Continued….It claims the unit in question - BATUK, or ‘British Training Army Unit, Kenya’ - enjoys the immunity given to the British government.

Wanjiru’s 19-year-old niece wrote to Britain’s King Charles III ahead of his state visit to Kenya in October. She urged him to help bring about justice and closure.

But judging by the UK military’s latest intervention, her words fell on deaf ears. What is it trying to hide and why is it trying to stall justice for Wanjiru and her family?

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PLO EXPLAINS SAHEL COUPS,
ROLE OF FRANCE AS IMPERIAL POWER

The military takeovers of governments in the Sahel are a revolution. The French never left. These are key takeaways from PLO Lumumba during an African Stream roundtable discussion we were honoured to host. During our talk, the Pan-African scholar and lawyer explains how the French still manage the affairs of their former colonies, including printing their currency, the CFA franc, and the level of underhanded tactics employed, such as the assassination of Burkina Faso’s president Thomas Sankara, to ensure the continuance of French interests.

Continued….PLO Lumumba raises the issue of the ongoing insecurity crisis in the Sahel, as France, formerly dubbed the region’s ‘military partner’, is accused of backing the very terrorist groups it claims to fight. While this might sound a bit far-fetched, a lot of progress has been made in the battle against terrorism following France’s expulsion from the region, such as the recapture of Kidal in Mali and Djibo in Burkina Faso.

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UGANDA'S WAR ON SECOND-HAND CLOTHES

Although no official figures exist, the Uganda Dealers in Used Clothing and Shoes Association estimates that 16 million people, or one in three Ugandans, wear second-hand clothes. However, a potential government ban on the importation of used clothing may change that. The objective is to promote consumption of locally produced African-wear and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni says that by protecting its local textile industry, the move will create thousands of new local jobs.

In 2016, Museveni sought to ban used clothing as part of an East African initiative to develop domestic industries. The policy faced significant opposition at the time.

Continued..Initially, the East African Community regional bloc mounted a united front against the importation of used clothes but the alliance wavered after Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda backed off at the prospect of retaliatory loss of duty-free access to U.S. markets through AGOA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Ratified by the U.S. congress in May 2000, the stated goal of this piece of legislation was to assist sub-Saharan Africa economies, as well as improve economic relations between the United States and the region.

Rwanda decided to go it alone, imposing steep taxes on used clothing. In a tit-for-tat move, the U.S. retaliated, suspending duty-free benefits for made-in-Rwanda products. East Africa imports about an eighth of the world's used clothing but as the millions of hand-me-down clothes make their way from donation bins in the U.S. and Europe to East Africa, the trade stifles the growth of the continent’s own textile industry.

Whether Uganda’s proposed ban will be implemented remains to be seen. However, this time, President Museveni seems fully committed to live up to his promise.

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BRITAIN FM IN RWANDA TO REVIVE ASYLUM DEAL

Britain has been dogged in its attempts to expel refugees. On 15 November, the UK Supreme Court ruled unlawful a previous agreement to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. This week, the government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak returned with a draft for a new bill, saying it should lay to rest the court’s concern about Rwanda’s poor human rights record.

NGOs, such as Asylum Aid and Human Rights Watch, have called the plan ‘cruel and ineffective.’ The United Kingdom is considered better placed to handle an influx of asylum seekers, as it is exponentially wealthier, with its $3 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its small East African counterpart generates $11 billion in GDP. The UK has already paid 140 million pounds to Rwanda, considered the first installment to ensure the plan’s execution.

Continued….Moreover, Rwanda is the second most densely populated country in mainland Africa, according to United Nations population division forecasts available on the Worldometer website. It has a population density of 571 per square kilometres. Meanwhile, the UK, has 276 people per square kilometres. So, if the UK is full, as right-wing politicians claim, how should we describe Rwanda?

Meanwhile, key proponents of the deal, including Sunak and other former government officials, are themselves beneficiaries of the UK’s immigration policy. Talk about gatekeeping.

Have a watch, and please share your thoughts in the comments.

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TRAORÉ SHARES BURKINABÉ VISION WITH SCHOOLKIDS

As world renowned anti-imperialist scholar Michael Parenti said in 1986, ‘The revolution that feeds the children gets my support.’ That seems to be the spirit in Burkina Faso under Captain Ibrahim Traore’s leadership as president. In this clip from a live television appearance, he explains to school children the many ways Burkina Faso is rich, dispelling colonial myths that have painted Africa as a wasteland.

Burkina Faso has been busy over the past year. After the 30 September 2022 coup that created the Transition of Burkina Faso, France's ambassador, its troops and its media outlets were dismissed. Meanwhile, the landlocked Sahelian country has doubled down on efforts to recover its territory.

Continued….Up to 40 per cent of the country had been in terrorist hands before Traoré took the reigns. He has advocated for the formation of a Sahelian confederation that would include Mali and Niger, with the countless benefits that such an alliance can bring the region. This is unlike the Sahelian Alliance that France helped put together in 2014 and is nicknamed the 'G5.' The good news is Chad and Mauritania, the other two members of the G5, have just announced the Sahel Alliance should be dissolved, as they say it has failed at securing the region against terrorism.

With only one year in office, Traoré has reminded many of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara (1983-87), whose life was unfortunately cut short by a French-backed assassination. This time, Africa hopes the motherland will win. And, with folks like Captain Traoré in power, it is difficult to see why not.

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MANDELA CALLS OUT THE US!

10 years ago, on the 5th of December, Nelson Mandela, “Madiba,” passed away. He is remembered as a man who helped to lead South Africa out of the crimes and excesses of apartheid. The western mainstream media try whitewash him as just a fluffy old man that liked to dance and forgive his oppressors but we remember him as an anti-imperialist until the end.

In this video Mandela calls out America as warmongers—a country that supports carnage—a country that consistently breaks the rules and is more than willing to go to any lengths, even at the expense of basic human rights, to push its own hegemonic agenda.

Continued…He calls out the US on their invasion of Iraq and the war it initiated 20 years ago, a totally unnecessary military campaign resulting in the deaths of anywhere between one and two million men, women, and children. And, as former US secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, made clear when asked were US sanctions that claimed the lives of up to 500,000 Iraqi children justified, she responded, “we think the price is worth it."

Mandela was instrumental in tearing down South Africa’s oppressive apartheid regime, as well as speaking up for other oppressed African states. May he continue to rest in peace and power!

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DEATH OF AFRICANS ‘GOOD’ FOR PLANET

It often feels like, to the West, African lives are totally expendable.

A new article in The Atlantic loudly proclaims that war in Congo has “kept the planet cooler” - i.e., has been good for Mother Nature… as if the devastation inflicted on the Congolese were a price worth paying for a healthier environment.

To be fair, the subheading is: “the grim ironies of climate change.”

But bear in mind that the conflict in Congo has cost nearly 6-million lives and displaced almost 7 million. (No sane Western editor would run with “The Holocaust’s environmental benefits” as a headline - even if there had been some such imagined consequences!)

The article’s writer matter-of-factly observes that war has hindered the economic exploitation of Congolese rainforest.

Continued….What Ross Anderson misses, though, is that DRC timber is one of the resources fuelling conflict, as rival armed groups jostle over the charcoal and timber trade. Not very climate friendly, is it?

And, however hard the war is raging, Western conglomerates have not ceased their relentless exploitation of Congo’s men, women and children - sending them to toil in dangerous and super-polluting mines. Moreover, in the greed-driven quest to exploit Congolese resources, countless villages have been wiped out, patches of forest cleared and rivers poisoned by mineral extraction.

But the main point is this - Western editors and journalists, please write about Africans in a way that grants them the human dignity they deserve.

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Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says countries that benefited from slavery owe the Caribbean island nation nearly $5 trillion.

In an address on Wednesday at the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute, Mottley cited US-based consulting firm Brattle Group's data. In June, the firm announced it had found the European Slave Trade had cost 19 million people—during four centuries—between $100 trillion and $131 trillion for two categories of damages: The impacts of chattel slavery ($77 trillion to $108 trillion) and lingering impacts after slavery ($23 trillion). When counting Africans kidnapped and transported to the Americas, as well as those born into slavery, Brattle Group counted a total of 802 million years of life would need to be compensated.

Continued….Mottley's comments came shortly after she held a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. Despite offering half-hearted 'regrets' about the slave trade, the British government remains adamant that it will not pay reparations. In April, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described calls for reparations as 'trying to unpick our history.'

Meanwhile, the global call for slavery reparations has grown louder in recent years. Many have questioned why former slave owners were compensated for 'losses' after the dark practice was abolished, while former slaves and their descendants have not received a dime for the horrors they had endured during slavery and afterward.

Let us know what you think below.

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ANTI-APARTHEID SONG CHANTED @ KENYAN EVENT FOR SUDAN!

Pan-African Unity is alive and kicking!

On Saturday, 2nd December, a Pan-African Alliance led by Africans_Rising, hosted a Pan-African Solidarity event for Sudan in the heart of one of Kenya’s largest slums - Nairobi’s Mathare Ghetto.

One of the key highlights of that event was when Kenyan community organiser Sefu led the attendees in chanting a famous anti-apartheid song with a Kenyan twist in Swahili.

Mathare is famous for being a hub for anti-colonial activism. During the struggle for independence, it was where weapons on their way to the Mau Mau freedom fighters transited through, overseen by one of Kenya’s most progressive leaders, Pio Gama Pinto, a man who influenced and had close ties with Malcolm X before both were assassinated.

The chant was an electrifying moment that connected three countries - Sudan, Kenya and South Africa - in their struggles in one room.

Have a watch and leave your thoughts below.

I WON'T ACCEPT AWARD FROM BRITISH MONARCH

Africans worldwide mourn the loss of our dear brother, Benjamin Zephaniah, who died yesterday, with his wife by his side, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks ago.

Zephaniah, 65, was a poet, novelist, playwright, singer, actor and campaigner, born and raised in Birmingham, England, to a Barbados-born postman and a Jamaican nurse. He was known for his artistic activism against racism, poverty, slavery and social injustice. Zephaniah faced challenges throughout his life; he grew up in poverty, was not gifted with reading and writing, and he was expelled from school. But he turned his life around by getting involved in alternative comedy, and playing music in what became known as 'The Benjamin Zephaniah Band,' which performed reggae music and called for the release of Nelson Mandela.

Continued….The South African anti-apartheid fighter would later, as a free man, share a stage with Zephaniah. Our brother was a pioneer, one of the first Africans to regularly appear on British television, while staying true to his roots.

In 2003, Zephaniah turned down the award of an OBE, the Order of the British Empire, clarifying it would be hypocritical to accept it, as he had been fighting colonialism and slavery in the British Empire all of his life.

We thought it would be best to remember our brother through this viral clip from 'The Big Narstie Show,' where he explains beautifully how his integrity and principles could never be compromised. Despite his immense success, Zephaniah remained critical of the establishment and continued to speak out against injustice until the very end. The artist and activist left a 'huge body of poems, literature, music, television and radio,' his loved ones announced on his Instagram page.

May he rest in power and eternal peace.

FRANCE LEFT ALONE WITH G5 SAHEL ALLIANCE AS MAURITANIA, CHAD FOLLOW BURKINA, NIGER, MALI

Mere days after Burkina Faso and Niger walked out of the French-led G5 Sahel, and Mali having departed in 2022, the two remaining members, Chad and Mauritania, have signed the group’s death certificate. They invoked Article 20, which states that the organization can be dissolved with the consent of at least three members.

Since the formation of the G5 Sahel in 2014 to deal with the insecurity NATO created by attacking Libya and ousting Gaddafi, it has seen little success, evidenced by the death of 8,000 Sahelians to terrorism in 2022 alone. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger view the organization as being an instrument to further French interests in the region and their departure seems to have taken the wings off its sails, thus Chad and Mauritania have also jumped ship.

Continued… Meanwhile, the trio, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, have formed the Alliance of Sahelian States in September. This new organization covers security and economic development for the regional states. Chad and Mauritania, the two latest departees of the G5 Sahel, have expressed their willingness to continue working with countries across the region, leaving the door open to potential cooperation among the five African countries formerly in the G5 Sahel, however, without France poking its nose where it doesn’t belong this time around.

MARTHA MEBRAHTU: ERITREA’S RADICAL ANTI-IMPERIALIST

51 years ago today, revolutionary freedom fighter attempted to hijack an Ethiopian commercial plane in a radical move against the then-imperial Ethiopian state.

She was killed in the attempt, as secret police had foiled the plot and were lying in wait on board. The day before, she’d published a now-famous manifesto in which she urges her brothers and sisters all over the world to be ready for bitter sacrifice in the fight against imperialism and feudalism.

Prior to her abortive hijacking bid, she used her prominent position on the student body of the medical faculty at Haile Selassie University to push for women’s rights and recruit people to the cause.

Her death inspired thousands to rise up against injustices. She is celebrated today as an Eritrean martyr who was passionate about social change, revolutionary Pan-Africanism and the independence of Africa as a continent.

May she continue to rest in power.