Bulletin Spring 2005 No
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Bulletin Spring 2005 No. 70 Africa and Iraq: Making the Connections Page Editorial: Making the Links between Africa and the War in Iraq Bill Martin and Meredeth Turshen __________________________________________________ 1 From Stealing to Robbing: Globalization and the US War Economy George Caffentzis _______________________________________________________________ 4 On the Roots of War: Theses on The War in Iraq Silvia Federici __________________________________________________________________ 8 Kerr-McGee Corporation in occupied Western Sahara - Oil Blocking Path to Freedom? Washington Office on Africa _____________________________________________________ 14 Shareholders focus of campaign to end Kerr-McGee’s involvement in Occupied Western Sahara Press Release, Oslo, Norway, Feb 28th 2005 _________________________________________ 16 Chad’s Oil: Miracle or Mirage? Following the Money in Africa’s Newest Petro-State Ian Gary and Nikki Reisch _______________________________________________________ 18 What Intellectuals Do in Peacetime Asma Abdel Halim _____________________________________________________________ 22 Manufacturing the Homeland Security Campus and Cadre William G. Martin ______________________________________________________________ 27 ACAS Resolution on the Study of Africa After 9/11, 7 November 2004 _________________ 33 ASA Reply, 11 February 2005 ______________________________________________ 34 ACAS Reply to ASA, 10 March 2005 ________________________________________ 36 Recent ACAS Alerts ACAS Alert: Twice a Victim, first in Haiti, then in the US, 19 November 2004 ________ 37 ACAS Alert: Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Njeeri Wa Ngugi, 19 January 2005 ____________ 40 ACAS Alert: Defend Academic Freedom in Botswana, 22 February 2005 ____________ 43 ACAS Alert: The Story of Aster Yohannes and the Struggle for Democracy in Eritrea, November 2004 __________________________________________________________ 44 ISSN 1051-08442 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 Editorial: Making the Links between Africa and the War on Iraq Bill Martin and Meredeth Turshen This issue of the ACAS Bulletin grows US Deputy Secretary of Defense, to the out of a northeast regional conference Presidency of the World Bank. organized by Educators to Stop the War held in New York City on 5 March 2005, Militarization for the US state, now under in which a number of us participated the guise of protecting us from terrorism, under the ACAS banner--literally: the is most often about protecting oil fields original hand-stitched ACAS banner still and pipelines. And oil, most of us agree, lives! The conference was an electrifying is the original reason for this spurious event, mobilizing student and teacher war.(1) As we have detailed in previous activists from grade schools to issues of the ACAS Bulletin (60/61, Fall universities, and from across the region. 2001, and 64, Winter 2002/2003), Africa It seemed to us, meeting together after the has been supplying more and more of US conference, that it was imperative to oil requirements, and there is more and propel this work forward. As a more US prospecting for oil in Africa and contribution to this effort we present here its surrounding waters. The United States four workshop presentations by our is expected to receive as much as 25 members, as well as continuing works by percent of its petroleum imports from ACAS and our broader membership. Africa within the next ten years, leading to the need to “protect” African states, The links between Africa and the war in most often corrupt and militarized ones, Iraq should not be difficult to draw for and support their own wars on “terrorist” readers of the Bulletin. ACAS has for enemies. This has the potential to turn years now been tracking the US role in Africa into a new “middle east” for the the militarization of Africa (see our United States, with all the tragic website http://acas.prairienet.org and the implications that has for Africans work of our member, Daniel Volman). confronting imperial states to the North This extends well beyond the use, for and increasingly repressive regimes at example, of Djibouti as a staging area for home. the invasion of Iraq, or South Africa’s supply of arms to the US and UK Our first articles in this issue tackle these militaries. Indeed the militarization of long-term trends. In “From Stealing to Djibouti is but one small sign of the much Robbing: Globalization and the US War greater thrust into the continent by the US Economy, ” George Caffentzis charts the military, the growing embrace between links between oil and the US military. A the US military and African militaries, distinctive feature of the war economy, he and the militarization of the overall writes, is that it must satisfy demands that relationship between Africa and the US. are temporally indeterminate and come If we needed any final confirmation of from a ubiquitous spatial field. This this trend, it is surely provided by Bush’s marks a shift from the structural nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, currently adjustment model of the 1980s and early 1990s to direct military control today. 1 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 Unlike the Cold War, which put a limit on ruled that the people of Western Sahara the regions where the US military could have the right to self-determination. be deployed, and put a cap on the future Morocco, which occupies much of the investment required to counter the well- Western Sahara and is seeking to annex it defined adversary's investment, the new as part of “Greater Morocco,” has denied war economy requires a new military the Sahrawi people this right. The model that dictates the deployment of US Polisario Front, which was formed in troops throughout the planet. “Their job is 1973 to fight Spanish colonialism, leads to occupy an unprecedented multiplicity their struggle. The US government, not of new bases controlling strategic areas of unexpectedly, is siding with Morocco, its wealth (which in this age often is spelled long-time ally. "O-I-L") and pressuring an ever- increasing multitude of recalcitrant states From the Western Sahara we turn to to ‘reform,' consequences be damned.” Chad, which we reported on in 2001 and A second general article, “On the Roots of again in 2002/03 (ACAS Bulletins 60/61 War: Theses on The War in Iraq,” by and 64). Ian Gary and Nikki Reisch ask: is Silvia Federici, examines the social, oil a miracle or a mirage? Can oil economic, and political effects of war. revenues really transform this poverty- “War defeats social movements, stricken land? Chad, described as Africa’s expropriates people from their lands, and newest petro-state, is a central African gives capital control over the planet's country marked by corruption, instability, natural resources: oil, water, minerals, and human rights abuses. Their land, and seeds.” It is not surprising, she conclusion is that, despite the support notes, that the map of military received from the World Bank and other intervention is today, to a large extent, donors, the country remains unprepared to also the map of oil. “One of the main manage the complexities of an economy objectives for international capital is the increasingly dominated by oil, adding to liberalization of the oil industry, oil being concerns about the stability of African oil- the only vital commodity that is not exporting countries. Billions of dollars are privatized.” falling outside the revenue transparency safeguards, the government has limited These articles are followed by two case capacity to spend the money effectively, studies. We first present two short pieces and there are ongoing problems with on oil and the actions of Kerr-McGee human rights and the rule of law. Gary Corporation in occupied Western Sahara. and Reisch are concerned that poverty The first, “Oil Blocking Path to reduction objectives may not be achieved. Freedom?” comes from the Washington (2) Office on Africa; the second, “Shareholders Action” comes from ACAS A third set of articles tackles the impact of member Richard Knight. They illustrate the war in Iraq on African studies, Africa the extraordinary US pressure on Africa’s scholars and students, and freedom of oil producing nations, which is part of the speech at home. We began to look at same (militarized) energy policy that these issues in our last Bulletin, dictated the invasion of Iraq. Western “Academic Freedom under Attack” (69, Sahara is Africa’s last colony. Formerly a Winter 2004). colony of Spain, the World Court has 2 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 Asma Abdel Halim wonders what reapply the lessons of past victories. The intellectuals do in peacetime. Recognizing text of the Resolution is followed by the that one must always begin one's correspondence we have had with the resistance at home against powers that as secretariat of the African Studies a citizen one can influence, she laments a Association (ASA) concerning the ACAS trend increasingly observed everywhere: Resolution, which was passed at the last “a fluent nationalism, masking itself as ASA membership meeting in New patriotism and moral concern, has taken Orleans on 11 November 2004 by a large over critical consciousness, which then majority of those in attendance. puts loyalty to one's ‘nation’ before everything.” At that point, she concludes, ASA, in responding to ACAS three there is only the treason of the months later, rejected all of our intellectuals and complete moral suggestions, including the very specific bankruptcy. ones that called for open discussion and debate of the impact of 9/11 on African Bill Martin takes a broad look at the studies, formal ASA sponsorship of impact of the “War on Terror” (sic) on plenary sessions to discuss these matters, our campuses in his article, “Cloning and ASA sponsorship of special issues of Condi, or Manufacturing Your Homeland African Issues and the African Studies Security Campus and Cadre.” He traces Review. In our reply we requested ASA the launching of large-scale initiatives to to conduct a formal poll of the create a cadre and set of institutions that membership on the resolution, to be penetrate our campuses and link them to distributed by secret ballot in a regular national security, military, and mailing of Association materials.