The Impediment of Neo-Colonialism

Neo-Colonialism as an
Impediment
DR. OBADELE KAMBON
SOS-HERMANN GMEINER INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE
MODEL AFRICAN UNION (MAU) CONFERENCE
24 MAY 2014
Theme
Harnessing Opportunities and Developing Sustainable Strategies for a
Better Africa
Statement of Fact: Africa has enemies.
One of the main tools used by these enemies to prevent Africa from Harnessing
Opportunities and Developing Sustainable Strategies for a Better Africa is Neo-
Colonialism.
Once we know what our enemies have done and are intentionally doing to impede
progress, we can take steps to counteract their efforts.
24/5/2014 2 Dr. Obadele Kambon: Neo-Colonialism as an Impediment
Neo-Colonial vs. Post-Colonial
The main way to tell you are in a neo-colonial state is when they tell you it is
post-colonial.
The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in
theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international
sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is
directed from outside. Kwame Nkrumah

Features of Neo-Colonialism
Control may be direct military or through financing Low Intensity Conflict (LIC).
Usually economic or monetary means.
Obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the
exclusion of competing products from elsewhere.
Control usually engendered by conditionalities on monetary aid.
Control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system
controlled by the imperial power.
Why Neo-Colonial not Post-Colonial?
Africas enemies prefer Post-Colonial because the term itself obscures the
continuing role of external forces in direction of economic/social/political
etc. policy.
Post-Colonial implies that the external influences of colonization are over.
Implies that upon establishing national flags and national anthems we have
been left to our own devices to develop as we see fit.
This has not been the case.
The One, Two Punch of Neo-Colonialism
For two decades the World Bank and the IMF have forced developing countries to
create conditions that benefit Western corporations and governments.
Conditions Created through Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) requiring
governments to:
Cut public spending, (including eliminating subsidies for food, medical care and education).
Raise interest rates, thus reducing access to credit.
Privatize state enterprises; increase exports.
Reduce barriers to trade and foreign investment such as tariffs and import duties.
Results of SAPs
Such policies INTENTIONALLY put African neo-colonized states into a
subordinate position of raw material supplier and open market.

SAPs as Conditions for Aid
Aid to a neo-colonial State is merely a revolving credit, paid by the neo-
colonial master, passing through the neo-colonial State and returning to the
neo-colonial master in the form of increased profits. Kwame Nkrumah
The debt crisis in the 1980s gave Washington the opportunity to blast
open and fully subordinate Third World economies through World Bank-
IMF structural adjustment programs (SAPs). Asad Ismi
Effects of SAPs
Between 1984 and 1990
Countries under SAPs transferred $178 billion to Western commercial
banks
Government spending severely restricted in favor of debt repayment
Slashed food subsidies and decimated health and education sectors
Debt doubled to over $1.5 trillion by the end of the 1980s
$3 trillion by the end of the 1990s.

Why Not Cancel the Debt?
According to Africa Action, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group:
The U.S. appears unwilling to support debt cancellation for Africa because
the U.S. actually gains a great deal from Africas economic enslavement. The
U.S. and other rich countries, as well as the World Bank and IMF, use Africas
debt as leverage to manipulate the continents economic fate to serve their
interests. Asad Ismi
What About Ghana?
In agriculture, Ghana used to be self sufficient in rice but the World Bank
insisted that subsidies had to stop and markets had to open. As a result, the
Katanga valley, once Ghanas rice bowl now lies fallow and U.S. rice has
become the staple for Ghanaians. Why is this? Because U.S. rice is subsidized
and therefore cheaper than that grown in Ghana.
See documentaries The Great African Scandal (Ghana), Life and Debt
(Jamaica) and Black Gold (Ethiopia) amongst others
Rice, Gold, Cocoa as Case Studies
Effects of SAPs in Ghana
The World Banks structural adjustment of Ghana is a textbook example of how
to ruin a country. The ruthless denial of mineral wealth, food, medical care,
education and even water has made the population destitute spectators to the
plunder of Ghana by foreigners.
Shhhthis is all INTENTIONAL!
A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny. Kwame
Nkrumah
World Bank and IMF policies show that Ghana and other neo-colonized African
States have not been and are not in control of their own destinies.

What Happened to Those Who Spoke Against
Neo-Colonialism?
I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of
creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence. Patrice Lumumba 30 June 1960
Lumumba Aftermath
In August 1960, the U.S. Government launched a covert political program
in the Congo lasting almost 7 years, initially aimed at eliminating [Prime
Minister Patrice] Lumumba from power [assassinating him] and replacing
him with a more moderate, pro-Western leader
United States (CIA); Belgium; UK
Assassinated 17 January 1961
Kwame Nkrumah
1965: Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah rejects IMF and World Bank
recommendations to implement a economic development strategy based on
non-inflationary borrowing and reduced government spending.
Nkrumah continues with a policy aimed at diversifying the Ghanaian
economy through import substituting industrialization.
Kwame Nkrumah

Inside the CIA headquarters the Accra station was given full, if unofficial credit for the eventual coup, in
which eight Soviet advisors were killed. John Stockwell, former CIA case officer
CIA backed coup ousted Nkrumah 24 February 1966
Nkrumah was doing more to undermine our interests than any other black African. Robert W. Komer, US
National Security Council
Thomas Sankara

Sankara, the late President of Burkina Faso, was overthrown and
assassinated in a military coup after refusing to pay his countrys debt.
The Debt problem needs to be analysed starting from its origins. Those who lent money to
us are the same people who colonized us, are the same who so long managed our states and
our economies; they indebted Afrika with donations of money. We were not involved in the
creation of this Debt, so we should not pay it. The Debt, moreover, is linked to the
machinery of neo-colonialism: the colonisers became technical assistants; I would call them
technical assassins; and they suggested, recommended to us the financiers; they told us about
the financial advantages. That is why we indebted ourselves for decades and renounced the
satisfaction of our peoples needs. In todays shape, controlled and dominated by
imperialism, the foreign Debt is a well-organised tool of colonial re-conquest: in order to
make the Afrikan economy a slave of those who were so clever as to give us capital with the
obligation of reimbursing them. We are asked to reimburse our Debt. But if we do not pay,
the capital lenders will not die; if we pay, we will die. We cannot pay; and we dont want to
pay. We are not responsible for the Debt burden. We have already paid a lot of the Debt. We
are asked to co-operate in researching balance mechanisms: balance in favour of those who
own the financial institutions and use the power against the peoples. We cannot be
accomplices. The Paris Club is there; lets create the Addis Ababa Club for cancelling our
foreign Debt. Our Club should say: our Debt will not be paid.... we should explain in other
conferences that we cannot pay. We must be united, otherwise, individually we will be
murdered. Avoiding Debt repayment is a condicio sine qua non to allow us to free resources
for our development. Thomas Sankara (OAU 1986)
The Debt
The Dakar Declaration called Third World debt to the North fraudulent, odious,
illegal, immoral, illegitimate, obscene and genocidal and added Countries of the
North owe Third World countries, particularly Africa, a manifold debt: blood debt
with slavery; economic debt with colonization, and the looting of human and
mineral resources and unequal exchange; ecological debt with the destruction and
the looting of its natural resources; social debt (unemployment; mass poverty) and
cultural debt (debasing of African civilizations to justify colonization). Asad Ismi
[The Dakar 2000 conference (held in Dakar, Senegal) brought together leaders of
NGOs and social movements from all over Africa in December 2000 to analyze the
debt crisis and the impacts of IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs
on African populations.]

The Objective
The objective of national liberation is to regain this right usurped by
imperialism, that is to say, to free the process of development of the national
productive forces. Kwame Nkrumah
The impediment to freedom: Neo-Colonialism; control and enslavement
through debt
Free to vs. Free from

Moving Forward
Know yourself: Ally with yourself: over 1 Billion African people in the world
Know your enemy of the past 5000+ years: Eurasians in general, specifically
Hyksos, Assyrians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, English, French, Portuguese,
Germans, Spanish, European Jews, Belgians, Ameripeans, Dutch, Danes, Russians,
Chinese, etc. NONE OF THE ABOVE HAVE EVER HAD YOUR BEST
INTERESTS AT HEART. Whoever controls Africa and her resources controls the
world.
Once you know these, you can take steps to neutralize the enemy without and
within
Within: What do we eat? What do we drink? What do we want/desire?
Correct Analysis
Any time you make an analysis of an oppressed people in any aspect of their lives and
you leave out the enemy, you will never come to a correct analysis. On the contrary, you will
blame the oppressed for all of their problems.
Even if one were to talk about the drugs in our community, if you just talk about drugs and not
talk about the enemy, you make no analysis at all. If you havent brought in the question of who
brings the drugs in, why the drugs are brought in, for what purpose they are brought in, you will
never understand the problem at all.
When we speak of the conditions of the African masses we begin with the enemy of the African
masses, especially the racist, capitalist system in the United States of America.
- Kwame Ture (fka Stokely Carmichael)
When you know who ultimately benefits from the problems, you will know who created them.
Solving the Problem
Before the problem can be solved it must at least be understood. It cannot be
resolved merely by pretending that neo-colonialism does not exist. It must be
realised that the methods at present employed to solve the problem of world
poverty are not likely to yield any result other than to extend the crisis. Kwame
Nkrumah
Do the opposite of what your enemy has directed you to do (SAPs) for the purpose
of destroying you.
Post-Colonial means the war is over and the struggle is done. Time to honor the
fallen, extolling their work and virtues. The best way to honor a fallen warrior is to
pick up his/her weapon.
References
Ismi, A., et al. (2004). Impoverishing a Continent: The World Bank and the IMF in
Africa, Halifax Initiative Coalition.
Nkrumah, K. (1965). Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, Nelson.
http://ghanahistory.wordpress.com/1966/02/24/nkrumah-is-overthrown/
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/lumumba/1960/06/independence.htm
http://readyforthe-revolution.tumblr.com/page/5

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