France And Her Former Colonies

Contends that France is violating human rights in Africa

"Yellow Vest’’ demonstrators in France must be feeling very lonely. Working classes across Europe who survived the 1938- 1945 War and gained significant social welfare benefits as European and American governments struggled to block appeals by Communist Russia’s Socialism, have denied them combative solidarity.

Following the end of the Cold War and Russia’s withdrawal of her troops from former member-states of the former Soviet Union - and signing various agreements with the United States - European governments other than the Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland), have been ending welfare benefits for the poor and unemployed graduates.

With Pope Francis left as the lone voice in appeals for shows of human solidarity by Europeans to African immigrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in huge numbers, those risking lives to enter France, are likely to view protests against President Macron’s neo- monarchical thrust as ritual indulged in by pampered people.

Critics of France’s record of brutal exploitation of her former colonies and current neo-colonies in Africa, have very little sympathy for “Yellow Vest’’ protesters since their protests do not include condemnations of wreckages of human rights by France in Africa. When Italy’s Foreign Minister accused France of economic robbery in her former colonies because it anchors the poverty, frustration, despair and underdevelopment which drives hundreds of thousands of their citizens to flee into deaths enroute to assumed economic paradise in Europe, the protestors did not hail him and demand the end of France’s regime of looters.

The former Ambassador of the African Union to the United States, Her Excellency Arikana Chihumbori-Quao, blamed her dismissal from her job - after three years of service - on pressure by France on the current Chairman of the African Union Commission, Faki Mahamat, as punishment for her open opposition to what she regards as that country’s violations of Human Rights in 14 former colonies.

According to her, as a condition for granting independence in 1960, France imposed on the new governments a treaty known as “Pact for the Continuation of Colonisation’’. It demanded that 85 per cent of revenue collected by a “Francophone’’ country must be deposited in France’s Central Bank under the Ministry of Finance. That condition left each victim’s country with only 15 per cent of its revenue for undertaking development programmes.

When in need of access to monies held by France, the victimised country had to submit an economic proposal for approval by France. If successful, the money would be given “as a Loan’’ totaling only 20 per cent of its “reserve’’. The “loan’’ would attract an interest fee which would be earned by France. As a result, the former African Union Ambassador to the United States, has claimed that France earns “$500b annually’’ from these countries. This sum does not include what she earns from pumping into her Stock Exchange the 85 per cent deposits from each of the 14 neo-colonies under this financial bondage.

It is at this point that her conclusion tallies with that of the furious Italian Foreign Minister. She insists that the financial stranglehold has been at the root of women and children dying from malnutrition and youths being trapped in poverty and unemployment. Their human rights are, thereby, violated. What infuriates her has been the prolonged complicity of the United Nations, an institution that is the guardian of human rights. As members of that organisation, member states of the African Union are also at guilt.

In the election campaign for the election of a successor to Dr Mkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the outgoing Chairperson of the African Union Commission, civil society groups in Kenya, accused France of broadcasting accusations that Kenya’s candidate for the job, Amina Mohammed, had engaged in corrupt practices, including hiring, at government expense, private aircraft owned by her brother.

From Senegal and socialist comrades and fellow academics across Africa came furious allegations that France had bribed various African delegations to vote against Professor Abdullayi Bathily because his Pan-Africanist patriotism would resist lobbying by France for demands like the dismissal of critics to her policies who are inside the bureaucracy of the African Union. With her right to defend her national interest, French diplomats may have also been fearful of Professor Bathily being supportive of increasing Chinese influence in the African Union.

France should take blame for the current vulnerability of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad to brutal slaughters of peasant communities by Islamist invaders. Al Qaeda is reported to have used a larger pot of funds to lure poor unemployed youths away from Tuareg returnees from Gaddafi’s Libya who were fighting for independence from Mali.

The Peace and Security unit of the African Union must demand for a radical change in France’s role in entrenching poverty and anti-development in “Francophone states’’ across Africa. Critics of Morocco’s surge into ECOWAS should also engage her in this policy war with France.