When U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Kenya and Ethiopia this summer, capitalist rulers in both Africa and the U.S. worked overtime to foster illusions about the trip. The chair of the African Union Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, called it a “historic visit” and a “concrete step to broaden and deepen the relationship between the U.S. and the AU.” The bosses’ media focused on future benefits promised by Obama: a joint campaign against terrorism, shared technology, and the alleviation of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three people are undernourished and more than 250 million live without access to clean water (borgenproject.com).
But Obama’s true mission was hidden. His real job was to counter recent inroads in Africa by Chinese bosses, and to pave the way for more U.S. capitalist investment—and more exploitation of African workers. Of particular interest to the U.S. rulers: gas extraction in Tanzania’s Mtwara region, oil production and power supply, and an expanding market for U.S. industrial goods, including firearms to warring ethnic groups.
Addressing the African Union, Obama said the U.S. planned to provide an additional 30,000 megawatts to 60 million households and business in Africa. He also pledged to assist African governments to eradicate terrorism—a point of rank hypocrisy, since up to half of U.S. arms sales to corrupt militaries in Uganda and Burundi have wound up in the hands of the al-Shabab terror group (wired.com, 8/2/11).
Obama, who serves the main finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class, pushed both Kenya and Ethiopia to enter the fight against al-Shabab. In fact, the U.S. government has played a concealed but significant role in arming groups like al-Shabab, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram. The capitalists’ strategy is to divide populations into ethnic groups and promote conflict and civil war, making the working class more vulnerable to imperialist exploitation. It’s no accident that U.S. government aid is funneled to countries with productive oil reserves, like Libya, Egypt and Sudan, or to areas in Tanzania where natural gas and coal as well as oil have been discovered. To shore up its control of these markets, U.S. imperialism invaded Libya and backed the forces that assassinated President Muammar Gaddafi.
African workers cannot rely on the African Union and its ruling-class governments, all of which profit from racism, sexism, and capitalist inequality. Only a communist revolution can eliminate mass poverty and establish a society that serves workers’ needs!