Miguel Alexander Escobar | Rafael Aguiñada Carranza Inter-Union Coordinating Committee (CIRAC, El Salvador)
Africa at the Crossroads of World War III
Dear comrades, brothers and sisters in struggle from mother Africa and the world:
We come to denounce an uncomfortable truth for Western capitalists: mother Africa is today the laboratory of imperialism in its most criminal phase, and also the most dynamic front of the global anti-imperialist revolution.
In the context of the hybrid Third World War, already declared by NATO against the peoples who refuse to submit, Africa has gone from being “the forgotten continent” to being the supreme strategic prize. From French coups in the Sahel to NATO’s displacement towards Kenya, Somalia, and the Great Lakes region: imperialism changes its mask, but not its essence.
The Anti-Popular Character of the France-Africa Summit: A Neo-Colonial Circus
Comrades, the so-called “France-Africa Summit” is not a space for cooperation. It is the annual parliament of plunder. Each edition—whether in Paris, in Brazzaville, or in a “renewed” format—has three fundamental objectives:
1. To re-legitimise the French military presence after the expulsions from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. France no longer speaks of “anti-terrorist operations”, but of “flexible alliances” and “logistical bases.” But they remain the same troops that bomb peasants and steal uranium in Niger.
2. To impose a new generation of collaborationist leaders trained in French elite schools (ENA, Sciences Po), who defend the CFA franc—that colonial tax disguised as currency—and block any process of autonomous industrialisation.
3. To fragment African civil society through NGOs financed by the European Union and USAID, which demobilise popular movements under the discourse of “good governance” and “conflict prevention.”
Concrete example: The last “France-Africa 2024” summit in Paris deliberately excluded movements from the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Instead, it invited prime ministers who have privatised water, education, and public health in exchange for IMF loans.
Conclusion: The summit is a mechanism for disciplining African elites. Its anti-popular character is structural: it does not negotiate with peoples, it negotiates with buyers of national sovereignty.
The Exploitation of Africa and the Neo-Colonial Policies of US and French Imperialism
To understand the current exploitation, we must recall Kwame Nkrumah: “Neo-colonialism is the worst form of imperialism. It does not mean independence, but the subcontracting of plunder to local elites.”
A) The French Model: “Absentee Capitalism”
France maintains in West and Central Africa:
• The CFA franc: African nations deposit 50% of their reserves in the French Treasury. In exchange, Paris controls their monetary policy and charges them interest. This costs Africa some 5 billion dollars annually in hidden transfers.
• Control of strategic resources: Uranium from Niger (for French nuclear power plants), oil from Gabon and Congo, coltan from the Central African Republic (for the European military and technology industry).
• Permanent military bases: Although “expelled” from Mali and Burkina Faso, France maintains 15 bases in Djibouti, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Senegal, and Chad. Each base is an intelligence centre against popular movements.
B) The US Model: Militarisation and Resource Appropriation
The United States has learned the French lesson. Its strategy in Africa is more brutal and less disguised:
• AFRICOM (US Africa Command): Created in 2007, it currently has 29 military bases in Africa (Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Niger until 2023, Ghana, etc.). Its official mission: “anti-terrorism.” Its real mission: control of maritime routes (Gulf of Guinea, Horn of Africa) and extraction of critical minerals (lithium in Zimbabwe, cobalt in DRC, rare earths in Tanzania).
• The “African Free Trade Agreement” as a Trojan horse: Washington promotes “free” trade to destroy nascent local industries and flood the continent with subsidised agricultural products (US rice, maize, frozen chicken), ruining African peasants.
• Direct violence: The massacre of civilians in Somalia by US drones, the kidnapping of popular leaders in Ethiopia, and support for puppet governments that suppress protests against the cost of living.
Key fact: In 2024, US companies extracted minerals from Africa worth 78 billion dollars, but paid only 1.2 billion in local taxes. 98% of the wealth fled the continent.
The Shift in Imperialist Strategies in Africa: From West Africa to East Africa
Comrades, imperialism is not static. When defeated on one front, it shifts to another. The rise of anti-imperialist struggles in the Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) and the expulsion of France has forced a strategic relocation of the NATO bloc towards East Africa and the Great Lakes region.
Why East Africa?
1. Control of the Indian Ocean: From Djibouti to South Africa, passing through Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, this strip controls the oil routes of the Gulf, trade with Asia, and the global internet submarine cables.
2. Massive gas and lithium reserves: Tanzania (helium and gas), Mozambique (liquefied natural gas), Kenya (lithium and rare earths), DRC (cobalt critical for electric vehicles). The European “green” energy transition depends on these minerals.
3. Relative weakness of popular movements: While the Sahel has built revolutionary governments, East Africa still suffers from fragmentation among neo-colonial elites, artificially fomented ethnic conflicts (DRC, South Sudan, Ethiopia), and a strong presence of imperialist bases.
Concrete cases of displacement:
• Kenya: The US negotiated a defence agreement in 2024 that permits the use of Kenyan ports for naval operations against Yemen and Somalia. It has also installed a drone base at Manda Bay.
• Somalia: NATO has turned Somalia into its “African Afghanistan”: 3,000 African Union soldiers (paid by the EU), US bases at Baledogle, and Turkish drones under Qatari control.
• Tanzania: The government of Samia Suluhu has signed IMF agreements that include the privatisation of the port of Dar es Salaam.
• DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo): Rwanda and Uganda (western partners) plunder coltan and cobalt from eastern Congo with logistical support from UN and EU bases.
Lesson: Imperialism does not retreat, it reconfigures. Now it strikes in Kenya, and throughout East Africa.
The Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Fascist Struggles in Kenya and Africa
A) The Revolutionary Sahel: A Beacon for Africa
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), have:
• Militarily expelled France and the US.
• Abolished the CFA franc and created their own currencies.
• Launched mass literacy programmes, nationalisation of uranium mines, and land distribution to landless peasants.
• Declared open war on jihadist groups which, as we know, were created by the CIA and the DGSE after the fall of Gaddafi.
B) South Africa: The Struggle Against Zionism and Renewed Apartheid
The African National Congress (ANC) and left-wing movements (EFF, COSATU trade unions) have made South Africa the global centre of the Palestinian cause, filing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Furthermore, the #ZumaMustFall movement and mining strikes show that economic apartheid remains intact.
C) Kenya: The Internal Front
In Kenya, imperialism acts with two faces:
• The soft face: Promotion of “tech startups” (Silicon Savannah) which are in reality centres for data exploitation and precarious labour for US companies (Amazon, Google, Microsoft).
• The hard face: Repression of the landless peasant movement in Laikipia (where British landowners stole land in the 19th century and remain there), criminalisation of the opposition, assassination of environmental activists who denounce evictions to build ports and pipelines.
Recent example: In 2024, the Ruto government, with IMF financing, attempted to privatise Nairobi airport (JKIA) to hand it over to an Indian company allied with NATO. The response was a general strike by aviation workers and mass protests that forced a withdrawal. That is concrete anti-imperialist struggle!
Fascism in Kenya: They do not wear brown shirts, but they use riot police with Israeli financing, anti-terrorism laws to imprison trade unionists, and a bought press that calls protesters “violent mobs.” African fascism is the criminalisation of popular protest.
The Nature and Tasks of the African Revolution
Following Cabral, Fanon, and Sankara, we must define the revolutionary process in 21st-century Africa:
“It is not a coup d’état, nor a change of elites, nor the installation of a single party. It is the radical rupture with the dependent capitalist mode of production, the recovery of collective means of production, the construction of popular power from the villages, the factories, and the shanty towns.”
Revolutionary characteristics:
1. Anti-imperialist by nature: Because our poverty is not natural—it was created by external plunder.
2. Anti-fascist by necessity: Because imperialism does not leave voluntarily; it will use state terrorism, paramilitaries, and ethnic wars to divide us.
3. Socialist by horizon: There is no possible “African capitalism.” Global capitalism needs a poor periphery. The only way out is collective control of land, mines, factories, and finances.
4. Pan-Africanist by strategy: No national revolution succeeds in isolation. We need a Federation of African People’s Republics, with a single currency, a unified army, and central planning.
Comrades, World War III is no longer a metaphor. It is the war of NATO against the BRICS+, against the revolutionary Sahel, against Palestine, against Cuba, against all the peoples who make this planet a place worth living in.
I conclude with Thomas Sankara, assassinated by French imperialism in 1987, but alive in every peasant who reclaims their land:
“The imperialists consider us their backyard. Let us build our own front line!”
Comrades of Nairobi, of Kenya, of East Africa, of the entire continent:
Imperialism is bleeding. It lost Afghanistan, it lost the Sahel, it will lose Ukraine, it will lose Taiwan. Its only strength is our disunity. Its only weapon is our fear.
World War III will not be decided by missiles in the Arctic, but by the peoples who rise up in the Global South. And Africa will be the hammer that breaks the last chain.
Long live the African revolution!
Down with imperialism and fascism!
For a socialist, united, and sovereign Africa!