AFRICOM: Securing African or U.S. Interests?

In the spring of 1860, wealthy businessman Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could illegally kidnap and ship Africans from Africa to Mobile, Alabama, without being detected by federal officials. Fifty-two years earlier, the U.S. Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which ended the United States’ legal involvement in the international slave trade.

While transporting Africans to the United States for slavery was now prohibited, U.S. slave traders turned to the existing slave breeding industry, which grew after the ban on importing Africans.

But the story of the bet Meaher made, as well as the ship, “Clotilda,” he financed, and the descendants of the Africans brought to Mobile, Alabama, are the focus of a recently released Netflix documentary, “Descendant.”

Oral History

Kamau Sidiki, master diver and contributor to the Slave Wrecks Project, notes in the opening scenes of the documentary, “There were over 12,000 ships making over 40,000 voyages over 250 years of slave trade. To date, there are only five [slave] ships in maritime history in the database. Why is that?” It should be noted that Sidiki was crucial to finding and verifying the authenticity of the Brazilian slave ship, Sâo José Paquete de Africa.

Author Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” looms large in the documentary, as the focus of her novel was one of the captives aboard the “Clotilda,” Cudjo Lewis, born Oluale Kossola in what is now the West African country of Benin. Lewis was the last living survivor of the “Clotilda” at the time Hurston wrote his account in 1931 (the book was only recently published in 2018).

It is through the words of Lewis, and the oral history of the enslaved ancestors passed down through the generations that they have kept alive the story of the lost slave ship. Oddly, it is through this oral history that the bet, the crime, and the attempt to cover it up are also conveyed and should lead viewers to wonder how much of your family’s oral history is just exaggerated family lore, or hidden history only revealed when the grandkids go to visit Grandma and Grandpa and ask them, “What happened back then?”

Videotapes from 25 years ago of the griots of Africatown, a community of the descendants three miles north of downtown Mobile, Alabama, recount not only the lore that is fact, but the terror campaign waged against them to silence them throughout generations about the crime of which their very existence is evidence. Griots are traveling poets, musicians and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.

‘One of the Africans’

The Black families of the now long-gone Africatown are the offspring of the last Africans brought to the United States. They identify themselves as “one of the Africans” with pride. They do this while recounting their connection to the formerly missing ship, the “Clotilda,” with righteous indignation at the forces that tried to silence the story and with hope that the physical connection to their ancestry would be found. It was impossible not to see the pride in these people.

The descendants of the “Clotilda” are connected to that ship and the continent it brought them from, just as they are connected to the land their ancestors are buried on, the land that they were admonished by those ancestors to never give up in this cruel new world to which they were brought.

The imprint of the family that carried out the crime marks Alabama today. Street signs and parks are named after the slave-owning Maeher family. The ancestral land of the first African stolen from their homeland, who had to buy land from their former slave owner to establish Africatown, is today surrounded on all sides by Maeher family-owned heavy industry that pollutes the air, water, and soil. The pollution has caused significant health problems for residents of Africatown.

The Larger System

In a way, “Descendant” is also a chronicle of how capitalism undergirded and evolved the slave trade. Just as capitalism kept Africans enslaved at the bottom for centuries during slavery to help develop the United States as a global economic powerhouse, it kept freedmen at the bottom for 100 more years under racist Jim Crow laws. And, today, the Black working class and poor are at the bottom.

There is no delineation between the past and the present in “Descendant,” and that is an accurate reflection of the relation of slavery and its atrocities to the present condition of the descendants of the “Clotilda,” and the rest of the descendants of Africans brought to this country to be enslaved. And the descendants reflect that throughline of history not only in keeping the history of the “Clotilda” alive, but also through their continued embrace of African culture. African dance is part of celebrations, spiritual rituals honor their ancestors, and their everyday wardrobe includes African dress and jewelry. They are African, and they are proud to be.

But “Descendant” also holds an important lesson to be aware of: When the powerful, who have suppressed the truth for centuries and have profited off of their continued oppression of others, can no longer avoid facing the truth once exposed, do not expect them to take any responsibility for their actions or offer fair compensation for the damage they have done. They will only offer empty platitudes and meaningless window dressing to the affected. Whatever tangible efforts materialize from any agreement between the aggrieved and their oppressors will always ultimately—in this capitalist system that they built their wealth of oppression upon—benefit those who have always held the power.

Jacqueline Luqman is a radical activist based in Washington, D.C.; as well as co-founder of Luqman Nation, an independent Black media outlet that can be found on YouTube (here and here) and on Facebook; co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary;” and a Toward Freedom board member.

Editor’s Note: This panel discussion was produced by the African Peoples’ Forum.

Paul Sankara, consultant, activist and brother of assassinated Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara; Eugene Puryear, community organizer and host at BreakThrough News; Erica Caines, a Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee member, co-editor of Hood Communist and founder of Liberation Through Reading; and Nebiyu Asfaw, co-founder of both the Ethiopian American Development Council and the #NoMore Movement discussed connecting African peoples’ struggles across the continents at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The event was held December 11 at the Eritrean Civic & Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Journalist Hermela Aregawi and activist Yolian Ogbu moderated.

The first panel can be viewed here.

TF editor Julie Varughese reported on this event being held to counter the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

Editor’s Note: The following article, as well as the editorial note above it, was originally published by People’s Dispatch.

Somaliland is a self-proclaimed republic, with no international recognition, formed in 1991 as a separatist state, breaking away from Somalia’s northwestern region after the civil war. It spans over a strip of land of almost 137,600 square kilometers along the south of the Gulf of Aden – a crucial shipping route, including for petroleum, connecting the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. It is now facing what many observers regard as an existential threat as the unionist movement for reunification with Somalia spreads across Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC), which is over a third of what Somaliland regards as its territory.

The protests calling for reunification began in December 2022 in the city of Las Anod, where a declaration was passed in February, proclaiming SSC as a part of Somalia and deeming the presence of Somaliland administration illegal. Somaliland has since been shelling the city. To understand the extent of the damage to the city and its administration under war, Peoples Dispatch spoke to Dr. Jaama Mohamed Mursal from the Las Anod General Hospital, Garad Mukhtar, one of the 14 clan elders of SSC region, and Elham Garad, a Somali unionist activist who arrived in the city to volunteer earlier this week.

Casualties mounted in Las Anod as the troops of Somaliland – a separatist breakaway from Somalia with no international recognition of its claim to sovereignty – continued attempts to reoccupy the city at the heart of the unionist movement to reunite the region with Somalia.

On Saturday, March 18, attacks by the Somaliland army left over 280 people injured and 47 dead, Jaama Mohamed Mursal, a medical doctor at the Las Anod General Hospital told Peoples Dispatch. The hospital has been severely damaged in the bombardment ongoing since early February.

On Sunday, when street-fighting between the Somaliland army and the local troops defending the city continued at a lower intensity, at least 12 more were injured, and two were killed. Somaliland’s troops have since withdrawn to its Goojacade base, about two kilometers on Las Anod’s outskirts, from where they shelled the city for two more days, killing one more on Monday, and three on Tuesday, according to the data compiled from the city’s five hospitals.

While there are no reports of shelling on the city itself since Tuesday, Jaama said that artillery fire could be heard in the Las Anod as the fighting continues on the frontline on its outskirts, as on the evening of Thursday, March 23.

Las Anod, which was captured by Somaliland’s troops in 2007 from Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland, has become the epicenter of the unionist movement for the reunification of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) with Somalia.

‘We Are Not Part of the Somaliland and Have Never Participated in the Secession Program’

Mass protests against the Somaliland administration erupted in Las Anod at the end of December 2022, calling for reunification with Somalia. These mobilizations were met with a violent crackdown by Somaliland’s security forces that killed at least 20 civilians before retreating to Goojacade.

The blue flag of Somalia was subsequently raised in several cities of the region, as the protests spread across SSC, which spans over a third of the self-declared republic, the majority of whose population has historically opposed secession from Somalia.

In this context, traditional elders of all the major clans in the SSC region – historically marginalized in Somaliland’s politics dominated by the Isak clan – held a nine-day long ‘self-determination conference’ in Las Anod.

At its conclusion on February 5, the conference declared “that we are not part of the Somaliland Administration and that we have never agreed to or participated in the secession program, although the Somaliland administration is trying to force it upon us…”

Declaring the SSC region as a part of Somalia and deeming the presence of “secessionist… Somaliland administration” in SSC as “illegal”, it elected a 33-member committee to govern the region independent of Somaliland until formal integration with the Federal Republic of Somalia.

It is this committee that has been running the local administration of the city since. The Mayor and local city officials, previously under Somaliland administration, are a part of this committee “because they were elected by the locals,” Garad Mukhtar, one of the 14 clan elders of the SSC region, told Peoples Dispatch. “They have continued work as before”, running the garbage collection, police stations, and other local administrative tasks.

The venue of the conference which elected this committee was shelled on its last day, disrupting the scheduled reading out of this ‘Las Anod Declaration’. “The attack on the city by Somaliland has never really stopped since,” he added.

“Almost every day, they have been attacking the city. The only difference has been in the intensity of these attacks. On some days, they only fire artillery from their base and other positions they have taken around the city. On other days, like the past weekend, we saw a full invasion and face-to-face fighting.”

‘Las Anod General Hospital Has Been Regularly Targeted by Artillery’

Between February 6 and March 20, at least 1,520 casualties, including 226 deaths, have been documented from Las Anod General Hospital and four other community hospitals, according to Dr. Jaama. In addition, there have been other deaths not documented in this data because it has not been possible to recover the bodies still lying between the two fighting sides, he said, adding that the actual number of deaths could be anywhere between 250 and 300.

Health workers have also been victims. Dr. Jaama reported that many have sustained injuries while rescuing and carrying the wounded to hospitals. Five medics have died. Abdisalan Said Musa, a worker with the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS), succumbed to his wounds on February 11. Mohammed Hassan, a nurse who was paralyzed after suffering a spinal injury in the shelling of the general hospital on February 7, died later that month while receiving treatment in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

Many health workers, he said, have left the hospital because work there has become too dangerous. The remaining medics are “trying to save whom they can,” but remain severely overburdened by the staff shortage. Due to the targeting of the hospital, many patients have been avoiding it altogether, fearing the possibility of getting further injured there.

“Las Anod General Hospital has been regularly targeted by artillery. This forced us to relocate the emergency ward to another safer location because the hospital’s roof is not concrete. The hospital’s oxygen plant, solar panel and a portion of the laboratory is damaged. The maternity department, pediatric department, the outpatient department – none of it is functional. Only the operation theater and (the partially damaged) laboratory are functioning here,” he added.

“When I came into the city, I thought I was in a ghost town. Schools, mosques, houses were all damaged,” Elham Garad, a UK-based Somali activist, told Peoples Dispatch. Elham arrived in Las Anod after the fighting on Sunday to volunteer. She added, “The general hospital has been absolutely mortared by Somaliland. Most of it is destroyed by shelling.”

Attacks Amid Mediation Attempts by Ethiopia

“We have taken a lot of damage,” Garad, the SSC clan leader, said. “Especially on Saturday, the damage was severe because we were not prepared for this attack. It was least expected. We were under the hope that the Ethiopian mediation was going to bear some fruits.”

Early this month, the Ethiopian mediators met representatives of the Somaliland administration in its capital Hargeisa and the leaders of the SSC in Puntland’s city of Garowe in an attempt to bring about a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

“We welcomed the mediators when they asked us to enter into a peaceful negotiation. But we explained that for peaceful negotiations to take place, there needs to be a ceasefire, which can only happen if Somaliland’s troops withdraw from our territory to their nearest city of Oog,” about 90 kilometers from Las Anod, Garad said.

Somaliland’s representatives, he alleged, lied to mediators, claiming that they had already withdrawn 30 kilometers from the city and were willing to negotiate peacefully, while in fact, they were gathering more troops and weapons in their base, only two kilometers from Las Anod.

‘POWs Allegedly Killed by Somaliland’

On Saturday, March 18, the artillery bombardment of the city, which started at around 5 am, was followed by an invasion of the army with vehicles. “Our forces met them and defended the city. We seized many of their army vehicles and also took prisoners,” he recounted.

“We are treating them with humanity. But we have learned that our troops taken by Somaliland as POWs [Prisoners of War] were first denied medical aid, and then their [military] court issued an order to kill them,” Garad claimed. The troops fighting on the side of the SSC, he explained, are former soldiers of the Somaliland army recruited from the region.

“They were on Somaliland’s payroll. When Somaliland started shelling civilians in Las Anod, they broke away from the army and joined our struggle. So they are the ones who are leading this fight. They have created their own command center and appointed their own general who has the final command. He reports on their actions and progress to us,” he said, referring to the 14 clan elders of SSC, including himself.

A delegation of clan elders, including Garad, along with members of the 33-member committee administering the city, met a UN Panel of Experts on March 13 in Garowe and submitted a report detailing the atrocities committed by the Somaliland administration.

“The report also explained the underlying issue here, which is the rejection of Somaliland’s separatism by the people of SSC,” Garad said. “The common-sense question we raised was this: Somaliland claims that Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) has been its part since its formation in 1991. If that is true, why did its troops capture Las Anod (capital of Sool) in 2007 if Sool was already a part of Somaliland since 1991? Did they capture their own city?” he asked.

“The constitution of Somaliland was voted for in its regions when it was formed in 1991. But people in the SSC region had never voted for this constitution. So this basic document giving their laws and the authority to its government was never ratified here. SSC region only had an agreement to establish peaceful relations with Somaliland, but it had never acceded to Somaliland” he said.

The region, he said, had remained independent after the civil war brought about the fall of united Somalia in 1991 until it joined Somalia’s Puntland autonomous region when it was formed in 1998.

“In 2007, when Somaliland’s forces invaded to capture Las Anod, Puntland withdrew to minimize destruction from the shelling. Somaliland has been occupying the region ever since.”