Al-Qalam 
What these leaders don’t know or choose to not know, is that imperial powers will use them to do their dirty jobs and then discard them, writes Dr Mustafa Mheta.
News that the new Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has or is about to authorize the setting up of an AFRICOM military camp in Zambia is indeed very disturbing news for Africa and the SADC regional body in particular.
This will mark the first time in the SADC region that actual USA military boots will be on the ground. My hope is that patriotic forces in Zambia and indeed the entire region will intervene to halt the move. One hopes too that the African Union will take decisive steps to prevent the continent from being used as a fertile ground for America’s military.
No individual country has the prerogative to decide on issues that affect the whole continent and the entire SADC region. This decision should be a collective decision that should be taken at continental level to begin with. Africa should stay clear of aligning itself with any of these powers and instead stay non-aligned as was the case during the cold war era.
Wherever in the world the USA has stationed its military, people in those countries express disdain and disappointment. From the Islands of Japan to those of the Philippines and the Middle East, the unmistakable message is Yankee go home!
President Hichilema should ask himself this question, why did all the founding fathers of our independence on the continent refuse the setting up of AFRICOM on the continent? On whose orders is he breaking up rank with the rest of the continent and does Rwandan President Kagame’s trip to Livingstone have anything to do with his decision?
When we look at the bigger picture on how our African politics is shaping up from East, Central and Southern Africa, we see it littered with USA toxins throughout bent on fomenting troubles in these regions. My prediction is that very soon there will be problems on the political landscape in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and South Africa as they go for elections. News of imperialist USA interference in eSwatini in particular, should be a wakeup call to all.
What is happening is that the arrogant powers are getting obsessed with trying to counter the rise of China on the African continent. They have conspired with targeted leaders to facilitate Western hegemonic goals. Unfortunately, what these leaders do not know or choose to not know, is that the arrogant imperial powers will use them to do their dirty jobs and then they will be discarded just like it happened before with the likes of Moise Tshombe, Mobutu Sese Seko, Morgan Tsvangirai, Holden Roberto, Jonas Savimbi, and Alfonso Dhlakama in Mozambique.
The imperialists’ first step of destroying the unity among the former liberation movements in SADC is almost complete. The revolutionary parties in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa are under siege. They have been penetrated to the bone and yet they can’t see that. The sanctions that were imposed on Zimbabwe are about to bring forth their first fruits followed by South Africa.
What our revolutionary leadership in SADC should do is to go back to basics and study Che Guevara, Fidel Castrol, Muammer Gaddafi, Amilcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Robert Mugabe and Oliver Tambo’s ideas to get back on track.
Imperialism by nature thrives on exploiting and manipulating weak leaders to advance nefarious goals. Those that resist are eliminated. Recall the tragic fates of Gaddafi and Lumumba. Imperialism will always capitalise on the suffering of the people. They tell our revolutionary leaders to hike prices so that there is a general dissatisfaction among the people economically and then have them removed.
The advice that we will give to our revolutionary parties is that stop singing from the so-called democracy hymn book presented by the arrogant powers as there is nothing as such. It’s just talk shows, whether it’s in USA, UK, or the EU. If it were true that democracy as we read it in the textbook is real, there would be no wars and so many troubles across the world.
Many of these wars have been brought about by the so-called free world that claims to be democratic in the first instance. The world has been sold a dummy to believe there is anything called democracy.
SADC and the AU must go back to basics and reignite the revolutionary spirit of the past and it will guide us back to our winning trajectory that we have since lost. We must also ensure that the house niggers amongst us are kept in check always. All the arrogant imperial powers have blocked anything to do with the ideology of Communism and Socialism in their territories through registration that they have passed, why can’t we do the same in our countries to block neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism through legislation?
Yet at the moment in Zimbabwe, there is so much hype around the patriotism act which is currently before parliament and we have seen delegations sent from western capitals to protest against the move, why?
To those in SADC who are volunteering to be used as Trojan horses by the arrogant powers, they should know that time is slowly approaching when they will be stopped in their tracts. Lastly, there shall be no AFRICOM boots on SADC soil come what may. Aluta Continua!
*Dr. Mustafa Mheta is a senior researcher/Head of Africa Desk at Media Review Network SA Dean: School of Languages at Somali, National University (SNU) Mogadishu, Federal Republic of Somalia.
