United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees staff with refugees from Sudan in Chad / credit: UNHCR/Colin Delfosse
Over 700,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan since April 15, when an armed conflict began between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The IOM spokesperson, Paul Dillon, said at a press briefing in Geneva on May 9 that the number has doubled in the prior week after IOM had previously estimated on May 3 that 334,053 had been displaced, 72 percent of them in West Darfur and South Darfur States.
In the states of South Darfur, North Darfur, and Central Darfur, clashes between the SAF and RAF began soon after they started fighting in Khartoum, killing many civilians, as Mohammed Alamaldin, a civil society activist from West Darfur’s capital Genena, told Peoples Dispatch.
However, in his own state, community members—including youth, women, and elders—had managed to secure a local agreement between SAF and RSF “to wait until the winner is determined in Khartoum.”
The locally negotiated truce lasted for a little over a week before forces clashed on April 24. Amid the ensuing insecurity, the armed conflict between West Darfur’s ethnic militias escalated, killing over 250 and wounding 300 civilians between April 27 and May 3, according to Alamaldin. On May 12 and May 13 alone, 280 were killed and over 160 were injured.
The annual anti-imperialism march in Washington, D.C., on African Liberation Day was a rallying point for various groups and organizations. On May 27, 1972, an estimated 60,000 people gathered for the first march in cities across the United States, the Caribbean and Canada / Rasasi Zachariah Dais
Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from the Black Alliance for Peace’s AFRICOM Watch Bulletin.
African Liberation Day (ALD), celebrated on May 25, has its origins in the long struggle of African people to liberate themselves from European domination and white supremacy. It is a time in which we emphasize our oneness as a people with a common past, common set of problems and a common future.
The capture of millions of African people, who were enslaved and introduced into the Western Hemisphere as property and commodities, is the backdrop upon which we commemorate ALD. The colonial-capitalist system imposes a divide between the millions of Africans kidnapped to the Americas during the Transatlantic slave trade and those left on the African continent.
ALD is a vehicle to continue to highlight the problems, challenges and the future of African people everywhere. The challenges facing Africa and African people worldwide require that we remain dedicated to the cause of Africa’s liberation. We can continue to showcase that dedication by actively participating in ALD activities held throughout the world.
U.S. Out of Africa: Voices from the Struggle
Gamal Nkrumah is a Ghanaian journalist, a Pan-Africanist and an editor of Al Ahram Weekly newspaper. He is the eldest son of the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah.
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: Could you speak about the history of African Liberation Day?
Gamal Nkrumah: May 25th is celebrated as African Liberation Day. The day marks the foundation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963. The formation of the OAU was a key moment in a centuries-long struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism.
For more than 500 years, African people have been dehumanized and degraded, with their bodies and labor commodified to enrich a ruling elite. From slave labor on cotton and sugar plantations to the extraction of gold and diamonds from the earth, the development of Europe and the Americas happened through the rapid exploitation of African people.
Through the collective experiences of deprivation, African people in the diaspora and continent developed a resistance movement. There were many milestones in this process: the formation of independent, maroon communities by former slaves and Afro-Caribbean people, the first Pan-African congress held in 1900, the fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, 1945.
Over the decades, political consciousness grew around the necessity to wage a revolutionary, Pan-African struggle against colonial and imperial rule in the 20th century. The revolutionary anti-colonial movements culminated in the mid-century with the independence of several African nations from European powers and the formation of the Organization of African Unity.
AWB: How does ALD relate to the struggles of African people today?
Gamal Nkrumah: African Liberation Day, as it came to be known, was born from the fierce fight for a new society. As Kwame Nkrumah said, “The African Revolution, while still concentrating its main effort on the destruction of imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism, aims at the same time to bring about a radical transformation of society. The choice has already been made by the workers and peasants of Africa. They have chosen liberation and unification… for the political unification of Africa and socialism are synonymous. One cannot be achieved without the other.”
Today, capitalism continues to brutally ravage and exploit Africa and its people. The West, through their militaries as well as the IMF and World Bank, have consistently imposed a neocolonial agenda on the continent, and the Organization of African Unity, now known as the African Union, is a puppet of capital and elite interests.
African people on May 25 celebrate the victories of revolutionary Pan-Africanism. African Liberation Day recalls the long history of struggles against class exploitation, colonialism and imperialism.
Revolutionary Africans know that attaining full emancipation demands a revolution from below, in the interests of people over profit. The only antidote to this colonial-capitalist system that continues to impoverish African people is an organized force in Africa ready to pursue Pan-Africanism under scientific socialism.
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis.
Thousands of demonstrators took to Mali’s streets on January 14 to demonstrate against sanctions the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed on the country after the military government’s supposed delay in the transitional map (plan) to transfer power to civilians. The military junta called for mobilizations throughout the country. Protests took place in the capital, Bamako. Other cities in the West African country also witnessed demonstrations, the most notable ones being in Timbuktu in the north and Bougouni in the south.
The former transitional president, Bah Andau, called on his compatriots to defend the homeland.
What is the general context in which these popular demonstrations took place? What are the positions of the actors in the crisis? How did international actors react, including France and Russia? And how is their position a reflection of the Malian authorities and the demonstrations?
Election Day Canceled
The beginning of the latest crisis started at the national conference—organized by the transitional government on January 2—which concluded its work in Bamako by adopting a recommendation to extend the political transition map for a period ranging from six months to five years.
The transitional government, led by President Asimie Goïta (also spelled Guetta), had approved an 18-month timetable, from the military coup carried out in August 2020 to elections that are supposed to be held this month.
Then the transitional government retracted that map, claiming the transitional phase needed to be elongated because the country had suffered from terrorist attacks that coincided with the coronavirus pandemic.
The ruling military council justified this change by saying it was unable to meet this month’s deadline, pointing to the continuing instability due to violence, in addition to the need to implement reforms, including that of the constitution. The hope was protests would not take off around the election, as had happened with previous elections.
At the huge protests in Mali, lots of protesters are waving Russian flags and holding posters that say "Mali-Russia cooperation" and "Thank you China and Russia for your support of Mali".
There are also lots of protesters carrying posters that say "Death to France and allies". pic.twitter.com/YPhaP5d0ZA
After the recommendation to elongate the transitional period was issued and submitted to ECOWAS, it decided to hold a double special session of the Conference of the Heads of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. That is where ECOWAS imposed a set of sanctions on January 9, which included:
closing the borders of ECOWAS member states with Mali,
imposing a ban on trade (not including the trade of basic materials),
imposing a ban on financial dealings with Mali,
freezing Mali’s assets in West African banks, and
summoning the ambassadors of member states to Bamako.
ECOWAS said the junta’s proposal to hold presidential elections in 2026 is “totally unacceptable” because it “means that an illegitimate transitional military government will hold the Malian people hostage over the next five years.” ECOWAS will only lift sanctions gradually, when Malian authorities present an “acceptable” timetable and when satisfactory progress is observed in its implementation.
These sanctions are more stringent than those imposed after the first coup in August 2020, which prompted observers to accuse the regional organization of unfairly applying economic and political sanctions for goals linked to foreign interests, France in particular. This is pertinent because ECOWAS did not impose the same sanctions on another West African country, Guinea, which witnessed a coup in September.
Represented in green is post-World War II French West Africa, a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. Dark gray indicates other French colonies in Africa. Black shows the French Republic as well as Algeria, another colony / credit: VoodooIsland/WIkipedia
The strong French influence within the corridors of ECOWAS affects the independence of the organization’s decisionmaking. France colonized large portions of West Africa from the 1800s onward. Although West Africa gained independence and was split into sovereign states in the 20th century, France keeps a military presence in the Sahel region of West Africa and mandates many French-speaking African countries use the French currency, the franc, for transactions.
These sanctions would seriously affect the Malian economy, which is among the poorest in the world and has been experiencing a crisis stemming from terrorism and the pandemic. This is especially because the Republic of Mali is landlocked and depends on Senegal and the Ivory Coast to engage in trade. Consequently, these sanctions constitute a tremendous political and economic pressure on the country, exacerbating its worsening problems.
The Transitional Government Reacts
The government in Mali chose two parallel courses.
First, they rejected the sanctions and escalation in a strongly worded statement and recalled its ambassadors from ECOWAS countries, closed its land and air borders with them, and stated it would reserve the right to review its participation within ECOWAS bodies. The ECOWAS stated it did not take the situation in Mali into consideration before imposing sanctions, which Mali considered illegal, and not based on any legal basis regulating the work of the group. The sanctions also contradict ECOWAS’ objectives as an African regional organization aimed at achieving solidarity, and Mali expressed regret that the regional organization had become an “instrument in the hand of forces from outside the region have hidden plans,” an unmistakable reference to France.
Despite the harsh tone, Mali declared the door for dialogue is still open to reach a solution to the aggravating crisis.
The second trend has been to mobilize the street, which is rising in anger at France and its suspicious role in Mali, as well as at ECOWAS and its sanctions that disturb Malians’ lives. Surprisingly, these demonstrations denounced the French presence, and saw the French occupation as grounds for terrorist practices. Protesters declared in their slogans their support for Russia’s directions in support of their country’s cause. During the action, the demonstrators carried posters in which they thanked Russia and its efforts in Mali.
It is no secret the agenda that appeared in the rallies and popular demonstrations is the same as the agenda carried by the Goïta government, which no longer desires the support of the French colonizer. Rather, the government has accused France on more than one occasion of being a major supporter of terrorism in Mali, and therefore saw in the Russian presence a hope and a means that could be relied upon to get the country out of the security quagmire and reduce or end the suspicious French role.
It may be true these demonstrations came out in response to the call of the military, and that they protested against the despised French colonial presence, as well as denounced the penalties of ECOWAS. But it should not be taken for granted that their emergence lends a kind of legitimacy to the double military coup, as well as offers approval and acceptance of the five-year transitional map.
It is undoubtedly a long transitional period, at the end of which may only see an extended military rule, or a false civilian rule that covers for the military rule that holds the wheel of government.
These demonstrations ignited a wave of anger against French colonialism, as the Malian and general African community demonstrated in front of the Malian embassy in Paris, in support of the Malian government’s decision to reject the ECOWAS decisions. January 22 was dedicated to organize demonstrations in front of the French embassies throughout the world.
The World Reacts
The Malian military’s agenda, which the popular demonstrations supported, met with multiple international reactions. For example, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France and the Europeans, who are militarily involved in the fight against militants in the region, want to stay in Mali without any conditions.
The French Ambassador to the United Nations, Nicolas de Rivière, affirmed Paris’ full support for ECOWAS’ sanctions because Malian authorities did not respect ECOWAS demands and obligations in terms of a speedy return to the democratic process.
French anger in this context is understandable. It saw the Malian demonstrations and a hostile military that France did not expect and did not want. France fought against such a change in power for decades by passing whoever it deemed to be at its mercy into power, while suppressing and oppressing peoples with a tyrannical, dictatorial rule that hardly allows their voices to be heard.
However, Mali expelled the French ambassador on January 31, giving them 72 hours to leave the country.
As for Russia, it demanded an understanding of the position of the Malian authorities. The Assistant Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, called during a meeting of the UN Security Council devoted to West Africa and the Sahel region, to show the necessary respect for the Republic of Mali and its efforts aimed at restoring order in the country, calling for an understanding of the difficulties they face. Without the return of the state’s authority to many regions of the country, it will not be possible to take into account the credibility of the election results, according to Russia.
The Russian position, consistent with the vision of the military government in Mali, rebuffs the Western presence that has begun to recede from Mali. It is a prelude to the expected Russian presence, whether in the form of security companies (Wagner) or direct support by Russian military forces.
These popular demonstrations may constitute the beginning of a real departure for the French colonialist and a decline in its role in West Africa. It may form the nucleus of a popular legitimacy that would constitute a lever for stable rule in the coming days.
Kribsoo Diallo is a Cairo-based Pan-Africanist researcher in political science related to African affairs. He has written for many African magazines and newspapers. Diallo has contributed to translated editions of papers and articles in Arabic and English for several research centers within the African continent.
Lake Kariba, the world’s largest dam, was created by stopping the waters of the Zambezi River, which flowed between the southern African countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe / credit: Marcus Wishart, World Bank Group
People have lived on both the Zimbabwean and Zambian sides of the Zambezi River of southern Africa for centuries. Their lives revolved around the river. They say their god, the nyami nyami, lives in its waters.
The Zambezi is Africa’s fourth-longest river, flowing from northwestern Zambia into Angola and Botswana, then forming the Zimbabwe-Zambia border, before it empties into the Indian Ocean off Mozambique to the east. For centuries, the people fished in this river, fetched drinking water from it and harvested crops twice a year on its fertile floodplains. As a result, they call themselves basilwizi, which, in their Tonga language, means the “people of the great river.”
Map of Lake Kariba and the Zambezi River’s path through southern Africa / famnews.com
Now, they are only basilwizi in name, with no water to drink or with which to grow crops. They need a government permit to fish on Lake Kariba or on the river further upstream.
“We are just here, thirsty,” BaTonga Chief Saba told Toward Freedom, as he stood in Binga District, Matabeleland North Province located in western Zimbabwe, some 800 km (497 miles) from the capital city of Harare. “Some of us drill boreholes, but even if they drill up to 100 meters (109 yards), they frequently hit dry holes. Where they are lucky to get [water], it will be salty due to the abundance of coal in this area. Come the dry season, the boreholes dry up. Even the hot springs we have yield salty water, as well.”
One of 17 BaTonga chiefs in the Binga District, Chief Saba’s parents were among the approximately 23,000 BaTonga villagers displaced from the southern bank of the Zambezi between 1957 and 1962. That made way for the construction of Lake Kariba, the world’s biggest dam constructed by humans. In Zambia, 34,000 people of the BaTonga tribe were removed, too. The 23,000 BaTonga people were scattered in four arid districts in Zimbabwe: Binga, Gokwe North, Hwange and Nyami Nyami. Their population has grown to about 300,000, while displaced in Zambia number 1.3 million.
‘Fish Is Our Gold’
The dam generates electricity that lights up the country. It is home to tourism facilities, as well as to the annual tiger-fishing contest that attracts tourists from southern Africa and beyond. However, the evictees are ranked among the country’s poorest, and trace their poverty to their removal from the fertile shores of the river and to their resettlement in arid places.
“We are people of the great river, so we demand access to it,” Chief Saba said. “Fish is our gold, so we want our people to have special clearance to fish on the lake as their fathers, grandfathers and ancestors used to do.”
“We are people of the great river, so we demand access to it,” said Chief Saba, one of 17 BaTonga chiefs / credit: The Chronicle
Saba added his people want the government and its development partners to build irrigation to help alleviate poverty.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project, a local non-governmental organization (NGO), citing the 2017 Poverty Report by the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency, said Binga was the second highest impoverished district at between 38.4 percent and 51.2 percent. About 50.1 percent of households were classified as “extremely poor.” Food insecurity, as well as lack of access to health, educational and transport services, are rife.
The government is building a $48 million, 42-kilometer (26-mile) pipeline from Deka on the Zambezi River to transport water to cool a 1,500-megawatt, coal-fired power plant at Hwange.
“The pipeline is too far from us,” Chief Saba said. “If we were closer, perhaps we stood a chance of getting some water at communal water points that authorities always set up along such pieces of infrastructure to enable communities to benefit from exploitation of local resources. Because we don’t have reliable water sources, the only alternative is the Zambezi.”
A sculpture of the nyami nyami god overlooking Lake Kariba / credit: Twitter / Destination_Zim
Natural Resources Under Foot
Binga is situated in a coal-rich area. The southern African nation’s biggest coal mine, Hwange Colliery Company Limited, and about a dozen smaller ones, populate Hwange District, Binga’s southwestern neighbor.
The district is blessed with a number of natural resources, such as coal, diamond, gold, lithium, tantalite, timber, wildlife and the Zambezi River. However, the only resources being extracted are coal, timber, wildlife and fish.
“…If one is found fishing illegally, he or she pays a fine worth [sic] $1,500 … failure to do that, they face prosecution.”
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has fixed the fishing permit for people using commercial motorized boats at $1,000 yearly and $300 for those using canoes.
About 57 percent of the land that now sits at the bottom of the lake was arable and owned by the BaTonga, says a Zimbabwean NGO that champions BaTonga rights, Basilwizi Trust, quoting a World Commission on Dams report on Lake Kariba. The document adds that the BaTonga were “‘treated like animals or things rounded up and packed in lorries’ to be moved to their new destination … The racist attitude of the time did not consider the resettlement of Africans as a problem.”
Basilwizi Trust adds:
“The dam’s poor record of resettlement left a huge black mark on the project, which has never been adequately addressed by the parties responsible for building the dam. The colonial and post-independence governments and the major funders and beneficiaries of the dam continue to neglect the relocated people on the Zimbabwean side of the reservoir.”
The trust has demanded reparations in the form of sustainable development programs/projects for the BaTonga and Korekore people in Nyami Nyami District. (While nyami nyami is the name of the BaTonga people’s god, a Zimbabwean district where other BaTonga were forced to move to is called Nyami Nyami. In that district, the BaTonga are called the Korekore people, while in Binga district they are called BaTonga.) The Zambian government compensated each displaced person with $270, but the BaTonga of Zimbabwe were not paid.
A recent paper, “Local knowledge and practices among Tonga people in Zambia and Zimbabwe: A review,” states that prior to the construction of Lake Kariba, the community mainly practiced flood retreat cultivation in their incelela, small plots of land along the riverbank. The mineral-rich soils combined with their system allowed the population to cover their basic needs and harvest twice a year. Now, poverty is widespread among the people.
“Although the dam was built to provide electricity in Zambia and Zimbabwe, up to today, Tonga people have scarce access to electricity,” it adds.
Human-animal conflict is rife in areas where the BaTonga people were resettled to dam the Zambezi River / credit: Basilwizi Trust
Bringing Water to the People
At Dopota Village in Chief Nelukoba’s area in Hwange District, the grievances are the same as those in Binga.
“We have a solar powered borehole in the village, but it is often without water,” Evans Shoko, head of Dopota Village, told Toward Freedom. “We rely on another one that was drilled in 1968 to serve Dopota Primary School, but it is also unreliable due to the general dryness in the area.”
One garden serves 22 out of 36 households in the village. The garden provides just enough vegetables to prepare relish and small parcels to sell to raise just enough money for isigayo. In the local Ndebele language, isigayo is the payment for milling maize, the country’s staple food.
“It is not transformative at all,” Shoko said, “so what the people want is water from the Zambezi for drinking and to support irrigation schemes.”
Shoko’s village is about 5 km (3.1 miles) away from the Deka-Hwange pipeline, so he hoped authorities would set up a point from which villagers could draw water.
The village is less than 6 miles from Hwange National Park. Shoko said animals, especially elephants, stray out of the park to look for food and water in the village, resulting in damaged crops.
“Sometimes they end up killing people.”
Matabeleland North Provincial Minister Richard Moyo said the government is aware of the challenges the BaTonga face.
“We are drilling boreholes in the district and pushing ahead with the Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme, which will see up to 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) being put under irrigation,” he told Toward Freedom. The Bulawayo Kraal is about 10 km (6.2 miles) south of the Zambezi River in Binga District.
Moyo said, as of October, the province had drilled about three boreholes out of 17, which are earmarked for chiefs’ homesteads. Last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa allocated a fishing rig to each of the district’s 17 chiefs, Moyo added. Through this program, the people are able to fish, obtain relish and sell surpluses. Plus, jobs operating the rigs have been created. Moyo said some people in the district would benefit from the Gwayi-Shangani Dam project because of nutritional gardens and irrigation schemes.
“But the issue is not just about water,” Moyo said. “We are building roads, the Binga airstrip is now operational after the government rehabilitated it, so tourism is picking up. Binga Polytechnic [College] enrolled its first intake [of students] last year… So, yes, there are challenges, but we are not leaving Binga behind.”
Thulani Mpofu is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist based in Harare, the capital. He has an interest in development issues. Some of his work has appeared in Canada-headquartered Natural Gas World, Thailand-based Tobacco Asia and South Africa’s Farmers Weekly.
