THE CASE FOR SOCIALISM IN AFRICA

It’s hard to imagine a region more devastated by neoliberal policies than Africa. As African Stream Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo argues, socialism offers a people-centred, culturally sensitive social and economic alternative.

Our founder (@ahmedkaballo on X and @a.kaballo on IG) shared the experience of his Nairobi-based barber, who lost his son as a result of structural issues that led to inadequate healthcare. Essentially, International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies encouraged government underfunding, which led to a doctors’ strike that understaffed the hospital. Despite raising KSh1.3 million ($10,000) for treatment, he couldn’t reach the required Ksh1.7 million ($13,000), leading the hospital to withhold his son’s body until it apparently realised it could not extract any more money from him.

Continued….. That is what neoliberalism means for African people. Global financial institutions like the IMF prescribe policies prioritising austerity over public welfare, forcing people into desperate situations. Ahmed Kaballo argues that the imposition of colonial capitalism has eroded our traditional African values of compassion and community, making the case for a more collective system that aligns with African cultural principles. Ultimately, for Africa to rise, capitalism must fall.

Video credit: @ahmedkaballo8 (TikTok)

Sources

Doctors strike
https://thekenyatimes.com/health/kenyan-doctors-strike

Africa and neoliberalism
https://ricyeboah.com/2016/08/10/the-impact-of-neoliberalism-on-post-colonial-africa-in-the-20th-century

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2018.1502491

RWANDA’S ROLE IN DRC CRISIS EXPLAINED

As we’ve been reporting, the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started in the late 1800s with the Berlin Conference carving up the African continent for European colonial powers. Then, in the late 1990s, a war over the DRC’s estimated $24 trillion in mineral reserves kicked off, backed by the same colonial powers that have funded client/puppet states like Rwanda and Uganda, both of which arm and train the M23 militia that has ravaged the eastern DRC. So far, its campaign to seize mineral-rich territory has forced more than 700,000 Congolese off their lands. That’s not counting the approximately 7 million internally displaced as of 2024. Nor does it consider the 6 million people k*lled as of 2010. For now, we know that M23 entering eastern DRC’s Goma city on 27 January had k*lled at least 3,000 people, but we still don’t have an accurate estimate on the death toll over three decades.

Continued……As musical artist Molombo succinctly put it in this video, despite having no significant mineral deposits, Rwanda is one of the leading exporters of tin, tungsten and tantalum. The speculation has been that Rwanda uses M23 as a front for the Rwandan military, allowing them to operate covertly in the Congo. 

With the surge in violence, the West appears to be cutting ties with Rwanda. The US recently imposed sanctions on a Rwandan official and an M23 spokesperson. The European Parliament recommended freezing aid and suspending a minerals agreement. Plus, the UK has suspended aid to Rwanda. 

Meanwhile, the M23 generated $800,000 per month from taxing coltan in the mining town of Rubaya, which it captured in April 2024.

Video credit: @hey_molombo (IG and TikTok)


Sources
https://cic.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Resurgence-of-the-M23-EN.pdf

https://www.rescue.org/article/conflict-drc-what-you-need-know-about-crisis

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/a-guide-to-the-decades-long-conflict-in-dr-congo
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/06/africa/dr-congo-goma-violence-deaths-intl-hnk/index.html

https://www.theafricareport.com/375904/drc-rwanda-rubaya-coltan-mine-at-the-heart-of-m23-financing

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/wfp-flash-report-crisis-eastern-drc-no2-january-2025

POLISARIO FRONT & ALGERIA SLAM FRENCH MEDDLING

Over the past two weeks, two French officials visited the disputed territory of Western Sahara as guests of Morocco, enraging many, including the Algerian government and the Sahrawi-led Polisario Front liberation movement, amidst Morocco’s occupation of the territory.

The indigenous Sahrawi people claim Western Sahara as their homeland.

On 17 February, Rachida Dati, France’s culture minister of Algerian and Moroccan parentage, visited the disputed Western Sahara, launching a French cultural mission in Laayoune alongside Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid. A week later, on 24 February, French Senate President Gérard Larcher paid a similar visit to the city to affirm France’s support for Morocco’s claim over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. 

Algeria, which hosts Sahrawi refugee camps as it supports the liberation movement, slammed the visit, calling it ‘objectionable on multiple levels.’

Continued….. Many also considered French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit in July 2024 a turning point in bilateral relations, reinforcing the former coloniser’s influence in the territorial dispute.

Accordingly, the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, a Sahrawi-led political party that claims governance over Western Sahara, has also condemned the visits, viewing them as complete disregard for international law. In a statement on social media, the Algerian foreign ministry said the move 'reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonisation process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled.' The visits spotlight coloniser France’s struggle to maintain its waning influence in Africa by directly supporting Morocco’s occupation.

On 30 July 2024, France became one of the few countries to recognise Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara.

The UN has classified Western Sahara as a non-self-governing region. While Algeria insists on a referendum in Western Sahara that the UN has called for since 1991, Morocco has continued denying the Sahrawi people their right to vote as it occupies the land. In October 2024, the UN Security Council called for parties to reach a ‘lasting and mutually acceptable solution.’

Sources:

https://www.atalayar.com/en/articulo/politics/french-senate-reaffirms-support-for-morocco-over-western-sahara/20250225113203211672.html

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2590760/middle-east

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250227-french-official-affirms-support-for-moroccos-western-sahara-plan/

https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20250217-french-minister-historic-western-sahara-visit-back-moroccan-sovereignty

https://minurso.unmissions.org/background

https://apnews.com/article/morocco-france-recognize-western-sahara-65856623c3fe5f565583de2d521570ed

DRC: WHO’S BEHIND BUKAVU GRENADE ‘TERROR’ ATTACK?

A grenade explosion at a rally organised by M23 rebels in eastern DRC’s second city of Bukavu has reportedly killed dozens and injured around 60. The Rwanda-backed militia captured the capital of South Kivu province on 16 February.

There are conflicting eyewitness accounts of what happened. According to one version, a suicide bomber had intended to blow himself up along with a convoy of M23 leaders. Others say that the grenade was thrown by an M23 soldier intending to disperse a group of young resistance fighters who were denouncing a speech by M23 leader Corneille Nangaa.

Continued……M23, which has a long history of false-flag operations, is pinning the blame on the Congolese government, while Kinshasa says 'foreign forces' were involved.

But it’s really a question of who controls Bukavu. M23 boasted about the Congolese army 'fleeing' the city, making it de facto responsible for security. Let us know your thoughts.

Sources

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/crime/general/dr-congo-crisis-death-toll-from-bukavu-terror-attack-rises-to-13-says-m23/ar-AA1zXSqk

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/27/blasts-gunfire-kill-several-at-m23-rally-in-eastern-dr-congo

https://apnews.com/article/congo-m23-rebels-bukavu-southkivu-14527185304baa9a5e40eff4cfccba85

https://www.irinsider.org/sub-saharan-africa-/3w322tz4r44s8zp-ezmt5-7223k-zrbkr-2d9wr-ww4nr-r277f-enm3r-43728-64z8y-8p2jd

https://www.fides.org/en/news/76086-AFRICA_DR_CONGO_There_are_three_versions_of_today_s_attack_in_Bukavu

This week marks 140 years since European colonial powers divided Africa. For three months, starting on 15 November 1884, colonialists from almost every European country, the Ottoman Empire, and the United States negotiated in Berlin, Germany, over who would control our home continent, with no African voices present to challenge the butchery.

This notorious event, which finalised on 26 February 1885, carved up 80 per cent of our continent. However, by 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained untouched. The Berlin conference took place after the ‘scramble for Africa’ began and shaped how people today view Africa: As a reservoir of natural resources and our people as sources of labour. Slavery, anyone?

Continued……Britain, amongst the principal colonisers of Africa, claimed an almost continuous stretch of land from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo, controlling what is now South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, ‘British East Africa’ (now Kenya, Uganda, and Zanzibar [now part of Tanzania]), Sudan, South Sudan, and Egypt. Britain also controlled areas now known as Nigeria and Ghana (then dubbed the ‘Gold Coast’), Sierra Leone and the Gambia.

France claimed vast territories stretching from Mauritania to the Central African Republic (then called ‘French West Africa’), along with Gabon and the Republic of Congo (‘French Equatorial Africa’). It also controlled the Indian Ocean archipelagos of Madagascar and Comoros.

Under King Leopold II, Belgium ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘Belgian Congo’), while Portugal established its presence in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. 

Italy’s territories included Somalia (‘Italian Somaliland’), while Germany controlled Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania), Namibia (‘German Southwest Africa’) and Tanzania (‘German East Africa’). Spain, with the smallest claim, took Equatorial Guinea (‘Rio Muni’), plus what is now Western Sahara and a sliver of Morocco.

Perhaps it is time for a Pan-African conference to eliminate colonial borders, paving the way for a future in which we can reclaim our identity, agency, and land.

Sources

https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/partition-africa/

https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/HTML-Articles/Origins/Unit7/The-Berlin-Conference/950L

https://archiv.diplo.de/arc-en/the-political-archive/general-act-2684414

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/11/15/berlin-1884-remembering-the-conference-that-divided-africa

https://www.erih.net/how-it-started/slavery-and-colonialism

https://www.britannica.com/place/British-East-Africa

AFRICANS BID FAREWELL TO LAST INDEPENDENCE GIANT

A sombre mood engulfed the Namibian capital, Windhoek, on Friday, 28 February, 2025, as thousands gathered to give a final salute to the nation’s founding father and liberation hero, Sam Nujoma, who died earlier this month. Namibians, African heads of state and political organisations came to Windhoek’s Independence Stadium to bid farewell to Nujoma, whose death marks the end of a generation of African leaders who led their nations to freedom from colonial settler regimes.

Born in 1929, Nujoma emerged as a prominent labour activist in the 1950s in the territory then known as South West Africa, ruled by apartheid South Africa.

In 1959, Nujoma and Andimba Herman Toivo ya Toivo, a policeman with the South African Railways, co-founded the Ovamboland People’s Congress (OPC) to fight for the rights of African workers who faced abuse at the hands of the White colonial settlers.

Continued……The following year, the OPC was renamed as the South West People’s Organisation (SWAPO). Nujoma immediately took the reins of the organisation and would spend the majority of the next three decades in exile, mostly in Zambia, where SWAPO’s headquarters were.


He also spent a considerable amount of time in Angola, where the organisation’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLAN), established bases in 1966 when it launched an armed struggle against the apartheid regime. At least 20,000 Africans were killed in the war of independence between the beginning of the struggle in 1966 and the late 1980s when negotiations led by the United Nations and other regional organisations led to a ceasefire between SWAPO and the apartheid regime.

In 1989, after nearly 30 years away, Nujoma returned to Namibia. Months later, he won the country’s first democratic elections and was sworn in as Namibia’s first post-independence leader in March 1990. He remained in office until 2005, when he stepped down. He has been credited with maintaining the country’s economic and political stability.

Sources

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/southern-africa/namibia-founding-president-nujoma-dies-at-95-4919380

WESTERN MEDIA COMPLICIT IN GAZA GENOCIDE

In this 14 February interview with Netherlands-based NGO The Rights Forum, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, explained why Western corporate media is complicit in Israel’s war crimes and should be held accountable.

Mainstream Western media has proven to be biased in its coverage of issues and events worldwide, such as in how it has claimed H*mas committed mass r*pe on 7 October 2023 despite no evidence. Independent outlets like the Grayzone (@thegrayzonenews) exposed these claims as false.

Israel’s onslaught of Palestinians in Gaza had k*lled an estimated 186,000 people as of July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal. Moreover, 44 per cent of fatalities were children, as per an Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) November 2024 report. 

Continued……Despite the world watching what many describe as a gen*cide unfold in real time, Western media-perpetuated Israeli propaganda attempts to present Israel as anything other than a settler-colonial power fighting an unjust war with the backing of the US, UK and other Western powers.

Video credit: @TheRightsForum (X) / @the_rights_forum (IG)

Sources:

https://institute.aljazeera.net/en/ajr/tags/western-media-bias

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/5/failing-gaza-pro-israel-bias-uncovered-behind-the-lens-of-western-media

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/column/2024/02/12/decolonise-how-biased-gaza-coverage-tip-of-media-iceberg

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/8/nearly-70-percent-of-deaths-in-gaza-are-women-and-children-un

BATTLE OF ADWA ANNIVERSARY

Following the 1884 Berlin Conference, European powers went on a brutal rampage, claiming African territories for themselves. Part of Italy’s piece of the pie was modern-day Ethiopia. However, their colonial onslaught was stopped dead in its tracks after a well-equipped and trained Ethiopian army defeated them on 1 March 1896. Today, we mark the 129th anniversary of the historic Battle of Adwa.

While the battle started on 29 February, tensions between the Ethiopians and Italians had simmered for years. Since the mid-1880s, the budding European colonial power had established a presence in the then-seaside village of Massawa, in modern-day Eritrea. Once consolidated along the coast, the Italians began occupying inland territories. By 1890, they had declared Eritrea their own.

With nothing to halt their insatiable desire for more African land, repeated violent incursions took the Italians all the way to Ethiopia.

Continued……In 1894, Ras Mangasha, the ruler of the Tigray region, mobilised his people against the invaders. Unfortunately, Italy’s army subdued his efforts. The rapid colonial expansion prompted Menilek II, who had been crowned Ethiopian Emperor in 1889, to start mobilising the nation for resistance.

By September 1895, a formidable force of up to 100,000 troops had been assembled. Marching with purpose and determination, the soldiers began retaking territory - but avoided major confrontations with the invading army.

That changed on 29 February 1896 when General Oreste Baraterie, commander of the occupation force and acting on the orders of Rome, attacked the Ethiopians.

By the afternoon of 1 March, Menelik’s forces had routed Italy’s army. It was a decisive blow, one that sent Rome’s ambitions retreating back to Eritrea.

Ever since, Ethiopia’s resolute victory has served as a beacon of African resistance to European colonialism.

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

BURKINA FASO RAMPS UP FOOD PRODUCTION

Following a people-backed 2022 military coup d’état that ousted a Western-aligned leader, Burkina Faso ramped industrialisation to put food sovereignty at the forefront of its development goals. This includes launching multiple food-processing factories to transform locally grown tomatoes into tomato paste, wheat into flour, and nuts and seeds into oil.

In this video, President Ibrahim Traoré (@capitaineib226 on X) inaugurates the International Deli Agence Production Industries (ADIPROD Industries) industrial complex in 2024. The complex produces refined cooking oils from peanuts, sesame seeds, and soybeans. The state encouraged the private company to establish a factory to help the country reduce its dependence on imports, export its products and strengthen its economic sovereignty.

Continued…….. For decades, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank pushed structural adjustment programmes that kept Burkina Faso in a state of dependency, exporting raw materials while importing finished products at inflated prices.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Burkina Faso was the world’s ninth-largest producer of sesame seeds, with 247,156 tonnes in 2023. Yet, it generated no sesame seed oil. 

According to the US Drug Administration, Burkina Faso has produced 575,000 tonnes of peanuts in recent years but no peanut products like oil or butter.

Burkina Faso produced 212,294 tonnes of rice in 2023. 

It also grew 122,794 tonnes of soybeans that year, but no records show soybean oil production. 

Once Burkina Faso transforms nuts and seeds into cooking oils, it will be able to energise its agricultural sector and growing industries to support decolonisation and grow its exports.

Burkina Faso is not ‘poor.’ Rather, it had been deliberately pillaged. Now, it is taking back control of its destiny.

Video credits: @sigbf (IG + X) / @fabso7_bf (IG + X)

Sources

https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL

https://www.atlasbig.com/en-us/countries-peanut-production

https://pip.worldbank.org/country-profiles/BFA

https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/countrysummary/Default.aspx?id=UV&crop=Peanut

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

CONGO WAR BIRTHED RWANDA’S MINERAL INDUSTRY

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has long claimed that his country’s military forays into the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are necessitated by security concerns. Kagame asserts that he wants to neutralise threats to Rwanda posed by the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) - perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide, who fled into Congo.

Claude Gatebuke, a Rwanda Genocide survivor, argues that Kigali’s excuse for involvement in DR Congo is a mask for a chance to plunder the country’s vast mineral wealth - valued at an astonishing $24 trillion. A significant share of Congolese minerals is funnelled into profitable global markets via neighbouring Rwanda, whose mining sector picked up speed around 1996, when the First Congo War broke out.

Continued……Although Rwanda possesses a relatively modest mineral portfolio compared with the DRC, it reported mining revenues exceeding $1.1 billion in 2023, marking a 43% year-on-year increase. Particularly striking is the data concerning 3T minerals: tin (cassiterite), tungsten (wolframite), and tantalum (coltan). A 2021 report from the US Geological Survey revealed that the United States sourced 36% of its tantalum imports from Rwanda, the highest share among global suppliers, while only 7% came from the DRC.

UN reports highlight Rwanda’s role as a conduit for illicitly and violently obtained Congolese mineral resources, a fact that Kagame has openly admitted. A December 2024 UN experts’ report noted that after the Kigali-sponsored M23 rebel group seized Rubaya in east DRC, home to the region’s largest coltan mine, it imposed substantial taxes on the extracted minerals and ensured their transfer to Rwanda.

During a ministerial swearing-in ceremony in November 2022, Kagame remarked, “Some people come from Congo, whether they smuggle or go through the right channel, they bring minerals, but most of it goes through here but does not stay here. It goes to Dubai, to Brussels, Tel Aviv…”

Sources

https://www.mining.com/web/congo-rebel-gains-to-boost-illicit-mineral-trade-through-rwanda-analysts-say/

https://docs.un.org/en/s/2024/969

https://amsterdamandpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024.04.25-AP-DRC-Blood-Minerals.pdf

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021.pdf

https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/rwanda-mining-and-minerals

https://youtu.be/Opf0b_svQl8?t=3444

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/2/blood-minerals-what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-the-eu-rwanda-supply-deal

https://www.forbesafrica.com/opinion/op-ed/2023/03/29/rwandas-mining-sector-is-poised-for-even-more-growth-as-commodity-prices-continue-to-rise/

U.S. FUNDED SOMALIA’S AL-SHABAAB TERRORISTS

Talk of US involvement in Somalia, and the first images that come to mind are drones, firefights, bombs, death and destruction. ‘Black Hawk Down,’ anyone?

Yet, recent reports suggest that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been channelling millions of dollars to the Somali extremist group, Al-Shabaab. 

During a US House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee hearing on 26 February, Gregg Roman, executive director of Middle East Forum, disclosed that Al-Shabaab is one of many terrorist groups benefiting from US foreign aid.

The US has a long history with Somalia that dates back to funding the government of President Mohammed Siad Barre, who ruled the country between 1969 and 1991.
The US began bombing Somalia in the early 1990s following a Somali coalition ousting Barre. Since 2001, every US administration—Democrat and Republican—has continued that bombing campaign.