The Coming BRICS Summit: The ending of US worldwide domination

The Coming BRICS Summit: The ending of US worldwide domination
An African Perspective
Part 1

South Africa will host the 15th BRICS Summit from 22nd-24th August 2023, with the theme;

"BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development  and Inclusive Multilateralism"

Due to the current world situation, an otherwise routine conference, promises to be an event of historical significance. The catalyst has been the Donbass War and the rapid de-dollarisation which has occurred as a consequence of that war.

Most of the world's media, and even some Communist Parties infected with the virus of liberalism, have behaved as if the Donbass War and de-dollarisation are separate issues, but really the issue is one:

The ending of US worldwide domination, economically, militarily and culturally.

This, however, raises the question;

How will the world conduct its business from now on?

There has been a huge problem of understanding by social pacifists who have long complained about US/NATO militaristic terrorism but have cringed in fear when Russia, faced with an attempt to destroy it, to threaten the integrity of the Russian Federation, has taken on the USA and its NATO allies on the field of battle, in a war in which the USA has vowed to "fight to the last Ukrainian."

The standard message from most of the media has been about the "territorial integrity of Ukraine" and the "unjustified Russian invasion of Ukraine". Even, "Putin's War" ⸺ as if President Vladimir Putin had woken up one day and said, "I have an idea! Let's go and invade Ukraine!"

Many are confused by idealistic principles detached from material reality, or as in the case of some dogmatic Eurocommunists, search the pages of Lenin and try to liken this current situation to that of the inter-imperialist First World War. They have become incapable of understanding the foundation of historical materialist analysis ⸺ that is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions.

In this situation, let us look at the historical background of the current world situation starting with how the USA came to dominate the whole world.

US Expansionism

In 2019, former President Jimmy Carter described the USA as "the most warlike nation in the history of the world." He went on to mention that the USA has only had 16 years when it has not been at war since its formation.

Thirteen British colonies on the east coast of North America, declared Independence in 1776 becoming the first 13 States of the United State of America. The USA then expanded westwards until it reached the Pacific Ocean on the west. In doing so, the US systematically and deliberately exterminated almost all of the indigenous people, the so-called ‘American Indians'.

US duplicity began with the Declaration of independence in 1776 which states:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This statement was penned by Thomas Jefferson, a slave-owner and later third US President; the first US President, George Washington was also a slave-owner. This uplifting paragraph clearly referred to neither African slaves nor to the people we now call ‘Native Americans'.

The US concept of ‘Human Rights' in the 21st century is clearly as hypocritical as the Declaration of Independence in the 18th century.

In 1803, the United States conducted the Louisiana Purchase of land from France, This extended from the current State of Louisiana in the south northwards to what is now the Canadian border, but in reality, France had only occupied a small part of this territory. The rest was occupied by indigenous people who had no say in the matter.

In 1819, the USA purchased Florida from Spain, but already, US settlers had already occupied much of northern Florida. Then commenced a war of genocide against the native Seminoles a mixed people composed of original local inhabitants, indigenous people from the USA fleeing from European settlers and runaway black slaves.

In a process that lasted from 1836 to 1848, Mexico ceded more than one third of its territory to the United States, this land was taken by military force and included the States of Texas and California and everything in between.

Alaska was purchased by the USA from Russia in 1867. Alaska became a State in 1959

In 1893 the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown. Hawaii became a State in 1959.

This, in brief, was the expansion of the USA from the original 13 States to the current 50.

In 1826, President Monroe enunciated the Monroe Doctrine which in essence stated the intention of the USA to control the whole of the western hemisphere, the Americas, while leaving the rest of the world to competing European powers. Effectively, US control of Latin America lasted until Hugo Chavez became President in Venezuela in 2002 to be joined by Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2006 and others, representing various shades of socialist, social democratic and anti-imperialist ideology thus initiating the ‘Pink Tide'. Cuba has remained an isolated haven of freedom from US domination from 1959 and has been made to suffer for it, as were the Nicaraguan people for daring to overthrow the ownership of their country by the Somoza family in 1979.

The settlement of released slaves in Liberia gave the USA a semi-colony on the African continent.

At the time it was not of great importance, but it created a foothold.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 gave the USA Puerto Rico. In Cuba, the nationalists were close to defeating the Spaniards when the USA intervened and in the settlement that followed, pushed the real liberation fighters aside to make way for their own nominees to take control of the government of the Republic of Cuban.

Entering a war late, and then claiming both the victory and the major spoils of war was to become a feature of US strategy in two World Wars.

More significantly, in the war with Spain, the USA was to gain control of the Philippines and the island of Guam, later to be of importance in US military encirclement of the globe. The Philipines remained a semi-colony and only very recently is it starting to show signs of breaking away from US control.

First World War

The presence of the USA in Europe really began with the First World War. US troops only entered the conflict in 1917 and are claimed to have won the War for the allies. It cannot be denied that US forces played an important role, but the First World War was finally brought to an end by a revolt of the German Navy backed by the workers. By 9th November 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate and on 11th November 1918, the Armistice was signed. The workers of Germany had followed the lead of the Bolsheviks.

As soon as the First World War ended, the United States sent troops to Russia between the years 1918-1920 in an effort to try to defeat the Bolsheviks. US anti-Communism had begun. US influence in the world was growing.

Second World War

The USA entered the Second World War in December 1941 after Japan had bombed the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Germany, which was in alliance with Japan declared war on USA at about the same time.

More importantly for later history, in March 1941, the Lend Lease Act allowed the US to send military equipment to western allies and the USSR without payment in advance. This was the beginning of the rest of the world being in debt to the USA and its bankers.

In that war, some 420,000 Americans died, but these were almost all either military, including air and naval forces or merchant marine sailors. Apart from Pearl Harbor there was no war on US territory. Compare this number with the USSR which lost around 11 million military personnel and 16 million civilians and had a great deal of its most productive industry and infrastructure destroyed.

Whereas the USA played a major role in the war against Japan, we should not forget the role played by Chinese forces (both Communist and Kuomintang) and of Communist-led guerrillas in Korea and Vietnam.

In the west, the USA did not seriously become involved in fighting until the Normandy landings in June 1944, by which time the Red Army had seriously defeated the Germans in the biggest battles in human history, most importantly Stalingrad and Kursk. Communist-led guerrillas independently liberated Greece, Yugoslavia and Albania.

USA Turns on its Allies

The extreme west of Ukraine, the areas of Galicia and Volhynia, which had been incorporated into Poland between 1919 and 1939 was home to the most violent Ukrainian nationalists who, during the Second World War, worked with the German Nazis and were enthusiastically involved in the slaughter of both Jews and Poles. Ukrainian Nazis became notorious for their cruelty as came concentration camp guards. It should be noted that some 200,000 served either directly with the German army or with allied Ukrainian nationalist forces. On the other hand some 250,000 Ukrainians were Soviet Partisans fighting behind the enemy lines while another 4 million Ukrainians served in the Red Army.

As the Red Army advanced, Ukrainian Nazis fled to the US and British lines where they were looked after by the intelligence sevices, despite many of them being listed war criminals. Their main leader was Stepan Bandera. Leaderof the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B).

Between 1945 and 1955, Ukrainian Nazis were parachuted into the forests of west Ukraine where they carried out a guerrilla campaign against the Soviet Union. The current problem in Ukraine, then did not start in 2022, 2014 or 2004, but in 1944. It is a result of a long term agenda by the USA, Britain and Canada to support Ukrainian Nazis.

Since 1944, Britain has worked closely with the USA. In October 1944, British forces landed in Greece to be greeted as allies.

In December 1944, British troops re-armed former members of the Greek Security Battalions, formed by the Nazis during the occupation shot and killed unarmed demonstrators chanting, "Viva Churchill! Viva Roosevelt! Viva Stalin!" By 1946 a bitter war was raging leading to the defeat of the liberators in 1949 and the return of the reactionary Greek monarchy.

Similarly much of Vietnam had been liberated from the Japanese by the Communist-led Vietminh forces led by Ho Chi Minh. They had even had support from the Americans and welcomed allied forces into the southern city of Saigon. But France wanted Vietnam returned to its rule.

With the assistance of the British Army and re-armed Japanese, the French came back into Vietnam. After a prolonged war in which the French were decisively defeated at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam. It was agreed that a referendum be held in 1956 to unite the country. Knowing that Ho Chi-Minh was a national hero and that under his leadership, the Communist Party of Vietnam would record an easy victory, the South Vietnamese government, under the influence of the USA, refused to participate in the referendum.

The Vietnam War was to last from 1956 until 1975, when Vietnamese forces marched victoriously into Saigon (now Ho Chi-Minh City). It was a war waged to prevent an election. It was a war in which the US dropped more bombs on Vietnam than were dropped by both sides in the whole of the Second World War. It is a war which is still producing children with birth-defects from the defoliant Agent Orange.

US hegemony, then, surged after the Second World War. It is both military and economic in character and has been assisted by its European allies, most particularly, Britain.

Economically, the USA began to seriously exert its muscle in the years 1948-1952 with the Marshall Plan. The plan is named after retired General George C. Marshall who became Secretary of State [Foreign Minister] under President Truman in 1947. Its official name was the European Recovery Program (ERP). Under this plan the US provided $13 billion in grants and loans to European governments. Even prior to the Plan, the USA had given out $17 billion, much of it in food aid in the aftermath of the war, but the Marshall Plan was aimed specifically at securing the domination of the US dollar and the concepts of US capitalism in Europe as well as undermining the strength of the Communist Parties which had grown during the War as a result of the fight against fascism.

Bretton Woods

The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA. Its purpose was to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of the Second World War. The Conference was held in July 1944. An agreement was made to establish the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) better known as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This led to the Bretton Woods system for international commercial and financial relations and to the US dollar as the main currency for world trade.

The idea for the Bretton Woods institutions came mostly from British social democratic economist John Maynard Keynes who advocated a form of managed capitalism, but later these institutions would be used to promote and enforce ruinous neo-liberal economic policies on poor countries and, indeed, the whole world.

Africa

The USA had little interest in Africa prior to the Second World War. True, cotton and tobacco grown by African slaves had provided a hefty chunk of primitive capital accumulation for the ruling class both of the USA and Britain. Liberia, as mentioned before, became a semi-colony with former slaves as the ruling elite and a source of rubber for Firestone Tyres which opened its first plantation of rubber trees there in 1926.

But the USA had played no part in the partition of Africa in 1885, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Spain in roughly that order became the beneficiaries.

US interest grew rapidly as a result of the Second World War. The uranium used to make the atomic bombs which hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from what was then the Belgian Congo and the Americans soon worked out that Congo is one of the richest countries on Earth in terms of useful rare minerals.

The defeat of fascism and the expansion of socialism after 1945 led to the demand for independence across Africa. The 5th Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, England in October 1945 attended by a number of future African leaders, articulated these demands very well.

In the 1950s the liberation war against the French in Algeria and the uprising of the Land and Freedom Army (better known as Mau Mau) in Kenya against the British were costly in money, human life and prestige for Britain and France, the two major colonial powers in Africa.

By the late 1950s, Britain and France both embarked on the neo-colonial agenda. Realising that they could not stop the tide of African nationalism, they decided to divert it ⸺ give African countries their black presidents, national flags and national anthems while the imperial power and the monopoly capitalist corporations, whose interests they represented. controlled the economies.

Those that did not conform to the wishes of the imperial powers were removed; Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in 1966 and Modibo Keita of Mali in 1968 being early examples.

But even before them, was Patrice Lumumba of Congo. And it was in the removal of Patrice Lumumba that the USA first made its presence in Africa sharply felt. Lumumba was elected Prime Minister of Congo according to all the norms of western democracy and Joseph Kasa-Vubu appointed as ceremonial President. Congo became Independent on 30th June 1960.

On 5th July 1960, the African members of the paramilitary police, the Force Publique mutinied against their white officers and rampant looting began. On 11th July 1960 the mineral-rich province of Katanga in the south of Congo, declared ‘Independence'. Mining company Union Minière du Haut-Katanga appointed Moise Tshombe as ‘President of the State of Katanga' and Immediately, Belgian paratroopers poured in.

Lumumba sought help. He requested assistance from the UN which sent in troops but refused to interfere with the Katanga breakaway. Later the UN troops, would close the radio station, refusing admission to Lumumba to address the people who had voted for him, while Kasa-Vubu addressed the nation from Brazzaville, capital of former French Congo, across the Congo River.

Lumumba first requested help from the USA, but there was no response, then he requested assistance from the Soviet Union which sent in advisors both military and civilian as well as trucks and other equipment.

Now Lumumba was branded as a ‘Communist' and President Eisenhower of the USA personally ordered the CIA to ‘eliminate' him. Head of the Congolese army, Joseph Mobutu was recruited by the CIA and on 14th September 1960, made a coup against Lumumba who had been in office only 2 months and a half. Lumumba was arrested in front of UN troops, he escaped, was arrested again and brutalised, again in front of UN troops, before being flown to Katanga on 17th January where he was murdered according to the instructions of President Eisenhower and his body dissolved in acid.

Resistance by the followers of Lumumba took place immediately after his death, and in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, already involved in the Vietnam War, funded white mercenaries mainly from South Africa, Rhodesia and Belgium to fight the Lumumbist Simba rebels who were threatening the US and Belgian backed regime of Mobutu Sese Seko as Joseph Mobutu later called himself. The Simbas were defeated although they continued to hold substantial parts of eastern Congo.

When Simba leader Pierre Mulele agreed to go to Kinshasa peace talks with Mobutu, he was butchered while still living and his still breathing head and torso thrown into the Congo River.

Until 1996, Mobutu was given support by Belgium, France and the USA, foreign troops dealing with the occasional uprisings while mining companies looted the natural resources. Mobutu renamed Congo the Republic of Zaire in 1971.

In 1996, Laurent Kabila, initially with US backing, took power from the dying Mobutu with the assistance of Rwandan forces. He immediately began ordering that new contracts should be made with all foreign mining companies operating in Congo so that some money would flow back into the country in which no infrastructure had been built since the time of the Belgians. The response from President Clinton was to arm Uganda and Rwanda for a massive, US directed,

invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the name given to the country by President Laurent Kabila. This was to the biggest war ever on African soil. The intention of the US government was to take the war into Angola and to put US surrogate Jonas foeces into power. In fact the biggest battle of the war was in Cabinda, the oil-rich enclave of Angola north of the Congo River. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe came to the rescue of the DRC.

This war was hardly reported in the media, yet according to the UN, about 5¼ million people died as a result of this conflict, yet if these figures are correct, this was bigger than either the Vietnam War or the Iraq War in the number of casualties.

The countries which participated in the defence of DRC were all part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was at that time Chairman of SADC and immediately sent in the well-trained and disciplined Zimbabwe National Army which became the spearhead of the defence of DRC.

Mugabe and his party the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) had been backed by the USA and Britain in 1980. The original nationalist movement, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) with its armed wing the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZPRA) had strong links with the Soviet Union and with the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa. In an essay written in 1980, senior US diplomat, Andrew young, was to say;

"Despite widespread doubts outside Zimbabwe about the strength of Mugabe's political constituency, he had achieved a solid electoral victory over both Bishop Abel Muzorewa, on whom both Britain and South Africa had placed their hopes, and Joshua Nkomo, who enjoyed military support from the Soviet bloc. The unexpected size of his majority gave Mugabe an unequivocal mandate which greatly simplified the task of the British in handing over power.

"The Zimbabwe settlement must also be recorded as a victory of the Western alliance in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It signalled a renewal of the cooperation in de-colonization which came under Western leadership and via the United Nations during the 1950s and 1960s. And it curtailed at least temporarily the trend toward growing dependence on Soviet military aid to bring about African liberation."

At Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had a very strong economy, albeit tailored to the needs of the white minority, but nevertheless a largely internalised economy. For the first 11 years on Independence, at least 80% of what we bought in Zimbabwe was made in Zimbabwe, But then, in 1991 Zimbabwe adopted the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) fostered by the IMF and World Bank. From then, the economy went into serious decline.

Because of the Congo War, in 1999, the World Bank and the IMF withdrew support from Zimbabwe although simultaneously maintaining support for the aggressor nations, Uganda and Rwanda.

Robert Mugabe, who had previously been given an honorary knighthood by the British government, now became a demon. And in 2001, following the occupation of white-owned farms by Zimbabwe War Veterans, the US Congress passed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) arrogantly reinforcing the sanctions already started in 1999.

In Part 1. I have attempted to look at the background of US world domination why African countries are so interested in the coming BRICS. I have concentrated on two countries, Congo, which has the worst history of any country in Africa and my own country, Zimbabwe. Other countries and other continents have their own stories concerning US domination and aggression.

BRICS, now BRICS+, is a capitalist and not a socialist economic formation, but it is the immediate way forward.