01) CANADA’S ENTRY
INTO MALI STRIFE: ANOTHER AFGHANISTAN FIASCO?
Central Executive Committee, Communist
Party of Canada, March 23, 2018
The
March 19 announcement that Canada will send "peacekeepers" to the west African country of Mali is an ominous signal that under
Justin Trudeau's Liberals, Canada is increasing its role in dirty wars intended
to make the world safe for imperialist exploitation.
The
deepening crisis in Mali has its origins in a variety of factors, from the
history of intervention by French imperialism, to the overthrow of Libya's Col.
Gaddafi, and the scramble for hydrocarbons and uranium wealth by western-based
corporate interests.
The
resource-rich Sahel desert area, which spans Africa from west to east below the
Sahara, has been devastated by the 2011 NATO war in Libya and the resulting
French imperialist intervention in Mali. Violence across the region has
escalated since a 2012 coup in Mali ousted a central government which had
opposed French pressures to establish military bases in the country. According
to the UN, 5 million people have fled their homes and 24 million people need
humanitarian assistance in the region.
France
currently has 4,000 soldiers in Mali. Under "Operation Barkhane",
1,000 French troops are to be stationed in Mali indefinitely, ready to make a
“rapid and efficient intervention in the event of a crisis” in the words of
former French president Francois Hollande. Since his
election as President last May, Emmanuel Macron has pushed to intensify the
imperialist war launched by Hollande in France’s
former colonial empire.
The
European Union is preparing to double its funding for the G5 Sahel force, set
up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to fight Islamist jihadist
forces. The G5 operates in coordination with French troops and the MINUSMA, the
12,000-strong UN "peacekeeping" force, fighting Tuareg
fighters objectively allied with islamist
forces such as AQMI (Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb) or Ançar
Dine, groups that flourished as a result of the destruction of Libya. To date,
162 UN troops have been killed in Mali, many of them the victims of explosive
devices, similar to the long war in Afghanistan.
The
situation has resulted in growing tensions between Europe, the United States,
and China, which is an increasingly influential economic power in Africa.
Although Macron says that French troops are engaged in Mali to "fight
terrorism as long as it takes," it appears that this military presence is
mainly intended to protect imperialist interests. '
The
G5 force will cost an estimated 423 million euros in
its first year alone, and Macron has called for huge new military spending
increases. The impoverished Sahel countries under French domination are
expected to provide most of the cannon fodder in this
"anti-terrorist" war, and France has been forced to seek financial
help from the EU, and also from key imperialist allies such as Germany and the
United States. But Washington has declined to finance the G5, and it now
appears that Canada's initial contribution of "non-combat" troops to
this imperialist misadventure is Justin Trudeau's way of fulfilling his pledge
to send "peacekeepers" into African conflicts. The government is
tentatively sending two transport helicopters and four attack helicopters, for
medical evacuations. But Chief of Defence Staff Gen.
Jonathan Vance warns that this number could change. The financial and human
costs of a growing military mission in Mali will inevitably rise, and Canadian
troops will sooner or later be involved in combat operations causing civilian
casualties. If the Libyan disaster is any indication, the outcome can only be
more chaos and destruction.
The
Communist Party of Canada condemns this mission, which has nothing to do with
keeping the peace, but does embroil Canada in a complex regional conflict
involving militias, terrorist groups, and a weak central government which
controls only the south of Mali. We demand that no Canadian troops should be
sent to defend French imperialist interests in Africa, and that the funds
earmarked for this mission should instead be devoted to non-military
humanitarian aid projects which can benefit the people of Mali and the rest of
the Sahel.
(The above
article is from
the April 1-15, 2018, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist
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