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Imperialism

Protesters Demand End To US-French Colonial Domination In West Africa

New York City, New York - Demonstrators gathered in front of the French Mission to the United Nations in New York City Aug. 22 at a protest organized by the December 12th Movement, calling for “France out of Africa/Hands off Niger.” Speakers passionately demanded the withdrawal of U.S. and French troops from West Africa and the closure of military bases in Niger. Their powerful voices highlighted the U.S. and Europe’s ongoing colonial exploitation of Africa’s rich natural resources. With an emphasis on the dire consequences of this criminal domination, the speakers shed light on the harsh living conditions faced by the masses of people in West African nations.

The People Do Not Want War: Mass Protests Continue In Niger

The political situation in Niger and West Africa as a whole continues to be in a flux. While people and their movements across the region are mobilizing against war and neo-colonial intervention, regional bodies have taken a stand in favor of the status quo. In a communique released on August 22, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) announced its decision to suspend Niger from all the bloc’s activities in response to the July 26 military takeover. The declaration released by the PSC on Tuesday had been adopted at a meeting held on August 14.

Western Media Glorifies TPLF Mob Violence Against Eritrean Festivals

For 40 years, Eritrean Festivals have been held around the world to sustain the diaspora community’s connections to their homeland and to one another. But this year, a violent, well-coordinated international campaign of sabotage left festival goers badly injured and property damaged. Major Western media reported the pogrom-style attacks as “clashes,” “riots,” “fights” and “violence” in a way that implied these had broken out between two sides, masking the reality – that hooligans had attacked peaceful festival goers. They also implied that the violence was warranted because Eritrea is run by a “repressive” government on the wrong side of the new Cold War.

Niger Coup Will Have Ramifications For United States, France And Canada

On July 26, the African continent was rocked by news of a military coup in Niger, the fourth in West Africa since 2020. Cooperation between the US and Nigerien militaries has been suspended. The Niger government has withdrawn from its military agreements with France. The over 1,000 US troops in Niger have been restricted to their bases. France has evacuated 600 nationals from the country, while in a veiled threat, President Emmanuel Macron declared he “would not tolerate any attack against France and its interests.” Meanwhile, a rift has emerged in West Africa, with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led by Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu on one side, and the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger on the other.

Capitalist Greed And Imperialist Policies Fuel Migrant Housing Crisis

In the heart of New York City, below its iconic skyline, a paradox of epic proportions unfolds. As buses full of migrants arrive in the city each day, the struggle to find affordable housing intensifies dramatically. Yet, ironically, amidst the sprawling urban growth, there are countless buildings that stand vacant, their potential as living spaces lost, untapped. For years, these empty edifices could have served as a refuge for the existing city's homeless population, which has always been in crisis, but their emptiness has been a reminder of the disconnect between the city's available resources and the willingness to provide for the needs of its inhabitants.

Coup In Niger: Old Europe On Trial

Gold, silicon, oil—with reserves estimated at 2 billion barrels—and above all uranium, are essential for both French nuclear power stations and atomic bombs. They are strategic raw materials for imperialism, which needs to consolidate its dominion at the expense of the southern countries. This is the key to understanding the fibrillation provoked in the United States and especially in the European Union, by the coup d’état in Niger. On July 28, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, head of the Presidential Guard, was proclaimed the new leader of Niger and assumed the presidency of the National Council for the Protection of the Homeland (CNSP), after having ousted the Western-backed President Mohamed Bazoum.

The West Wants Nigeria To Invade Its Northern Neighbor

Last week’s military coup in Niger could be a game-changer in the New Cold War if the junta cuts off the uranium exports upon which France’s nuclear energy industry depends, kicks out its former colonizer’s troops from their last regional bastion, and/or requests Russia’s “Democratic Security” assistance. Unlike the patriotic military coups in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso, which were condemned by the West but not considered a threat to its neocolonial stranglehold over Africa, the one in Niger is ringing alarm bells. France and the US strongly condemned this latest regime change, with the first suspending all aid in parallel with the EU while the latter is preparing to follow suit.

Haitians Protest UN Occupation And Pending Foreign ‘Intervention’

The US and Canada have been arguing for a multilateral military intervention in Haiti led by the army of a third country, possibly even Rwanda, to support the puppet regime that they installed. They are using “gang violence” as the racist excuse, but there are actually more gang killings in Jamaica. In fact, the people of Haiti have been protesting in the streets to get the UN and the Core Group out of Haiti and get the US to stop supporting the illegitimate, unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry. I spoke to Haiti Action Committee activist Seth Donnelly, a public school teacher who has traveled to Haiti over 20 times since the 2004 coup that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Anti-Colonialism And Direct Democracy

There has been this state-centered perception of anti-colonialism that tends to equate the term with any type of government that will stand up to US hegemony. This has led many to overlook the role of authoritarianism, considering it, wrongly, as a secondary issue, and thus pledge their support to autocratic regimes. Proposals such as that of “multipolar world”, which often seeks to reassert old imperialist glory and nationalism, have become a point of reference for the supporters of this brand of pseudo anti-colonialism. Activist Promise Li describes it as a faith in the reshuffling of the US hegemon’s power to a multipolarity of national elites to unlock better conditions of struggle, to which he adds that believing this would be idealism in its own right.

Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On

60 years ago, on May 25, Ghana’s first prime minister and president, the anti-colonial revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah stood before 31 other heads of African states in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and declared, “[T]he struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of national independence.” “Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs…unhampered by crushing and humiliating neo-colonialist controls and interference.” “We must unite or perish,” Nkrumah had emphasized, recognizing that while countries across the African continent were “throwing off the yoke of colonialism,” these successes were “equally matched by an intense effort on the part of imperialism to continue the exploitation of our resources by creating divisions among us.”

Again The Dream Of Global Peace And Mutual Respect

On 24 February 2023, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a twelve-point plan entitled ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’. This ‘peace plan’, as it has been called, is anchored in the concept of sovereignty, building upon the well-established principles of the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Ten Principles from the Bandung Conference of African and Asian states held in 1955. The plan was released two days after China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi visited Moscow, where he met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

These Countries Slammed UNHRC For Its Attack On Nicaragua

Several countries have rejected the politicized use of the UN Human Rights Council and the weaponization of human rights against Nicaragua, following the release of a hostile UN expert report. A speakers list which included DPRK, Venezuela, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Eritrea, Syria, and China voiced opposition to the methods of the expert group and the use of unverified findings to call for additional unilateral coercive measures. The 300-page report (Spanish version) is based on false accounts and allegations and is demonstrably and egregiously selective in its presentation of evidence since the group systematically excluded a large quantity of local sources, including major Nicaraguan news channels which published highly relevant material and reports on specific incidents during the period in question (2018).

Pyongyang Urges UN Demand End To South Korea–US Military Exercises

The United States and South Korea have been stirring up the situation on the Korean peninsula to an “extremely dangerous level,” with threatening rhetoric and a military demonstration targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong said. In a statement published on the website of the national media aggregator KCNA, the senior official drew attention to the aerial exercises carried out by Washington and Seoul in the Yellow Sea on March 3, which included equipment such as the B-1B strategic bomber and the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned attack aircraft.

Africans’ Message To Imperialism: ‘We Are Not Your Flunkies!’

In a remarkable display of independence, South Africa defied NATO on February 24th when it conducted naval drills with Russia and China on the first anniversary of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Writer and analyst Steven Gruzd, sensing the anger of the imperialists, speculates: “I don’t think Western nations are going to let this one slide.” But to date, South Africa has not been intimidated. Obbey Mabena, a veteran of the ANC’s armed wing, while not speaking for the South African government, told CNN: “By default, we are on the side of Russia. And to us Ukraine [is] what we call a sell-out. It is selling out to the west.”

Woke Imperialism

The brutal murder of Tyre Nichols by five Black Memphis police officers should be enough to implode the fantasy that identity politics and diversity will solve the social, economic and political decay that besets the United States. Not only are the former officers Black, but the city’s police department is headed by Cerelyn Davis**,** a Black woman. None of this helped Nichols, another victim of a modern-day police lynching. The militarists, corporatists, oligarchs, politicians, academics and media conglomerates champion identity politics and diversity because it does nothing to address the systemic injustices or the scourge of permanent war that plague the U.S. It is an advertising gimmick, a brand, used to mask mounting social inequality and imperial folly. It busies liberals and the educated with a boutique activism, which is not only ineffectual but exacerbates the divide between the privileged and a working class in deep economic distress.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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