Statement by Movement for African Emancipation
Mali has been ‘independent’ for 60 years, same as Nigeria will be on October 1st, but the reality is that there has been no true independence for African peoples. Mali has also, like Nigeria, claimed to be a democratic country, but the reality is that the peoples of this continent continue to suffer a sham democracy. In essence, the people to whom sovereignty belong, have long been deprived of it, through the assistance of neo-colonial leaders serving imperialist forces.
The imperialist forces who do not allow our continent to enjoy genuine independence have also used all means to ensure that our peoples do not enjoy genuine democracy. This is at the heart of the rebellion that gripped Mali, which led eventually to the military coup. Predictably, the foreign powers through their various agencies have slammed harsh sanctions against Mali, which will make ordinary people suffer, and our own African regional bodies with the support of Nigeria have followed suit in such actions.
Prior to the coup, our government, through the former President Goodluck Jonathan as an ECOWAS envoy that reported directly to Retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari, intervened in favour of a government in power that had been rigging elections and was selling out the Malian people to imperialist countries, and which had therefore lost legitimacy in the eyes of the masses of the people.
WE reject all interference by imperialists and their neo-colonial puppets in the Malian peoples’ affairs. We reject the stunning hypocrisy of a country like Nigeria, where ‘democracy’ simply means the power of money and guns, and led by a former military dictator who does not allow free speech in his own country, to intervene in the affairs of Mali. We reject the hypocrisy of the imperialists and African neo-colonialists such as ECOWAS and the AU who stand by and watch in Ivory Coast as Quattara seeks an unconstitutional third term. These same imperialists instigate and plan coups when it suits them. And can a country like the United States of America have a say in whether other countries are democratic when its current leader was elected with a minority of the votes in the last election and with allegations of electronic interference in his election?
We do not have illusions in military coupists to set Mali on the right path, military soldiers who have been trained by the imperialists. And we are aware that the destiny of Mali is in the hand of its majority – the working and exploited masses, who must decide on the structures through which government is organised, just as the destiny of Nigeria lies in an awakening of the masses.
We are aware that the imperialists are ever ready to prevent an uprising of the the African peoples and will use all means to subvert them, as we saw recently in Sudan. They (and their neo-colonialist puppets) do not like to see such examples as it sends a message to other countries that it is possible to revolt. Nigerians too should beware that when we do revolt for our liberation, we must be on guard for the intervention of the imperialists and the neo-colonialist forces in the ECOWAS, AU, and others.
Rather than rely on neo-colonialist leaders and the regional bodies they set up such as ECOWAS and the AU, we call on the masses of West Africa and all of Africa to unite their struggles for liberation, to support each others struggles, so that we may achieve the goal of one United Africa that will finally ensure genuine liberation and democracy.
