tarmacs in the middle of the jungle. 747s are flying into DRC, picking up minerals and flying right out of Africa and this is happening all over Africa.”
Also, Ambassador Chihombori-Quao mentioned that: “You have NGOs that are sent to Africa not to help you, NGOs that are coming to Africa to make sure that they continue to destabilise your countries by any means necessary.”
“Neo-colonisation is colonisation that simply changed clothes,” she reiterated.
At the lecture, she urged the youth to grasp the extent to which the West has used ‘the three axes of evil’ to suppress Africa and its people.
“As we talk about Africa and what is ailing our beloved continent, as we talk about institutions of higher learning, it is important that children understand the three axes of evil – imperialism, colonisation and neo-colonisation. Understand them fully and understand how they are being used to keep Africa where they want Africa to be. You see, a liberated and informed Africa is an Africa that is dangerous to the world. To what extent are we going to continue to be stupid? To what extent are we going to continue to be used as instruments of our own self-destruction? To what extent are we going to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough?’” she charged.
“We have failed you [youth], as your elders. We’re leaving you an Africa that is not where it should be and for that, we apologise, but all is not lost. I do know one thing – that there are enough of us who get it, enough of us who are committed to making sure that we tell you, young people, the truth and nothing but the truth. The struggle for Africa is a very simple one: we are asking the Western world to do unto us what they would want done unto them. Plain and simple. We are simply speaking our truth,” she concluded.
