Toward Freedom board member Jacqueline Luqman (left) and Kamau Franklin spoke about their work as media makers for Radio Sputnik and Black Power Media, respectively, on a panel held December 11 in Washington, D.C., as part of the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum, organized to counter the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit / credit: Julie Varughese
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Hundreds of people of African descent convened this past weekend at two events that aimed to be the people’s opposition to the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which is taking place this week amid a military buildup to enforce the summit’s security in Washington, D.C.
The summit is described as a four-day event (Dec. 12-15) that is designed to foster economic opportunities and reinforce the United States’ alleged commitment to human rights and democracy. It is the first summit of its kind since 2014.
“I look forward to working with African governments, civil society, diaspora communities across the United States, and the private sector to continue strengthening our shared vision for the future of U.S.-Africa relations,” U.S. President Joe Biden is quoted as saying on the summit’s website.
Activists from across the United States joined together for the African Peoples’ Summit held December 11 in Washington, D.C. / credit: Julie Varughese
However, the summit comes amid dim relations between the United States and many African countries, some of which have decried Western financial and arms support for the war in Ukraine. Western sanctions against Russia have caused price spikes in wheat, with 345 million people in the world expected to experience “acute food insecurity.” Several African countries have relied on Russia and Ukraine for large portions of their wheat imports. However, U.S. officials have been pilloried, too, for saying African countries that continue to trade with Russia would face consequences.
Speakers at both counter events said the Biden summit is really a U.S. attempt to maintain control over the African continent.
Netfa Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee, spoke December 10, at the Global Pan-African Peoples Intervention on the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The Global Pan-African Congress organized the event at Howard University’s School of Social Work in Washington, D.C. Freeman read aloud a December 9 statement the Black Alliance for Peace issued.
“The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the ‘U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit,'” the organization states, “as nothing more than collusion between neo-colonial powers and U.S. attempts to advance and maintain dominance over the continent.”
The Biden administration invited leaders of 49 African countries. The exceptions were Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Guinea, Mali, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and Somaliland. An unnamed “senior administration official” was quoted in a transcript of a December 8 background press call as citing the African Union suspending most of these countries for why they were not invited. (A background press call is meant to provide off-the-record information to invited press, hence officials went nameless in the transcript. Toward Freedom was not invited.)
However, long-time colonizer and U.S. ally, France, recently announced the removal of military troops in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. This came after coups and instability in these countries. Mali also recently banned French NGOs. Guinea experienced a coup in 2021 that appeared to be welcomed by its population. Meanwhile, the United States does not recognize Western Sahara, or the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, as a sovereign state.
While the officials mentioned various civilian-led entities the United States has deployed to cultivate leadership on the continent, none of them spoke about the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). That is one of 11 combat and technical military structures the United States has deployed throughout the world to ensure control of shipping lanes and resources. AFRICOM’s press officer has denied commerce is its only interest, while acknowledging it is one of AFRICOM’s reasons for being. Meanwhile, its 2022 “posture statement” to the U.S. Congress states, “Africa sits astride six strategic chokepoints and sea lines of communication, enables a third of the world’s shipping, and holds vast mineral resources. When access through these strategic chokepoints is blocked, global markets suffer.”
Speakers at the weekend’s events remarked on U.S. intentions.
“The U.S. government and their scribes are misguiding the public on what the roles of the U.S. government, NATO, AFRICOM and neoliberal leaders are in maintaining the state of unrest and violence in countries so they can steal their resources,” said Jacqueline Luqman, a Toward Freedom board member, who spoke as co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” on a panel about the role of the media.
“The US gov. & their scribes are misguiding the public on what the roles of the US gov., NATO, AFRICOM & neoliberal leaders are in maintaining the state of unrest & violence in countries so they can steal their resources,” @luqmannation1@Blacks4Peace#apf2022. pic.twitter.com/WQ5Xti8eMV
That panel was one of three held during the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The December 11 event was organized at the Eritrean Civic and Cultural Center in northeast Washington, D.C. Moderators included Eritrean activist Yolian Ogbu and Hermela Aregawi, an independent journalist of Ethiopian descent who has reported on the Horn of Africa.
Speakers and moderators of the three panels that took place December 11 at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum in Washington, D.C. / credit: Abena Disroe-Morris
The five-hour event featured three panels of prominent speakers like Eritrean journalist and activist Elias Amare; and Paul Sankara, brother of assassinated Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara; among many others.
Aregawi announced to the audience of a couple of hundred mostly African-descended people that the event was so successful, the forum may take place quarterly to create more opportunities for African anti-imperialist activists to come together. The event was pulled together in just three weeks’ time, she said.
To continue with the momentum in opposition to the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, BAP has organized a week of actions, December 13-16, to raise awareness about the nature of the U.S. role in Africa.
“BAP calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures,” the organization’s statement reads. “Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.”
African Stream produced this video report: “The United States Africa Command—or AFRICOM—was founded in 2007. But it’s failed to bring peace and security. Major failures in Somalia, Libya and elsewhere have left many Africans suspecting it exists only to serve U.S. interests.”
Demonstrators in Berlin, Germany, gathered on August 8 to protest Egypt’s attempts to greenwash crimes with the upcoming COP27 conference / credit: Twitter / FreedomForAlaa
The global climate meeting called COP27 (the 27th Conference of Parties) will be held November 6-18 in the remote Egyptian desert resort of Sharm el Sheikh. Given the repressive nature of the Egyptian government, this gathering will likely be different from others, where there have been large, raucous protests led by civil society groups.
So, as tens of thousands of delegates—from world leaders to climate activists and journalists—descend on Sharm el Sheikh from all over the world, U.S.-based activist Medea Benjamin asked Egyptian journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous to give his thoughts about the state of Egypt today, including the situation of political prisoners, and how he expects the Egyptian government will act with the eyes of the world upon it.
For those who don’t know or have forgotten, can you give us a quick overview of the nature of the present government in Egypt today?
The 2011 revolution against Hosni Mubarak, an uprising that was part of what has been called the Arab Spring, was very inspiring and had reverberations around the world, from the Occupy Movement in the United States to the Indignados in Spain. But that revolution was crushed in a very brutal way in 2013 by the military, led by General Abdel Fattah al Sisi–who later became president.
Right now, Egypt is ruled by a very tight and closed clique of military and intelligence officers, a circle that is completely opaque. Its decision-making process does not allow for any political participation and it does not brook any kind of dissent or opposition. It seems that the government’s answer to any problems with its citizens is to put them in prison.
There are literally tens of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt right now. We don’t know the exact number because there are no official statistics and this forces lawyers and the very harassed human rights groups to try to painstakingly tabulate the thousands of people who are trapped behind bars.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen Egypt build several new prisons. Just last year Sisi oversaw the opening of the Wadi al-Natrun prison complex. It’s not called a prison complex, it’s called a “rehabilitation center.” This is one of seven or eight new prisons that Sisi himself has dubbed “American-style prisons.”
These prison complexes include within them the courts and judicial buildings, so it makes a conveyor belt from the courthouse to the prison more efficient.
What is the status of this massive group of political prisoners?
The majority of political prisoners in Egypt are held in what is called “pre-trial detention.” Under Egypt’s penal code, you can be held in prison for two years without ever being convicted of a crime. Nearly everyone held in pre-trial detention faces two identical charges: one is spreading false information and the other is belonging to a terrorist organization or an outlawed organization.
The prison conditions are very dire. If you get sick, you are in big trouble. There have been a lot of deaths from medical negligence, with prisoners dying in custody. Torture and other forms of abuse by security forces is widespread.
We’ve also seen the number of death sentences and executions skyrocket. Under the former President Mubarak, in his final decade in office, there was a de facto moratorium on executions. There were death sentences handed down but people were not being put to death. Now Egypt ranks third in the world in the number of executions.
What about other freedoms, such as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press?
Basically, the regime sees its citizens as a nuisance or a threat. All forms of protest or public assembly are banned.
Alleged violations carry very stiff prison sentences. We’ve seen mass arrests sweeps happen whenever there’s any kind of public demonstration and we’ve also seen an unprecedented crackdown on civil society, with human rights organizations and economic justice organizations being forced to scale back their operations or basically operate underground.The people who work for them are subject to intimidation and harassment and travel bans and arrests.
We’ve also seen a massive crackdown on press freedom, a nearly complete takeover of the media landscape. Under Mubarak’s government, there was at least some opposition press, including some opposition newspapers and TV stations. But now the government very tightly controls the press through censorship and also through acquisition. The General Intelligence Services, which is the intelligence apparatus of the military, has become the largest media owner of the country. They own newspapers and TV channels. Independent media, such as the one I work for called Mada Masr, operate on the margins in a very, very hostile environment.
Egypt is the third largest jailer of journalists in the world and imprisons more journalists on charges of spreading false news than any other country in the world.
Can you talk about the case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who is probably Egypt’s most famous political prisoner?
Alaa has been behind bars for much of the last decade. He is in prison ostensibly for the crime of “spreading false news,” but he is really in prison for these ideas, for being an icon and a symbol of the 2011 revolution. For the regime, imprisoning him was a way to set an example for everyone else. That’s why there has been so much campaigning to get him out.
He has been in prison under very, very difficult conditions. For two years he wasn’t allowed out of his cell and didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on. He was completely deprived of everything, including books or reading materials of any kind. For the first time, he started expressing suicidal thoughts.
But on April 2 he decided to go on a hunger strike as an act of resistance against his imprisonment. He has been on a hunger strike for seven months now. He started with just water and salt, which is a kind of hunger strike that Egyptians learned from Palestinians. Then in May, he decided to go on a Gandhi-style strike and ingest 100 calories a day–which is a spoonful of honey in some tea. An average adult needs 2,000 calories a day, so it’s very meager.
But he just sent a letter to his family saying that he was going back to a full hunger strike and on November 6, on the eve of the COP meeting, he’s going to stop drinking water. This is extremely serious because the body cannot last without water for more than a few days.
So he is calling on all of us on the outside to organize, because either he will die in prison or he will be released. What he is doing is incredibly brave. He is using his body, the only thing he has agency over, to organize and to push us on the outside to do more.
How do these repressed civil society leaders view the fact that Egypt is playing host to COP27?
It was very disheartening for a lot of people in Egypt who work for human rights and justice and democracy when Egypt was granted the right to host the conference. But Egyptian civil society has not called on the international community to boycott the COP meeting; they have called for the plight of political prisoners and the lack of human rights to be linked to the climate discussions and not ignored.
They want a spotlight to be placed on the thousands of political prisoners like Alaa, like Abdel Moneim Aboul Foitouh, a former presidential candidate, like Mohamed Oxygen, a blogger, like Marwa Arafa, who is an activist from Alexandria.
Unfortunately, hosting this meeting has given the government a great opportunity to remake its image. It has allowed the government to try to position itself as the voice for the Global South and the negotiator trying to unlock billions of dollars a year in climate financing from the Global North.
Of course the issue of climate reparations to the Global South is very important. It needs to be discussed and taken seriously. But how can you give climate reparations to a country like Egypt when you know the money will mostly be spent on bolstering this repressive, polluting state? As Naomi Klein said in her great article Greenwashing a Police State, the summit is going beyond greenwashing a polluting state to greenwashing a police state.
So what do you think we can expect to see in Sharm el Sheikh? Will the usual protests that happen at every COP, both inside and outside the official halls, be allowed?
I think what we are going to see in Sharm el Sheikh is a carefully managed theater. We all know the problems with the UN Climate Summits. There are a lot of negotiations and climate diplomacy, but rarely do they amount to anything concrete and binding. But they do serve as an important place for networking and convergence for different groups in the climate justice movement, an opportunity for them to come together to organize. It has also been a time for these groups to show their opposition to the inaction by those in power, with creative, vigorous protests both inside and outside the conference.
This will not be the case this year. Sharm el Sheikh is a resort in Sinai that literally has a wall around it. It can and will be very tightly controlled. From what we understand, there is a special space that has been designated for protests that has been built out near a highway, far away from the conference center and any signs of life. So how effective will it be to hold protests there?
This is why people like Greta Thunberg are not going. Many activists have problems with the structure of the COP itself but it is even worse in Egypt where the ability to use it as a convergence space for dissent will be effectively shut down.
But more importantly, the members of Egyptian civil society, including the allies and environmental groups that are critical of the government, will not be allowed to attend. In a departure from UN rules, those groups that manage to participate will have been vetted and approved by the government and will have to be very careful about how they operate. Other Egyptians who should be there are unfortunately in prison or are subject to various forms of repression and harassment.
Should foreigners also worry about the Egyptian government surveilling them?
The entire conference will be very highly surveilled. The government created this app that you can download to use as a guide for the conference. But to do that, you have to put in your full name, phone number, email address, passport number and nationality, and you have to enable location tracking. Amnesty International technology specialists have reviewed the app and flagged all these concerns about surveillance and how the app can use the camera and microphone and location data and bluetooth.
What environmental issues related to Egypt will the government allow to be discussed, and what will be off limits?
Environmental issues that will be allowed are issues such as trash collection, recycling, renewable energy and climate finance, which is a big issue for Egypt and for the Global South.
Environmental issues that implicate the government and military will not be tolerated. Take the issue of coal–something the environmental community is very critical of. That will be off limits because coal imports, much of it coming from the United States, have risen over the past several years, driven by the strong demand from the cement sector. Egypt’s largest importer of coal is also the largest cement producer, and that’s the El-Arish Cement Company that was built in 2016 by none other than the Egyptian military.
We’ve seen massive amounts of cement poured into Egypt’s natural environment over the past several years. The government has built nearly 1,000 bridges and tunnels, destroying acres and acres of green space and cutting down thousands of trees. They have gone on a crazy construction spree, building a slew of new neighborhoods and cities, including a new administrative capital in the desert just outside of Cairo. But no criticism of these projects has been or will be tolerated.
Then there is dirty energy production. Egypt, Africa’s second largest gas producer, is scaling up its oil and gas production and exports, which will mean further profits for the military and intelligence sectors involved in this. These projects that are harmful to the environment but profitable for the military will be off the agenda.
The Egyptian military is entrenched in every part of the Egyptian state. Military owned enterprises produce everything from fertilizers to baby food to cement. They operate hotels; they are the largest owner of land in Egypt. So any kind of industrial pollution or environmental harm from areas such as construction, tourism, development and agribusiness will not be tolerated at COP.
We have heard that the crackdown on Egyptians in anticipation of this global gathering has already begun. Is that true?
Yes, we’ve already seen an intensified crackdown and a massive arrest sweep in the run-up to the climate summit. There are arbitrary stop and searches, and random security checkpoints. They open your Facebook and WhatsApp, and they look through it. If they find content that they find problematic, they arrest you.
Hundreds of people have been arrested, by some counts 500 to 600. They have been arrested from their homes, off the streets, from their workplaces.
And these searches and arrests are not restricted just to Egyptians. The other day there was an Indian climate activist, Ajit Rajagopal, was arrested shortly after setting off on an eight-day walk from Cairo to Sharm el Sheikh as part of a global campaign to raise awareness about the climate crisis.
He was detained in Cairo, questioned for hours and held overnight. He called an Egyptian lawyer friend, who came to the police station to help him. They detained the lawyer as well, and held him overnight.
There have been calls for protests on November 11, or 11/11. Do you think people in Egypt will come out on the streets?
It is unclear where these protest calls started but I think it was started by people outside Egypt. I would be surprised if people come out on the streets given the level of repression we’ve been seeing these days but you never know.
The security apparatus was very surprised in September 2019 when a former military contractor turned whistleblower exposed videos showing army corruption. These videos went viral. The whistleblower called for protests but he was outside Egypt in self-imposed exile in Spain.
There were some protests, not very big but significant. And what was the government response? Massive arrests, the most massive sweep since Sisi came to power with over 4,000 people detained. They arrested all kinds of people–everyone who had been arrested before and a lot of other people. With that kind of repression, it’s hard to say if mobilizing people to go to the streets is the right thing to do.
The government is also particularly paranoid because the economic situation is so bad. The Egyptian currency has lost 30 percent of its value since the beginning of the year, precipitated by a variety of factors, including the war in Ukraine, since Egypt was getting so much of its wheat from Ukraine. Inflation is out of control. People are getting poorer and poorer. So that, combined with these calls for protests, have prompted the preemptive crackdown.
So I don’t know if people will defy the government and go out into the streets. But I gave up trying to predict anything in Egypt a long time ago. You just never know what is going to happen.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin participate in a tete-a-tete during a U.S.-Russia Summit on June 16 at the Villa La Grange in Geneva / credit: Official White House photo by Adam Schultz/Flickr
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis.
Chances for a proxy war between Washington and Moscow spiked after the United States refused to provide written guarantees that NATO would neither expand into nor deploy forces to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states that are not members of the U.S.-led alliance.
However, a reading of the situation indicates Ukraine would be devastated by a NATO-Russia war, which Moscow has been preparing for as diplomatic talks go nowhere. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden’s latest remarks indicate the United States may be inviting Russia to make a move into Ukraine.
Crossing the ‘Red Line’
In early January, Russian and U.S. representatives held talks over Ukraine, but apparently did not find a common ground. Russian demands were clear: No NATO in Ukraine, and no Ukraine in NATO.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia would have no say over who should be allowed to join the bloc. And that was the outcome of the U.S.-Russia negotiations. No compromise has been reached.
Given that it was Russia that initially issued an “ultimatum” to its Western partners, it was not surprising that—after the failure of their recent summits—Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on January 13 that “there is no need for a new round of talks in the near future.” However, his boss, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, reportedly agreed to meet with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the two diplomats are expected to hold another round of talks on January 21. Such Russian hesitance gives Washington the upper hand over the Kremlin, and the United States and its allies can simply continue demonstrating they do not take Russian demands, “ultimatums” and “red lines” too seriously.
🇬🇧 передала #ЗСУ легкі протитанкові засоби Це зміцнюватиме 🛡 спроможності України, а надані засоби будуть використані виключно з оборонною метою pic.twitter.com/ipGpqPfInG
Although Russian officials repeated on several occasions that NATO presence in Ukraine is one of the Kremlin’s “red lines,” NATO member United Kingdom continues to supply weapons to the former Soviet republic. Besides that, reports suggest Canadian special forces have been deployed to Ukraine to deter alleged Russian aggression. Plus, Kiev already has purchased and used U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as Turkey-produced Bayraktar drones. All that, however, does not mean NATO will go to war with Russia over Ukraine. But such actions clearly demonstrate the West still has significant leverage over the Russian Federation.
Map of NATO states in Europe highlighted in light green / credit: NATO
Russia Prepares for Conflict
Moscow, for its part, has been flexing its military muscle. Russia and its only European ally, Belarus, announced joint drills will be held in February, aimed against Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian military build-up. According to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Ukraine continues concentrating its radical nationalists from the National Guard next to the Belarusian border, while more than 30,000 military personnel as well as equipment and weapons are concentrated in neighboring Poland and the Baltic states. As the Russian defense ministry announced, the joint exercises will be held at five training grounds, most of them located in the central and eastern parts of Belarus, not in the south close to the Ukrainian border. Still, the United States has inferred Russia and Belarus could use military drills to invade Ukraine, capture the country’s capital, Kiev, and overthrow the government. How likely is such a scenario?
On January 14, Ukraine was hit with a cyber attack that took down the websites of several government departments including the ministries of foreign affairs and education. The authorities have accused both Russia and Belarus of orchestrating the attack. It is worth remembering that in 2008, three weeks before Russia invaded Georgia to protect its proxies in South Ossetia following Georgia’s offensive against the breakaway region, the Caucasus nation started facing cyber attacks alleged deployed by Russia.
Thus, it is entirely possible that what Ukrainian websites experienced is a message that the eastern European country could experience the same fate if it decides to launch a large-scale offensive against Russia-backed self-proclaimed regions that broke away from Ukraine—the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic in the Donbass region.
However, unless there is a huge provocation against Russian and Belarusian forces, or even against the Donbass republics, Moscow is unlikely to engage in a military campaign against Kiev. Ever since the Donbass conflict erupted in 2014, Russia has been trying to avoid a direct military confrontation against Ukraine at any cost. Back then, the Ukrainian army was on the brink of collapse, and Russia had an opportunity to seize not just Crimea, but all Russian-speaking regions in southeast Ukraine. It remains unclear why the Kremlin would launch an invasion now, when Ukrainian Armed Forces are well equipped and motivated to fight.
Spheres of Influence
It is worth remembering, however, that many in Russia, as well as in southeast Ukraine, hoped in 2014 that the Kremlin would establish a new state dubbed Novorossiya—an entity whose borders would have spanned from the city of Kharkov in the east to the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea. However, in 2015 Alexander Borodai, who served as the first prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and is now a member of the Russian Parliament, said Novorossiya was a “false start.” Has now the time come for a de facto division of Ukraine?
“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do,” Biden told reporters during a White House news conference marking his first year in office.
Could it be that the U.S. President de facto gave the green light to Putin for a “minor incursion” into the eastern European country? Does that mean Washington will turn a blind eye if Russia intervenes in the Donbass to protect the self-proclaimed republics in case of a Ukrainian military offensive?
Western officials, however, keep threatening Russia that it will pay a “high price” if it decides to invade Ukraine. But what if the Kremlin’s calculation shows the price is acceptable? From a purely military perspective, the longer Russia waits, the higher price it will have to pay. Ukraine will have more sophisticated weapons, which means that Russia’s potential invasion will not go as smoothly as some might hope. Even if Russian troops eventually capture Kiev and other Ukrainian regions, that does not mean all troubles for the Kremlin will be over. The West is expected to impose severe sanctions on the Russian Federation, and Moscow will have to find ways to fund what most Ukrainians would call a “occupation apparatus” if Russia happened to occupy more than just the Donbass region, where the majority ethnically Russian population has welcomed Russian backup. But Moscow would also need to find ways to feed millions of people.
The problem, however, is tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine have reached such a high level that a proxy war—be it on Ukrainian territory or elsewhere—is unlikely to be prevented. It can be postponed, though. The United States is evidently trying to buy time to supply more weapons to Ukraine, which the West helped manufacture a coup inside of in 2014 by funding neo-Nazis, who now make up a portion of Ukraine’s military. Russia could respond by deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba and Venezuela—countries Washington sees as part of its sphere of influence, or as it calls the Western Hemisphere, its “backyard.” At the same time, the United States does not accept Russia can have its own sphere of influence. That means Moscow—if it aims to be accepted as a serious actor in the international arena—will have to fight for the right to have its own geopolitical orbit.
Finally, Ukraine—as the weakest link in the geopolitical game played by the United States and Russia—is expected to pay the heaviest price, and will be treated like collateral damage in a new cold war.
Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Enquire.
