‘NIGER USED TO BE A BANANA REPUBLIC’

Niger’s reality has changed drastically since President Abdourahamane Tiani came to power on 26 July 2023. In this video clip, he spoke about Niger going from being a neo-colonial ‘banana republic’ state to asserting its sovereignty and self-determination on the world stage.

Tiani stated that European and US powers previously considered the country’s uranium worth less than clay or red onions. Today, Niger’s government has nationalised its uranium mines in Somair and Imouraren, kicking out the French-owned Orano mining company. Niger was previously the European Union’s second-largest supplier of uranium.

Continued……As soon as Niger’s coup d’état threatened Western business interests, media outlets based in Europe and the United States rushed to denounce the military for ousting a Western-backed leader as undemocratic, chaotic, destabilising and doomed. Yet, even at the start of this new year, Nigeriens continue pouring out into the streets to express their support for the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), Niger’s new government.

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/21/niger-revokes-french-nuclear-groups-licence-at-major-uranium-mine

https://www.africanews.com/2023/08/01/eu-says-no-uranium-supply-risk-after-niger-coup//

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/french-company-orano-loses-control-of-uranium-mine-to-niger-admin/3414093

F.M. ON DRC CRISIS: ‘RWANDAN EXCEPTION TO INT’L LAW’

Is there a ‘Rwandan exception’ to international law? According to the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) foreign minister, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, there seems to be one at the UN Security Council.

Her remarks came just a day before Rwandan-backed M23 forces entered North Kivu province’s capital city of Goma in the DRC’s mineral-rich east on 27 January. The United States has long maintained that Rwanda backs the M23 rebels, and a June 2024 UN report produced by experts who conducted ‘on-site inspections’ points to solid evidence of the Rwanda-M23 connection.

But, if Rwanda is behind M23, then who is behind Rwanda? That would be the United States, a UNSC permanent member with veto rights. The US gave Rwanda $175 million in aid in 2023 alone.

Continued……. Meanwhile, the world’s eight-wealthiest person, billionaire Warren Buffett, has been close with Rwandan President Paul Kagame for years, spending $435 million to support the country since 2000 through the Buffett Foundation.

So, why do billionaires and imperialist states support Rwanda? Well, Kagame admitted in 2022 that Congolese minerals are smuggled into Rwanda, largely through warfare, and then get exported to companies based in powerful industrialised countries. Or in Kagame’s direct words, ‘Some people go through Congo, whether they smuggle or go through the right channels. They bring minerals. But most of it goes through here. It does not stay here. It goes to Dubai. It goes to Brussels. It goes to Tel Aviv. It goes to Russia. It used to go to Russia. I don’t know if it still goes there.’

In other words, the US, other countries, the billionaire class, and other major players back Kagame’s Rwanda. In turn, Rwanda arms and trains M23 rebels, who wreak havoc in the DRC. In the midst of the fighting, resources are funnelled into Rwanda and from there, they are distributed worldwide and into the hands of billionaires.

So, this might be the Rwandan exception to international law.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyzl1mlkvo

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/08/05/confidential-un-report-provides-solid-evidence-of-rwanda-s-involvement-in-the-east-drc_5992599_4.html

https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a-un-security-council-briefing-on-the-situation-concerning-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-3/

https://www.usaid.gov/rwanda/history-usaidrwanda

https://www.fpri.org/article/2024/10/toward-a-balanced-approach-how-should-the-us-engage-with-an-increasingly-powerful-rwanda

https://science.time.com/2013/12/19/q-and-a-with-rwandan-president-paul-kagame-and-howard-buffett/

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2022-8-9-inside-the-howard-g-buffett-foundations-big-bet-on-rwanda

https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#588200c93d78

SLAVE CATCHERS BY ANOTHER NAME

The horrifying experience of these two Black men occurred in a country that has never overcome its troubled history of r*cist policing that too often targets and dehumanises Black people since police began as slave catchers. In the early 1700s, slave patrols enforced slavery through brutal tactics, surveilling and punishing enslaved people, while early 19th-century police in cities like Boston focused on controlling a ‘dangerous underclass’ of freed Africans, immigrants and the poor.

Continued……After the Civil War, discriminatory Jim Crow laws perpetuated racial oppression, with police enforcing segregation and ignoring white violence against Black communities. The legacy of institutional racism persists today, as evidenced by disproportionate police violence against Black people (accounting for 22 per cent of police k*llings in 2024 despite being 13 per cent of the population) and racial profiling, such as with police stopping Black drivers more often, as shown in Stanford research.

Video credit: @democracynow (X)

Source:

https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816

https://youtu.be/4QVbKzYPAKE

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

THEIR ‘AID’ JUST A FRACTION OF THEIR LOOT!

The West loots Africa at night and during the day gives us back a fraction of the swag, dressed up as aid. That’s the view expressed by Arikana Chihombori-Quao, the African Union’s former envoy to the US, in this 2018 clip.

Her words certainly ring true amid the growing clamour of complaints about neocolonialism across the continent, particularly in francophone West Africa.

Post-independence, France was afforded many privileges that enriched the nation but kept its ex-colonies poor. Paris secured the right-of-first-refusal on the extraction and sale of their natural resources. In practice, this meant their minerals were being sold to France at knock-down prices. Attempts at breaking free from this stranglehold were thwarted through French-sponsored political coups or assassinations, ensuring the European nation’s interests remained protected in resource-rich West Africa.

Continued…….. Additionally, African nations in the CFA Franc Zone are required to keep at least 50% of their reserves in France - for the sake of ‘currency stability.’

Without all this, the European country could not remain the world power it is today. The writing’s on the wall for the neocolonial era, and that’s angered President Emmanuel Macron, who recently called Africans ‘ungrateful’ after the severing of the questionable military cooperation agreements and the expulsion of French troops from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and, most recently, Chad.

It’s time Africa’s gardens fed Africans, not ex-colonisers.

Sources:

https://www.crossbordertalks.eu/2024/05/08/france-africa/

https://report.az/en/foreign-politics/zahid-oruj-france-earns-400-500b-annually-from-africa-as-colonial-tax/

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/739771.shtml

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/5/24/africa-is-not-poor-we-are-stealing-its-wealth

https://debtjustice.org.uk/press-release/africa-subsidises-rest-world-40-billion-one-year-according-new-research

https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/historical_materials/1957980/?

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

HOW DO AFRO-VENEZUELANS FEEL ABOUT MADURO?

Nicolás Maduro is one of the worst and most repressive dictators of our time, right? Not so fast. Many online have been quick to judge Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution as a failed economic experiment or authoritarian dystopia. That’s why African Stream recently visited the country for Maduro’s presidential inauguration to get a better sense of what’s up.

As a Pan-Africanist reporter, Inemesit Richardson, was intrigued by the presence of self-declared Afro-Venezuelan ‘Chavistas’ at rallies, events, and conferences who support the Bolivarian Project begun under former President Hugo Chavez (1954-2013). While the perspective that circulates on Western media outlets and English-speaking social media pages tends to favour regime change, we wanted to hear what the other side had to say.

Continued…….. In this video, you hear from Afro-Venezuelans who attended the Third International Congress on Communication in Caracas, Venezuela, on 12 January. Some were members of Afro-Venezuelan organisations known as ‘cumbes’ or were the heads of Afro-descendant wings of political parties and groups. Others were citizens not affiliated with any political organisations.

So, why did Afro-Venezuelans vote for Maduro? This is what they had to say.

This week’s proverb - from Ethiopia - reflects both the magical transformative power of falling in love and its dangers. It’s an insight that also applies to Africa's fight against imperialism. Some leaders have fallen for false alliances, only to face betrayal. True pan-African connection demands awareness, not rose-tinted illusion. Love, whether between people or nations must empower, not weaken. Is everything as it seems - or are we teetering on the edge? What's your take?

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CONGO IS A PROXY WAR!

In this clip, Congolese-British presenter, singer and instrumentalist Priscilla Toko uses an illustration by @mkadima01 (on Instagram) to drive home that the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a three-decade-long, foreign-instigated proxy war for minerals, not simply internal strife.

Moreover, Western states continue to support the DRC’s neighbour, Rwanda, despite overwhelming evidence that it has armed and trained the M23 militia that terrorises Congo. The result is that M23’s attacks have 500,000 people displaced just in January, with over 7 million people internally displaced in three decades and approximately 6 million k*lled between 1998 and 2010.

Continued……Over 60 per cent of the world’s cobalt comes from DRC’s copper belt, yet the country remains one of the world’s poorest, with over 73 per cent of Congolese people living on less than $2.15 a day.

Video credit: @priscilladinatoko (Instagram)

Sources:

https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-cobalt-mining-drc-needs-urgent-attention

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/drc/overview

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo

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

https://republic.com.ng/october-november-2023/congo-cobalt-genocide/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/29/rwanda-backed-rebels-capture-goma/

https://africanarguments.org/2024/04/europes-indifference-to-rwandas-atrocities-is-costing-congolese-lives/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/14/why-us-and-uk-fund-rwanda-while-atrocities-mount-up-in-drc-vava-tampa

AIR BURKINA’S NEW AEROPLANE

Burkina Faso is on a quest toward greater national sovereignty and control over its economy, and its state-owned airline, Air Burkina, plays a role. The company, which experienced economic hardship in early 2024, was back on its feet by the end of the year. And, most excitingly, it purchased its first aircraft since 1983!

For the past four decades, Air Burkina has relied on renting aircraft from other companies. Now, with its own Embraer E190 aircraft, it is one step closer to self-reliance.