From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Wed Dec 16 2009 - 22:58:01 EST
Published on Black Agenda Report (http://www.blackagendareport.com)
Home > AFRICOM AIN’T THE PEACE CORPS
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AFRICOM AIN’T THE PEACE CORPS
by Mark P. Fancher
The U.S. military’s AFRICOM forces pretend their mission on the continent
is humanitarian. In reality, AFRICOM is the sharp edge of U.S. imperialism,
a killing force eager to impose American dominance. The military command
“locks Africa into a state of dependency and maintains favorable
political and social conditions for U.S.-based corporations that exploit
Africa’s natural resources.” This is not a bug in the system. It's a
defining feature of it.
AFRICOM AIN’T THE PEACE CORPS
by Mark P. Fancher
“AFRICOM downplays its military projects and instead presents itself as a
Peace Corps type operation.”
Mention the words “Peace Corps” to folks who associate that agency with
the idealism of the 1960s and in their minds’ eye they will probably see
a dynamic young president who dispatched a virtual army of gentle,
denim-clad, pony-tail wearing young Americans into the world’s most
poverty-stricken villages to carry out a simple mission - to lend a
neighborly hand.
Not to be found in this naive, rosy memory is a provision of the 1961 Peace
Corps law that required volunteers to submit to: “... instruction in the
philosophy, strategy, tactics, and menace of communism.” The plan to use
the Peace Corps as a Cold War propaganda tool was explained by John F.
Kennedy himself when he was still a presidential candidate. An advance text
of one of his speeches said:
“...A friend of mine visiting the Soviet Union last year met a young
Russian couple studying Swahili and African customs at the Moscow Institute
of Languages. They were not language teachers - he was a sanitation
engineer and she was a nurse. And they were being prepared to live among
African nations as missionaries for communism.... Missiles and arms cannot
stop them - neither can American dollars. They can only be countered by
Americans equally skilled and equally dedicated....”
“The plan to use the Peace Corps as a Cold War propaganda tool was
explained by John F. Kennedy himself.”
Regardless of whether Peace Corps volunteers were aware that their
benevolent impulses were being politically exploited, some leaders of
underdeveloped countries knew exactly what was going on, and they did not
take kindly to U.S. attempts to gain a Cold War advantage at the expense of
impoverished nations. Irritation escalated to rage when some leaders began
to suspect that the Peace Corps was a cover for intelligence operations. In
1965, Ghana’s then-president Kwame Nkrumah wrote: “[Sargent]
Shriver’s record makes a mockery of President Kennedy’s alleged
instruction to Shriver to ‘keep the CIA out of the Peace
Corps.’...Since its creation in 1961, members of the Peace Corps have
been exposed and expelled from many African, Middle Eastern and Asian
countries for acts of subversion or prejudice.”
Numerous well-meaning Peace Corps volunteers never became entangled in
political intrigue and with the purest of motives they provided assistance
and friendship that was much appreciated by the villages they served. But
the program’s early propaganda agenda as spelled out in legislation and
regulations was completely disrespectful of the rights to sovereignty,
non-intervention and self-determination of the countries where volunteers
were assigned. The Peace Corps’ Cold War agenda was later to be
officially jettisoned, and in the 21st Century, it is disturbing to look
back on that chapter in U.S. history. At least we can now take comfort in
knowing that the U.S. no longer uses deception to advance a propaganda
agenda. Or can we?
“Irritation escalated to rage when some leaders began to suspect that the
Peace Corps was a cover for intelligence operations.”
The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) deploys U.S. military personnel to advise
and support African soldiers in missions designed to advance U.S. strategic
and economic interests in Africa. But it also implements a not-so-subtle
propaganda campaign to win the hearts and minds of Africans and the
grudging support of a broader public that correctly suspects that AFRICOM
is a Trojan horse for imperialism.
If one takes AFRICOM’s reports about its own activities at face value, it
is easy to conclude that it exists solely for humanitarian purposes. For
instance, the AFRICOM website has published warm and fuzzy accounts of: a
military chaplain’s assistance to a homeless double amputee in Uganda; an
Army Reserve nurse’s delivery of a baby in a rural village; the delivery
of emergency supplies for Chad refugees; and the exchange of medical
information with the Djibouti military. It almost appears from these
reports that AFRICOM personnel are really Peace Corps-type volunteers who
happen to dress in military combat gear.
Not emphasized is AFRICOM’s primary mission, which is to use the armies
of African governments to make Africa “a stable and secure African
environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.” Interviews given by
AFRICOM’s leaders make it pretty clear that they pay special attention to
armed African militants, even if these rebels claim they are preserving and
protecting their environment and natural resources from exploitative
western corporations and individuals.
“It almost appears from these reports that AFRICOM personnel are really
Peace Corps-type volunteers who happen to dress in military combat gear.”
For example, insurgent forces in the Niger Delta that have battled oil
companies have been specifically identified by AFRICOM’s leadership as a
problem. Last year, AFRICOM sent a military ship from port to port in the
oil-rich Gulf of Guinea training African civilians and soldiers to combat
“security threats” in the region. Likewise, so-called “pirates” in
Somalia who in some cases have contested foreigners’ illegal dumping and
fishing are among those that have been the focus of AFRICOM’s
not-so-charitable concern.
By design AFRICOM downplays its military projects and instead presents
itself as a Peace Corps type operation. However, missing from that version
of its public face is the practice that makes it most like the 1961 version
of the Peace Corps. That is, that AFRICOM is committed to the
indoctrination of Africa’s people. It implements its program in a way
that is far more sophisticated than any method contemplated when
politicians hoped to use the Peace Corps to fight the “communist
menace.”
Specifically, AFRICOM’s International Military Education and Training
program is a vehicle not only for selling African leaders on the value of
cooperating with the U.S. militarily, but also for exposing them to “the
U.S. way of life.” An AFRICOM fact sheet on the program states that
graduates “fill key leadership positions in militaries of many African
nations.”
“AFRICOM is committed to the indoctrination of Africa’s people.”
Even the smallest, poorest African countries have a right to
self-determination that is firmly grounded in international law. However,
when AFRICOM drags future African leaders into a room to brainwash them
into believing that U.S. strategic and economic interests are helpful to
Africa’s development needs, it does not promote African independence,
self-sufficiency and self-determination. Rather, it locks Africa into a
state of dependency and maintains favorable political and social conditions
for U.S.-based corporations that exploit Africa’s natural resources.
Although it is shameful that some Peace Corps volunteers were instructed to
politically indoctrinate struggling, poverty-stricken villagers, it was
probably a whole lot easier for a villager to tell a sandal-wearing Peace
Corps volunteer to “go to Hell” than it is to give that same advice
these days to a steely-eyed, square-jawed, gun-toting, U.S. military
commander. AFRICOM ain’t the Peace Corps.
Mark P. Fancher coordinates the National Conference of Black Lawyers’
Africom TaskForce, and he is a member of the All-African People’s
Revolutionary Party. He can be contacted at mfancher(at)Comcast.net.
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