London-—The African Socialist International is denouncing the 14th neocolonial summit known as “Francophonie,” which will include African presidents from French speaking countries, various imperialist leaders and neocolonialist personalities of all kinds.
This macabre event will take place October 12-14, 2012, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
There are many reasons to oppose this bourgeois celebration.
First of all, this summit is a celebration of the alliance between imperialist rulers and their African puppets who betrayed and surrendered Africa to the colonial powers of Western Europe.
It is a part of the worldwide festivities organized by those who benefit from the existence of parasitic capitalism.
The Francophone Summit was born in the same way as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.—all events which achieved historical and cultural significance with the rise of parasitic capitalism.
The French language grew in importance with the political power of Paris over the rest of France.
It was the profits from the slave trade and slave plantations in the French colony of Haiti, together with the subsequent conquest and colonization of Africa and the non-European world that provided the economic material basis for the development of modern France and the French language.
It was the industrialization of France, paid for with our African labour and our African natural resources, that allowed the old French language, spoken by the ruling class in Paris, to be promoted by the dying aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie.
African oppression fueled the industrialization of France and enabled the ruling class dialect to dominate the multitude of the many other dialects which were spoken in France at the time.
It was colonialism which made the French language an international phenomenon.
If today we speak French in Africa and in New Caledonia, it was because it was imposed on us by colonialism, in the same way that English, Spanish, Portuguese and other forms of cultural domination were imposed on us.
What happens at these summits?
We know for sure that members of the ruling class party enjoy themselves at our expense.
They are big, no-expense-spared parties in the middle of immense mass-starvation and suffering.
Wine, caviar and all manner of expensive food and drink will flow abundantly in palaces, mansions and hotels booked or even built for the occasion.
The police and the army will have cleaned the main corners in the busy centres and hubs of Kinshasa’s commercial and administrative areas to remove all evidence of the activities of young men and women, who hustle all day selling whatever they can, in order to survive in this unethical and inhuman social system of parasitical capitalism.
The only ”consolation” for the people is that the government will rush to fix some potholes on the roads, clean up some selected streets and sewers to the great surprise of flies and mosquitoes.
They may even plant some trees along the roads for the self-satisfaction of the neocolonial dignitaries for conversation purposes.
The Francophone Summit is a celebration of illegitimate rule, a social system and economy which exist only for the purposes of oppression and exploitation.
Francophonie is not a substitution for African unity. It is an attack on African unity.
The francophone alliance exists solely for the economic benefit of France and the neocolonialist sell-outs who stay on their bending knees before white power.
Without Africa, France would have no economic standing in the world.
France and the French language would not have the diplomatic and cultural prestige around the world without its domination over Africa and our resources.
Francophonie is a cover for the colonial pact between France and Africa's neocolonial stooges, which allows France to own the currency used in 15 African countries.
African economist, Dr. Nicola Abgohou explains:
"The 15 countries of the CFA zone are obliged to leave as deposit in France, 65 percent of their export earnings, called “reserves of exchange”. This constitutes the indispensable condition to guarantee the stability of their currency. A country like Niger, which does not manage to pay its civil servants, if it exports products, for example, for a value of a billion dollars, must automatically leave in France a deposit of 650 million dollars. It is absurd! During this time, the Natives of Niger die of hunger… But, the African central Banks are obliged to repurchase these Franc CFA which the leaders left in France and which France does not want to preserve. And, they must do it with hard currencies! From where 65% of the receipts on exports which remain in deposit, for the operations.”
We are opposed to French Francophonie as much as we are opposed to the British commonwealth, U.S. Africom, Portugal Lusuphone etc
Africa for Africans, those at home and those abroad. It is as simple as that!
We cannot celebrate this despicable summit.
Every single African must be furious and looking for actions to stop this colonial pact.
The crimes of France against African people are enormous.
In France, we are forced to live as clandestine immigrants deprived of basic human rights. These include rights to housing, to education, to health care, to work and assemble without fear of police harassment and brutality.
We are opposed to the visit of any imperialist to Congo to enjoy themselves at our expense.
France and the U.S. rulers are equally responsible for the genocide that started in Rwanda in 1994 and spread into present day Congo.
It was under the collaboration of the Socialist French president Francois Mitterrand and conservative French prime minister Edouard Balladur, that the French army organized Operation Turquoise, which allowed the passage of the heavily armed Rwanda Hutu army to enter Congo.
Two years later, this was the excuse used by the US-backed Rwandan pro-Tutsi and Ugandan armies to invade Congo to overthrow Mobutu’s government.
Genocidal occupation goes on to this day.
Joseph Kabila considers this summit as a personal support for his own reactionary, infamous and dying regime.
In the eyes of the masses in Congo, he has no legitimacy.
He is in power because imperialist powers continue to prop him up.
We are against this summit because hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to build luxurious infrastructures to host and feed about 3000 dignitaries of parasitic capitalism at the expense of our people.
Six million of our people are dead!
This is about 90 times the number of Japanese killed in the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
This is about 300 times the number of dead people in the imperialist proxy war on Syria.
400,000 women are being raped in Congo every year as a consequence of war.
France has a historical responsibility in this mega-genocide in the Congo.
Our hospitals are emptied of doctors and basic medical supplies, such as syringes and aspirin.
Our schools lack teachers and desks, while workers go unpaid for more than a year.
Only about 10 percent of the population has access to tap water and electricity.
The Congolese neocolonial government has already spent over $175 million to build and upgrade luxurious hotels, and 99 percent of our impoverished people will never sleep in those air conditioned hotels with perfumed rooms, built with our labour and resources.
We are against this summit because it is time to mobilize the African workers in our own interests.
The people must be in power
We must first build organization that will allow the African worker to break free from the filthy political and ideological influences and degrading practices of the African petty bourgeoisie social class.
No longer will anyone bow to the imperialist oppressors.
No one will feed the oppressors the best of foods while the people struggle just to survive.
The only relevant and legitimate summit in Congo would be:
1. To put in place the conditions of an emergency relief plan to get food and basic medical care and supplies to the suffering African people.
2. To mobilize the masses of workers and peasants to organize food distribution throughout the country.
3. To mobilize African people internationally for a long and sustained people's resistance to end the war imposed on Africa.
4. To discuss how we will host, in Africa, the first African International Tribunal on Reparations to Africa and African people for crimes committed by white imperialism against African people of the world. This tribunal will, among other things, demand: reparations from all oppressor nations’ governments and foreign corporations involved in the economy of genocide in the Congo since the downfall of Mobutu’s regime, the invalidation of any jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court on Africa and over African lives, and the institutionalization of the African International Tribunal on Reparations to Africa and African people.
Food and decent housing for all the people!
Parasitic capitalism out of Congo!
Down with the French colonial pact!
French imperialism out of Africa!
The We Are Patrice Lumumba Coalition is calling on all Africans and freedom loving people to join the protest organised by Congo’s activists in opposition to the French summit.
Protest on October 10, 2012 at 1:00 pm, French embassy, 58 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7JT
