I see I wrote about the ongoing entrenchment of China in Africa way back in June. This phenomenon is now beginning to get noticed by so-called “mainstream” media, and there was a special report on the subject in England’s Sunday Times yesterday – China builds African empire. The Times article complements another article I wrote back in June – that Africa is a treasure-house of strategic commodities, including oil, aluminium, copper, nickel, and a host of other “base metals”, not to mention diamonds, gold, platinum and all the other things you think of in the context of Africa.
Anyway, so the west abandoned Africa to the Africans in the 1970s… and the Chinese stepped in to replace the west. This is exactly what we African settlers (black and white) were fighting against in our war against terror during the 1970s. The Chinese are much less concerned with the well-being of black Africans than we much reviled western “colonials” were. Mugabe’s staunchest supporters outside of Africa and the Middle East were, and still are the Communist Chinese.
In exchange for exploiting mineral wealth, China pays Africa in weapons – so keeping the worst dictators in power (Mugabe, and the rest) and fuelling new wars in Africa. In 2004, China secured a deal to supply Zimbabwe with new fighter jets and armoured vehicles – just what a bankrupt nation with millions suffering from AIDS and on the brink of starvation needs. Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg rightly cried wolf over China’s role in Darfur – see Darfur Collides with Olympics, and China yields in the Herald Tribune report in April – but can they help in Zimbabwe? And what has changed in Darfur, despite their well-intentioned intervention? Nothing.
Of course, it’s not just the Chinese who have stepped in to replace the west in Africa – what do people think the Darfur Crisis is all about? It is a war of Muslims against non-Muslims. Slowly but surely, the Muslims are brutally colonising Africa from the north; Christianity has been forced to retreat, and Islam is taking over. China and the local Muslims are carving up Darfur – the Muslims are after the very soul of Africa, and China is after the treasures of Africa.
Meanwhile, Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe uses its new Chinese fighter planes and armoured vehicles to keep itself in power while “official” inflation reached 14,841% in October. Officials have conceded that this inflation figure is unreliable because “…there are too many blanks in our baskets of goods to calculate it…” I bet the Chinese didn’t accept payment for those weapons in Zimbabwe Dollars!
Readers who would like to make a contribution to help innocent pensioners, who are unable to buy food and other basic necessities in Zimbabwe, should please contact Patricia Williams by email patashnix.btinternet.com.
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Peter Davies was a soldier in Rhodesia from 1963 to 1975, where he took part in the capture and interrogation of terrorists. Davies' novel, Scatterlings of Africa, is based on his own experience during Rhodesia’s war on terror, and personal observations of how terrorist activities impacted Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and its people.
