The U.S. Push to Seize Control of Africa's Gulf of Guinea Oil
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by
Glen Ford
"The United
States is telegraphing its own invasion plans for the region."
According to recent reports, Nigeria's government is
organizing other African states to block the U.S. from establishing a military
base in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. The nations of the region have every
reason to be alarmed. U.S. "strategic planners" - which is another way of
saying "imperialists" - have marked the Gulf for deep penetration and eventual
subjugation, as Washington's plans for global resource domination continue,
unabated. Already, the Sahel region in the north of Africa is saturated with
American military forces. Looking south, the Americans claim there is not a
large enough military presence to "secure" the huge, largely untapped oil and
gas reserves of the Gulf of Guinea, bordered by Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe. In reality, the Gulf needs protection from no
one - except the rapacious United States.
The U.S. insists it needs to place submarines and warships
in the Gulf, and to secure basing rights onshore to service its naval presence
there. Of course, there is no enemy on the horizon to defend against - no Al
Qaida fleet with Osama bin Laden at the helm - that would necessitate such a
militarization of the Gulf of Guinea. What the United States is really doing,
is telegraphing its own invasion plans for the region, to grab the oil.
Nigeria is not the ideal focus of resistance to U.S.
encroachment on African resources, despite its large military and the biggest
population in Black Africa. Nigeria is perhaps the most kleptocratic state on
the planet, a government and ruling class dominated by thieves. But now, the
Nigerian gangster classes, in and out of uniform, face a threat from an even
bigger thief: the U.S., a rogue superpower that steals whole nations. Compared to the Americans, the Nigerian
godfathers are small-time, corner criminals. And they are scared.
"The American game plan throughout the developing world is
to claim that Washington must come to the rescue when ‘failed states' are
incapable of providing security for precious resources."
After the African Internet news service ThisDay reported
Nigeria's efforts to resist the U.S. onslaught, in mid-September, officials in
the capital city of Abuja began to "soft-peddle" the threat posed by Uncle Sam,
and to put out assurances that Nigeria and other African states would provide
all the "security" that is necessary to guard the Gulf. That's understandable.
The American game plan throughout the developing world is to claim that
Washington must come to the rescue when "failed states" are incapable of providing
security for precious resources. If you are not already a failed state, the
U.S. will make you one.
The Iraqi model is the most recent. Having destroyed the
Iraqi regime, and then declared its successor a "failed state," growing sectors
of the American ruling class advocate the dismemberment of Iraq into three,
easily manageable parts, none of which would be capable of defending the
national oil patrimony. Nigeria, should it try to frustrate American greed for
energy, could be deemed an "artificial" nation, a "failed state" made up of
four or five distinct countries, whose peoples must be "liberated" from each
other. The same could be said of almost every nation in Africa, where
colonialists drew the lines of borders. Africans must now draw their own lines,
in the Gulf of Guinea,
to keep the United States from "protecting" them into
oblivion.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
Glen Ford can be contacted
at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
To download or listen to this Black Agenda Report commentary, click on the mic at left.
Liberation struggles are not fought only on the battlefield. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) left a legacy of educational decolonization.
