Philippe Noudjènoumè | West Africa People’s Organization
Comrades participating in the Pan-African Summit against Imperialism,
The West Africa People’s Organization (WAPO) is pleased to take part in the proceedings of this Pan-African Summit of African Revolutionary and Patriotic Organisations, held in response to the France-Africa summit organised by French imperialism in Kenya.
A France-Africa Summit in an Anglophone country! This is an expression of the fact that imperialism knows no borders of domination, and that likewise, anti-imperialism can know no limits in its expression.
West Africa is the part of Africa with 425 million inhabitants—approximately one third of the African population—covering 6,144,000 km², or one fifth of the total surface area of Africa.
France formerly controlled eight colonies in West Africa, collectively known as French West Africa (AOF): Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea-Conakry. Great Britain controlled four: Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, and Sierra Leone.
Comrades, as has become apparent to the eyes of the world today, the French imperialists are the greatest aggressors of African peoples.
There is a division of roles within NATO, and France has been assigned the role of NATO’s gendarme in Africa.
History readily recalls today that the greatest perpetrators of genocide and suppression of indigenous peoples in the territories now known as the United States, Australia, and New Zealand were principally the English; that the greatest genocidal forces against the indigenous peoples of Latin America were the Hispano-Portuguese. What is less known, or what global hypocrisy pretends to ignore, is that for African peoples, the greatest genocidal criminals against humanity are the French. The gravest matter is this: whereas the crimes of other imperialist powers can be conjugated in the past tense, those of the French dominators remain in the present. Two examples attest to this: the CFA franc issue, where France still clings, in defiance of all ethics, to the maintenance of this colonial currency; and the evident fact that the least developed countries in Africa are the former French colonies.
Africa is unfortunately the greatest victim of this French genocidal policy, which spans at least two centuries:
1. Madagascar Uprising (27 March 1947)
Official death toll: 89,000 killed in just 20 months by French colonial troops.
2. Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata Massacres (Algeria, 8 May 1945)
Estimated toll: 45,000 Algerian nationalists killed.
3. Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962)
Official toll: more than 250,000 deaths.
4. Cameroon War (1955–1962) against the UPC
Death toll: 400,000 people killed by French forces. A veritable genocide. Nationalist leaders Félix-Roland Moumié, Ruben Um Nyobè, and Ernest Ouandié were assassinated.
5. Rwandan Genocide (1994)
Death toll: approximately 800,000 victims.
6. Congo-Brazzaville Civil War (1998)
Death toll: approximately 25,000 deaths.
7. Biafran War (1967–1970)
Death toll: more than 1 million people.
8. Libyan War (2011)
Official death toll: at least 50,000 killed.
France has organised individual political assassinations and targeted killings: Barthélémy Boganda, Ruben Um Nyobé, Tovalou Houénou Quenum, Sylvanus Olympio, Sankara, Gaddafi. It has engineered the “bantustanisation” of Africa by creating micro-states and breaking up every large African federal entity under its domination (AOF, AEF). It has never accepted the existence of the Nigerian federation, which it considers a threat to its domination of its small neighbouring Francophone neo-colonies, and has attempted on multiple occasions to break it apart (see the Biafra War and the French contribution).
9. Currently: the war in the Sahel against the peoples of the AES (Alliance of Sahel States)
The war in the Sahel is the regional reflection of the global war being waged in the world today, with the same protagonists: on one side, the NATO bloc led by American imperialism, with French imperialism as its principal instrument of action and its auxiliaries—the regimes of Morocco, Qatar, and Ukraine; on the other, the BRICS countries, including China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, and North Korea. The victory of the AES peoples, alongside that of Iran, would contribute to the collapse of imperialism worldwide.
Comrades, for some time now, France has made it its mission to extend its tentacles beyond its Francophone sphere of influence. The France-Africa Summit being held in Nairobi, Kenya, is a clear illustration of this.
As evidence, French investments are constantly increasing in Africa outside the French zone—in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and elsewhere.
Today, French imperialism, losing ground in the face of patriotic revolutions—especially in the Sahel—seeks to cling to other footholds. But it is a lost cause.
African peoples are now rising up for the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism in all its forms.
Down with French imperialism! Down with US imperialism!
Long live Pan-Africanism!
Victory or Death!
Forward, we shall overcome!
Full success to the proceedings!
