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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, best men are known to ring-fence their interests and defend them to the last stain of their blood. There, the best man is he who, against all odds, crafts a policy that underpins his interests and then structures tactics that keep his empire well pro- tected.

The empire is about his wealth, which is defined as women, children, land, cattle, goats, property and little everything else.

Suffice to say, in the village, knowledge is like manhood, every man carries one, the prolificacy of it being the ability to use it. Call it fecundity!

Now Africa, this great land of plenty, has fast become one village, with vast untapped resources, that has left the entire world sleeping with one eye open and another closed.

No superpower in the world, no great economy in the world can afford to slip into comfortable slumber, before it is assured of its bite on the African resource cake.

The United States of America and its allies have crafted policies and strategies that enable them to get to the core of exploiting Africa’s resources and among the strategies is military hegemony, disguised as military co-operation, through Africom and NATO. These two superior military outfits are tools for penetration, conquering and express access to resources

It is therefore a fallacy for the United States of America and its allies to think that the majority of Africans are fools who cannot see that their interest in the governance of the continent has nothing to do with democracy, good governance and accountability, but about how to have access to Africa’s re- sources.

There is nothing like military co-operation with African governments to protect the people, there is nothing like pro-democratic forces to liberate Africa. All that is brazenly dangerous and fetid day dreaming premised on the warped thinking that Africans are inferior and therefore unable to see the truth behind the smokescreen.

This should be a wake-up call for the African Union which should establish itself as an organisation able to secure a leading role in settlement of conflicts in Africa and in the fair trade and exploitation of resources.

The first step is for African leaders to cooperate with AU in resolving political, economic and other problems of the continent, and also create general consensus on approaches to the internal political problems, excluding the interference from Western countries.

AFRICOM should never be allowed to sink its roots in Africa. Africans should be able to resolve their problems and the AU Standby Brigade and ultimately fully-fledged AU army is the way to go. Once Africom sets up base, no one will be able to remove it. Remember the biblical camel story?

AU Standy Force
It will be virtually impossible to get rid of “Big Brother” that wants to control everything around, once he is in your house.

We all know how the US and its allies have used fighting terrorism as a way of getting access to rich resources. While fighting terrorism is a noble idea it is abused as a pretext for mass robbery of native resources. Just a pretext! Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq – for how many years is US fighting terrorism there? Is there any positive out- come?

The only result is a huge mess in social and economic situation of these countries. This should certainly prompt the formation of AU Standby Force, the one that should be deployed to Africa’s “hot- spots” with a simultaneous withdrawal of all Western military contingents from Africa. That should promote normalisation of the situation on the continent. The exception should be made just for the missions, operating under the UN and AU aegis.

Suffice to say, Africa needs to be respected and that respect should be reflected in all international organisations and structures of the United Nations. The “small boy” tag must be deleted and Africa should be given its rightful space in deed and thoughts. Africa still has the resources and therefore cannot escape the attraction of rabid fortune seekers as represented by the United States of America and Western Europe.