Global Turmoil
Capitalist crisis, a socialist alternative
Section One: World Relations
Chapter five: The suffering of Africa
No continent has suffered more than Africa from the unequal relationship between the advanced and the underdeveloped world. The debt trap and the incapacity of capitalism to develop the colossal natural potential of the continent are the key issues. Measured in dollars, the output of Africa south of the Sahara is less than that of Switzerland! In the words of the Wall Street Journal: "Who cares if Africa has fallen off the edge of the global marketplace? With the end of the Cold War it has lost its strategic significance… it is too poor to matter… Africans do not have the money to buy Coca-Cola. They lack the education and the use of Windows. The continent cannot pay its debts… Save for the beacon at its southern tip, it is a place best left to mercenaries and missionaries."
The statistics are horrifying and are getting worse. Annual income per head stands at less than $500. In the advanced industrial rich countries of Europe, US and Japan, the average is nearly $26,000. Mortality rate for children under five is 147 per 1,000. In the advanced industrial countries the comparable figure is 7. Of the 32 low income countries officially classified as severely indebted, 25 lie in sub-Saharan Africa. Outstanding debt of these countries is $140bn, representing more than three-quarters of their annual income. They spend more than four times as much on debt servicing than health. It is in Africa that diseases like tuberculosis, yaws and yellow fever are widespread, mainly as a result of the poverty that exists.
Despite the acres of newsprint bewailing the ‘inadequacies’ of Africa to ‘help itself’ it is imperialism and the weak native bourgeoisie of Africa who are responsible for the growing disease, the great army of the poor, and the terrible wars which have ravaged the continent. Seven countries are still experiencing war or ‘destabilisation’: Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. The almost million who died in Rwanda’s genocide dwarfs the numbers who were massacred in the ethnic conflict in Bosnia. It was imperialism that invaded, plundered the continent, carved out spheres of influence, and eventually countries, which cut across the living bodies of tribes and peoples. They therefore left a legacy, a time-bomb for future tribal and ethnic conflict which, with the worsening of the economic situation, has now exploded throughout the continent.
Even bourgeois commentators note that the mind-numbing poverty in Sierra Leone has been almost incidental while the ‘ethical foreign policy’ of the Blair government has been subject to endless discussion in the British media. Yet in Sierra Leone, which is a former British colony, economic and social chaos has been endemic for a long time. At $200, its per capita income is now less than half the shameful average for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. Life expectancy is less than 40 years.
But it is not just imperialism but the African bourgeoisie who have completely failed the 700 million people throughout the continent. The plight of Zambia demonstrates this clearly. It was one of the more favourably situated countries in southern Africa. It was a very ‘prosperous’ (for the whites) colony of British imperialism. Its wealth was founded on the mining and sale of ‘red gold’, copper. The development of a black proletariat led, in turn, to the foundation and consolidation of a relatively strong trade union movement. After winning independence from Britain in 1964, and ruled by Kaunda, the Zambian bourgeoisie failed to completely break the stranglehold of imperialism.On the contrary, it became even more dependent on copper which, since the late 1970s, fell in price. In the 1990s it has hit catastrophic levels because of the growing use of fibre optic cables, and other factors, where copper is not needed.
The general drop in commodity prices, dealt with earlier, has also had a decisive effect. Now, freshly mined copper is being illegally traded within Zambia at prices lower than European rag-and-bone men get for scrap metal. This illegal trading is "arguably now the most dynamic economic sector in this nation of ten million people" (The Guardian, Britain, 14 May 1998). With the plunge in the price of copper have gone the jobs and living standards of the masses. This has been enormously aggravated by the coming to power of the government of Frederick Chiluba, who once headed the Zambian trade union movement.
Under the whip of international capital, Chiluba has enthusiastically embraced the ‘market’ in place of Kaunda’s ‘socialism’. Kaunda, like many of the bourgeois regimes in the underdeveloped world, under the pressure of the situation nationalised sections of industry, such as copper, but maintained the general framework of capitalism. Chiluba, under the whip of international capital, has engaged in a huge privatisation programme since he came to power in 1991. In fact, the World Bank made the sale of Zambian Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) a precondition for loans. Privatisation is synonymous with redundancy. As workers lose their jobs, poverty is increased. Now 98% of the population live on less than $2 a day. Moreover, Zambia is crippled by its debt burden - now $7bn - and by the ‘structural adjustment targets’ of the World Bank. Chiluba’s programme involves selling off state enterprises to the highest imperialist bidders; it represents a return back to the open imperialist control of the past. In the process, Chiluba and his coterie of ministers are skimming off the best privatisations for themselves. Even workers with jobs will lose the free schools and hospitals that have existed up to now. Kaunda’s ‘state capitalism’ was a failure, but the return to the market has been an absolute disaster. The idea of socialism, which in general has been off the agenda through the recent travails of the workers and peasants of Africa, typified by Zambia, will come back in the next period.
Africa’s feeble ruling classes
The weak African bourgeoisie has failed and is more dependent on imperialism than ever. Between 1985 and 1995 the public external debt climbed from $90bn to more than $200bn. Yet the myth of an African renaissance through the market and under the benediction of imperialism has been built up by the recent visits of Clinton and French President Chirac to Africa. These visits have been conditioned by a growing realisation by the international strategists of capital that the complete neglect of Africa could have ‘unforeseen consequences’ for them in the future.
The stark contrast between sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia has been highlighted in the past period. Average per capita income in Africa halved, in relative terms, from 14% of the industrial countries’ level in 1966 to 7% in 1995. On the other hand, before the recent crisis, Asia’s newly industrialised economies increased per capita income from 18% to 66% of industrial countries’ level. Even if the miserly 1% growth per year in per capita incomes in sub-Saharan Africa continued they would be no higher in 2006 than in 1982, and 5% lower than in 1974. Even in the most favourable circumstances of growth, the coming decade would see Africa only recover the ground lost over the last 20 years. Moreover, in recent years sub-Saharan Africa’s share of global foreign direct investment has been very small and declining - down to 3.3% of all developing country inflows in the mid-1990s from 6% in the latter half of the 1980s. At the same time, the lion’s share of investment goes to a tiny number of African countries: Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. This is largely for the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources, principally in mining and oil. Mass revolt, which is inevitable on the basis of these conditions, will mean a rejection of capitalism and a searching for the alternative, socialism.
Clinton’s visit was a ‘wake-up call’ to the world bourgeoisie. At the same time, its purpose was to open up Africa even more to the insatiable search for profits and markets of the imperialist firms of the West. Clinton took with him the largest entourage of US businessmen to have ever visited Africa. He noted that US trade with the region was already 20% bigger than with the countries of the former Soviet Union and declared, "I hope they’re listening back home. The average annual return on investment in Africa is 30%. That’s a good deal, folks." We would clearly condemn such super exploitation of the masses of the underdeveloped world and the imposition of neo-liberal policies as a precondition for investment
Remorseless pressure is being exerted on all the countries of Africa to dismantle state industries and to open up ‘markets’. This usually means the dismantling of the very limited protective measures these countries have had. Even South Africa, the strongest economy in Africa, has been subjected to relentless pressure to dismantle ‘inefficient restrictions’ and sell off state industries. The collapse of the rand and the flight of capital from South Africa, which are problems that other ‘emerging markets’ have experienced, have been used to step up the pressure of the South African and world bourgeoisie for further privatisations. The head of the Anglo-American conglomerate put the position bluntly: "There is no other choice in today’s internationalising and deregulating world but to commit to the bold implementation of this policy." The spokesperson denounced the "slow pace of privatisation" and also "the government’s proposed labour legislation".
Pressure of the masses - South Africa, Zimbabwe…
However, against a background of an official 30% unemployment (in reality, much higher than this), the pro-capitalist ANC government's programme has completely failed. It has envisaged that the real output growth would be 6%, yet last year it reached only 1.7%. With the population expanding at 2% a year, per capita income is falling. The ANC government has replaced its reformist Reconstruction and Development Programme (which was supposed to provide the masses with housing, jobs and education) with the neo-liberal GEAR (Growth, Employment And Redistribution) strategy. The ANC government has relied on the tripartite Alliance of itself, the SACP (South African Communist Party), and COSATU (Congress of South African Trades Unions) to hold back the working class from struggling for better conditions. Amongst the best worker activists there is uniform opposition to GEAR, which they see as being responsible for privatisation, retrenchments, and falling living standards. In reality the leadership of the SACP and COSATU have no alternative to the policies of their pro-capitalist ANC partners. However, because of pressure from below they have to express verbal opposition to GEAR. They have even organised some national action against GEAR and intend to organise a national day of action on September 23, 1998. But this is not part of a serious strategy to defeat GEAR, merely an attempt to allow workers to 'let off steam."
The scene is set for the break up of the Alliance. At a recent SACP conference Mandela informed its members: "Stay in the Alliance and toe the line or get out and campaign as a separate party with all that implies." Thabo Mbeki, South African President-in-waiting, followed this by questioning whether the Alliance should continue at all. Paradoxically, it is the COSATU and SACP leaders who are desperate for the Alliance to continue, for fear of being cast into the wilderness, as they see it. Under the hammer blows of events, particularly the worsening economic situation of South Africa, the trade unions will be compelled to come out under their own banner and separate from the government. This may happen prior to the next general election, scheduled for 1999, but the pressure of the masses on COSATU will either compel it to become much more radical or new forces will move to take its place. In any event, the question of an independent workers’ party will re-emerge in South Africa in the next period.
The same is also true in other countries, such as Zimbabwe. The 18-year regime of Mugabe has been rocked with massive demonstrations of students followed by two days of rioting in January 1998, with the chaos and violence that followed. The main opposition comes from the trade unions. There has been outrage at the Mugabe government’s increases in taxes to fund those connected with the ruling ZANU (PF) party. The trade unions staged a one-day general strike in December 1997 and then a two-day strike in March. The trade union leaders are considering more extended general strike activity which incensed Mugabe and led to a gang of his thugs beating up the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
The workers and peasants of Zimbabwe were encouraged in their opposition by the movement against the Indonesian dictatorship. Their banners read: ‘After Suharto, it’s one down, two to go.’ They were referring to Mugabe and Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamed. The former ‘Marxist’, Mugabe, has enjoyed (along with his wife) a lifestyle that rivals any other African dictator. Two weeks after the January food riots, Mugabe put forward a proposal for free cars, air travel, entertainment, and bodyguards and staff for life for himself, his family and his two vice-presidents. This is against a background where the wholesale price of a sack of mealie-meal, the staple diet of the mass of Zimbabweans, is $147.
Loss of jobs, evictions from homes, lack of opportunities for the youth, is a powerful cocktail which is preparing the ground for the removal of Mugabe. Attempting to mollify the anger of the masses, Mugabe promised to take some of the land away from the 80,000 whites who still own the best farming lands. One thousand five hundred white farms have been scheduled to be handed over to blacks, most of them former fighters for ZANU(PF) in the guerrilla war almost two decades ago. However, these measures are unlikely to still the opposition of the masses whose placards have read: ‘Mugabe, you’re now irrelevant, go and rest, old man.’
The attempt to carve out new spheres of influence is not the preserve of Clinton and US imperialism. The US has increasingly stepped into the vacuum vacated by France in West Africa. France has been compelled to abandon its role as the mini-policeman of Africa and has devalued the CFA - the common currency - in the region. Irked by the role of the US in West Africa, Chirac has turned to the economically weightier region of southern Africa. The British Financial Times commented: "Commercial and economic interests appear to dominate the switch in policy but France also wants to respond to increasing US influence in Africa."
Dropping a policy of propping up the dictators in the Congo, Rwanda and elsewhere, Chirac lauds ‘democracy’ and declares that "France wants to open itself and create new partnerships with southern Africa".
However, these fine words must be set against the continued sanctions and restrictions placed on the entry of African exports to the markets in the West. The trade bill being discussed in the US Congress has as its stated purpose to open US markets to African exports. But there are heavy preconditions that the US has set for such privileged treatment. The US pharmaceutical companies are objecting to South Africa’s practice of allowing cheap medicines to patients because this allegedly undermines their ‘patent rights’.
Bending the knee to imperialism
Yet despite some clashes between the African bourgeois regimes and imperialism, the trend is clearly towards a further bending of the knee to capital, and an incapacity to solve either the problems of each country or the continent as a whole. This applies as much to the so-called ‘new leadership’ which has emerged and has pushed the old guard into retirement. This is as true of Museveni in Uganda, hailed until recently as the leader of the new ‘African tiger’ as it is to the increasingly discredited Mugabe and the late Mobutu. Museveni, in particular, has played a key role with the blessing of Washington in Rwanda and also in the triumph of Kabila in Zaire, now the Congo. These ‘new leaders’ have "ditched Marxism in favour of structural adjustment", have told imperialist institutions in the West that they would dictate the pace of development. However, Uganda has seen its growth rate fall from 7% to 5% as the infrastructural limitations of the economy and increased corruption have taken their toll.
Moreover, Museveni’s attempt to play a dominant regional role has begun to excite the opposition of the West. His troops intervened in Rwanda in 1994, helped Kabila to oust Mobutu and is now considering intervention, if only by proxy, to topple the Islamic government in Sudan. However, the consequences of action in Sudan, opens up a very risky situation which could spill over into the whole region of East Africa, in particular.
The aroused expectations following the victory of Kabila in the Congo have been dashed. Faced with the complete collapse of the infrastructure, a virtual absence of roads, and what passes for basic ‘civilisation’, Kabila’s regime is powerless in the face of absolutely horrendous and intractable problems. Instead of a return to ‘democracy’ Kabila has begun to imitate many of the features of the Mobutu dictatorship. Corruption is rife and Kabila is seen as autocratic. The jails are overflowing with ‘trouble makers’ who are dealt with by military tribunals and there is a ban on party politics which will only be lifted when elections are held, if they are ever held in the foreseeable period. The plight of the Congo on a bourgeois basis is summed up by the fact that the IMF has even threatened to suspend the Congo should it refuse to honour, by 29 June, the loans built up by the Mobutu regime. Kabila is maintained in power with the military assistance of outside forces and by a government made up of a number of competing factions held together for the time being in an uneasy alliance. Five ministers were recently dismissed because of corruption, which is inevitable and endemic on a bourgeois basis.
Nigeria - a greater disaster
But there is one country, Nigeria, which seemed in the past to be the most favourably placed to succeed on the basis of capitalism. Genuine Marxists long refuted this claim. Now, Nigeria is a by-word for the failure of the ‘African experiment’. Second only to South Africa in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, Nigeria’s rulers used to refer to it as the "giant of Africa". Its rulers even talked about having a seat in the UN Security Council at a certain stage. But, as the British Financial Times comments: "Burdened by debt, debilitated by corruption and victimised by decades of military mismanagement, Nigeria has long been the symbol of continental failure. Now, under yet another khaki-clad president, it faces the possibility of something much worse: not merely drift but disaster."
Its decline has been spectacular; from an income per head of $250 in the early 1980s to $250 today. A large part of a total of $300bn of oil revenue has been squandered on grandiose projects or salted abroad into private accounts by a succession of military regimes. It has debts of $35bn and, as bourgeois commentators fear, could slip towards the fate of the former Zaire, the collapse of civil and physical infrastructure and of minimum basics of life. The most favourable perspective held out by bourgeois commentators is that Nigeria could drift on as a ‘pariah state’ with an impoverished hinterland increasingly detached from an enclave, and still functioning, oil economy.
Once held up as an irrefutable proof of the success of British imperialism’s nation building ingenuity, Nigeria, made up of several heterogeneous nationalities and ethnic groups, presently faces the danger of disintegration. Probably for this reason the northern based Hausa-Fulani section of the ruling class, which since independence largely controls the political power and the army, is stoutly opposed to the clamour, mainly from the south, for the convocation of a democratically elected Sovereign National Conference. Such a conference is viewed by its advocates as an assembly to "restructure" the country’s foundations. But the northern elite fear that this may be used to break up the country and thus cut it off from the oil, found in the south, which accounts for 80% of government revenues and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. One possibility arising from this scenario is a perspective of the northern section of the ruling class and imperialism seeking to "Keep Nigeria One" at all costs. This can be glimpsed from General Abubakar’s "transition programme" rules, which insist that only associations that have "national spread" shall be allowed to operate as political parties. At the same time there is the possibility of a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in the Muslim dominated core north, whose masses are in several respects worse off compared with their southern counterparts, which could have an effect on neighbouring states.
All this has to be set against the optimistic perspectives which opened up for Nigeria at the time of independence. It was expected that the country would become the economic motor force of the continent’s growth. However, after a turbulent initial period of civilian rule, the very weak Nigerian bourgeoisie took refuge from the anger of the masses in one military regime after another. It once boasted thriving political parties and "the freest press in black Africa". However, tied overwhelmingly to one commodity - oil - Nigeria’s future hinged on an optimistic projection of oil continuing at $40 a barrel. However, the price of oil up until recently was half of this and in the wake of the Asian crisis has collapsed to half again. Therefore, the price of oil is about one quarter of the optimistic projection of Nigeria and other oil producers in the past.
In the wake of this has come economic collapse and increased social tensions, which could not be contained within the framework of ‘democracy’. In consequence, Nigeria was saddled with military dictators, the latest of which is General Abubukar, the eighth ‘khaki-clad president’. There has been much speculation that Abacha, who died in mysterious circumstances, was in fact murdered. There are the same suspicions over the death of Abiola. One thing is clear, before the death of Abacha the international bourgeoisie was urging concessions from the top in order to prevent a mass explosion from below. Abacha gave no indication that he was prepared to mollify the mass pressure for the return of democratic rights.
The same dilemma, however, confronts Abubukar: to screw down the lid on social protests could ignite an even greater explosion later which, in turn, could spin out of control, leading to the long-predicted break-up of the country. But he also faced the internal dilemma of every military dictatorship, that concessions will open the floodgate on mass protest and that this time it will be impossible to contain. Abubukar was clearly discussing with the jailed Abiola, the victor in the 1993 elections. He obviously promised to release Abiola on condition that he would not claim the presidency but allow ‘controlled elections’ to go ahead without his participation.
Nigeria is a tinderbox, but one thing is clear: the genie is out of the bottle. A new period has opened up with the masses moving onto the political arena. At the same time, the death of Abiola has resulted in a massive reinforcement of ethnic and nationalist tensions. Nigeria is nearer to a complete fracture than at any time since it secured independence from Britain. Unless the military steps back soon a mass explosion is inevitable, accompanied by separatist movements, which could tear Nigeria apart. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to go back to the same repressive military measures in the immediate period ahead. Therefore, Nigeria is probably in the most favourable position for the development of a mass movement, in which Marxists and the supporters of the CWI will be capable of playing a key role.
Conflicts in the Horn of Africa
On the other hand, events in the Horn of Africa show the utter incapacity of the bourgeoisie in general, or the native bourgeoisie of Africa, to solve even the smallest border disputes. Their power, prestige and strategic interests take precedence over the interests of the peoples in the region.
On the one side, the clash between Ethiopia and Eritrea over a tiny stretch of border could result in war between two of Africa’s poorest countries. On the other hand, behind what appears to be a meaningless conflict are serious issues touching on the interests of both countries and particularly those of the ruling classes. The roots of the conflict lie in Ethiopian history but particularly in recent history. Ethiopia was a Christian empire, dominated by rival highland peoples, the Tigreans and Amaras. Throughout the 19th century it expanded to include other ethnic groups - some Christian, some Muslim, some neither - but the Amaras came out on top.
However, the core of the present government is Tigrean. This was the group which dominated the movement which overthrew the Dergue. The Dergue was the government, led by Mengistu, which came out of the overthrow of the Emperor Haile Selaisse. It looked towards the Soviet Union with an element of a "planned economy" but on the basis of extreme underdevelopment. It was a one-party totalitarian regime and was incapable of uniting Ethiopia and the different national groups. The famines of the 1980s also undermined the regime, with imperialism consciously using these as a lever to crush the regimes of the Dergue. A struggle unfolded in which the Eritreans, under the leadership of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), fought for national independence. They collaborated with the Tigre Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the moving force behind Ethiopia’s current ruling party. The tanks of the combined force of the EPLF and TPLF rolled into Addis Ababa in 1991. However, the seeds of future conflict existed then. The aspirations of the elite on either side inevitably came to the fore as the basis of a new capitalist class began to take shape.
In 1993 Eritrea was granted independence, albeit reluctantly, by the Ethiopian ruling elite. This meant that Ethiopia was landlocked; its only previous route to the Red Sea being through what is now Eritrea. Within Ethiopia itself there is a conflict between the Amaras, the traditional ruling group of Ethiopia, and the Tigreans who led the struggle to overthrow the Mengistu regime through the TPLF. One bourgeois commentator has drawn the comparison with the overthrow of ‘communism’ in the former Soviet Union: "Imagine a Soviet Union where communism had been overthrown, not by Russians but by Ukrainians, and where Ukrainians had all the top jobs. That’s how Amaras feel about Tigreans."
Therefore, a future conflict between both groups and other ethnic sub-divisions is possible within Ethiopia. However, at the moment the clash with Eritrea seems to have united the peoples of Ethiopia behind the government of Meles Jenawi. The Amaras were implacably opposed to independence for Eritrea and therefore see the present conflict as a means of striking back. The threat of a war over 150 square miles of territory is absurd but comes after a worsening of relations between the two regimes.
The hopes of building a free trade zone between the two countries has been dashed. Ethiopia was to have duty-free access to the ports of Assab and Massawa. There was even talk of integrating the economies of both poverty stricken countries as a step towards a ‘Horn of Africa common market’. Ethiopian traders complained about crippling levels of duty slapped on their goods. The Eritreans hit back accusing Ethiopia of waging ‘economic war’ on their smaller country. This has fuelled the suspicion that the small economic squabbles were part of a broader political agenda with Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, carrying through an economic blockade: "The Ethiopians want to punish us for daring to go it alone." The smaller Eritrea is much more vulnerable than Ethiopia: 66% of its foreign trade goes to Ethiopia, while only 10% of Ethiopian exports go to Eritrea. And in all of this it is the poverty stricken peoples of the region who suffer.
It is possible that a temporary agreement can be arrived at, but the underlying conflict along with many others in the region will remain. The Eritreans have not just been in conflict with the larger Ethiopia, but with neighbouring Yemen in a dispute over four barren islands in the Red Sea. The suspicion has been fuelled that the Eritreans are being secretly supported by the Israelis who wish to keep the Babal Mandab Straits out of hostile hands. Whether this is true or not, it underlines the absolute incapacity of the bourgeoisie, limited and weak as it is, to overcome the economic, social and national problems which have been inherited from imperialist domination in the past.
The logical solution is for unity, a socialist federation of the region, and beyond this a socialist confederation of the continent of Africa. Only the working class, as small as it is in this region, is capable of advancing such a programme and fighting for its implementation. Therefore, the conclusion that we draw from the situation in Africa is that its great potential, its abundance of natural riches, will not be exploited for the benefit of the 700 million people in the continent. Africa is a living example of the incapacity of capitalist private ownership and the nation state (which is probably more unviable here than in any other part of the world), together with imperialist domination, of developing industry and society for the benefit of the majority of the peoples.