AFRICAN LEADERS SUFFER 'COLONIAL HANGOVER'

Inviting French President Emmanuel Macron to get involved in resolving an African dispute is akin to calling an arsonist to help put out a fire.

Yet, African leaders have gone on to do precisely that, evidenced by Kenyan President William Ruto’s call with Paris on the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ironically, two years ago, Ruto, now also the East African Community Heads of State Summit chair, trotted the continent spewing Pan-Africanist rhetoric, calling for ‘African solutions to African problems.’

However, as Kenyan lawyer and Pan-Africanist PLO Lumumba argues in this recent video clip, African leaders running to foreigners to manage their affairs is one reason the likes of Macron hold Africa in contempt. At a recent event, Macron said Africa ‘forgot to say thank you’ for France’s decade-long military occupation, during which t*rrorism increased.

France, like other Western powers, helped destabilise the Great Lakes region. For example, France helped stoke the flames of the 1994 Rwanda gnocide, according to an independent Rwandan commission. It said France was aware of preparations for the gnocide and helped train the ethnic Hutu militia perpetrators. The gnocide led to Rwanda invasion of DRC in 1996 and the long involvement of Kigali in a resource conflict that klled at least 6 million Congolese between 1998 and 2010, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people since M23’s resurgence in 2021. Rwanda-backed M23’s efforts to push people off mineral-rich land have displaced 500,000 this January alone. The chaos and instability have proven lucrative for global markets that rely on an estimated $24 trillion in untapped Congolese minerals, such as tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold (known as the ‘3TG’), which countries like Rwanda and Uganda have been instrumental in looting, according to the UN.

Video credit: @thee_alfa_house (X)

Sources:

https://www.blackagendareport.com/pan-african-masquerade-william-ruto-mask

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250107-macron-irks-allies-left-with-africa-forgot-to-say-thank-you-jibe

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7542418.stm

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war

https://www.usaid.gov/democratic-republic-congo/fact-sheet/responsible-minerals-trade

Ruto
https://x.com/WilliamsRuto/status/1883912691816812811

African solutions
https://nation.africa/africa/news/president-ruto-calls-for-urgent-reforms-in-the-african-union--4262796