T H E T H I N K E R
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“M
ilitarisation presentsan extreme technique in which the state legitimates and exercises its power.
It is a form of controlling the people, a strategy of national security and of counterinsurgency; a tactic to control the streets; demonstrating the violence which is naturally produced in a capitalist system. It is one of the ways
this system can ensure its dominance and reproduce systematic orders which violate and subordinate the population in general but in particular, women...
The consequences of militarisation for women are multiple and complicated.
Sexual abuse, physical and psychological violence and forced displacement present just a small number of them…”
– Norma Iris Cacho Niño
The visit by the president of the United States of America, Mr Barack Obama, to our country, has left me reeling with anger at the audacity of the US government to legitimise its onslaught on the working class masses of our people, and the South African government for its subordinate role in this onslaught that threatens the future and stability of the African continent.
InTERnATIOnAL
What we must understand is that the context of militaristion favours the reproduction of structural violence against women and intensifies impunity.
By Malaika wa Azania
Barack Obama is a
threat to the future of African women
© Shutterstock.com
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V o l u m e 5 6 / 2 0 1 3
InTERnATIOnAL
I am angered particularly by the failure of our government to recognise president Obama’s indirect role in the violence against women that is taking place in conflict-riddled parts of our continent. President Obama was not in Africa because he loves African people or because he believes in the future of this continent. President Obama was in Africa to consolidate an agenda so nefarious the youth of this continent dare not turn a blind eye to it. His talks of “infrastructure development” are a smokescreen intended to remove the retina from the eyes of our people, to blind us from the truth about the role of the USA in the destruction of the developing world in general and the African continent in particular.
The end of women’s month does not mean the end of our efforts to improve the lives of women. We young South African women must take a moment to reflect on the ramifications of US foreign policy in our country, assisted by the indecisiveness and short- sightedness of our own government, not only because this foreign policy is destructive, but because more than anyone else, we are the ones who will be affected by US programmes and foreign policy, in particular the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). As a 21 year old who will inherit this country, I cannot celebrate the role of the US in our development, mainly because that development comes at a price to my future.
Unveiled in February 2007 and fully operational since November 2008, AFRICOM is the ninth unified and sixth regional US military command that was established after the Second World War. AFRICOM was formed with the supposed intention of bringing “peace and security to the people of Africa”
and “promoting the US and Africa’s common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa”. But attempts to create the illusion that US actions on the continent are altruistic and not part of the scramble for Africa are ludicrous. The true role and intention of the command is outlined clearly in its website, asserting that AFRICOM establishes military-to-military partnerships to improve the capacity and operability of African armed
forces, assisting other US agencies in fulfilling their tasks in Africa and, where necessary, undertaking military activities in Africa to protect America’s national interests. So in essence, AFRICOM is not about Africa’s development, but the safeguarding of US interests in the world’s richest continent in terms of mineral wealth.
The USA alleges that Africa is a hotspot for terrorism due to its weak military capacities, but from where I sit, the USA is the real threat to peace and security in the developing world in general and Syria in particular. This is clear from its actions in the Middle East, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, its role in the Israeli-Palestine war and its actions in Latin America and Africa.
The argument that it seeks to fight
terrorism in our continent is therefore laughable.
For us to understand the implications of AFRICOM for African women, we need only study the situation in Libya where AFRICOM was at the forefront of implementing the UN-mandated no-fly zone. Instead of protecting civilians as Resolution 1703 mandates, AFRICOM was actively involved in the destruction of armoured vehicles, providing close air support to rebel forces, impeding African Union negotiations for a political settlement to the conflict and ultimately assisting in causing the deaths of thousands of people when a political solution could have been found earlier.
AFRICOM also negotiated with the governments of Senegal and Uganda
to set up forward deployment bases in those countries. Forward deployment bases are different from normal bases.
Weapons, ammunition and other equipment are stored at these bases and permission is often granted for the host countries to use the bases under certain conditions. Thus, a forward deployment base in Senegal would seem to be a Senegalese base which the USA equips under the guise of strengthening the Senegalese military.
So in effect, the US government is both creating and contributing to the militarisation of African states. What we must understand is that the context of militarisation favours the reproduction of structural violence against women and intensifies impunity. Women continue to be the target of institutional and social violence and pay the highest cost in these externally stimulated wars and conflicts.
One of the biggest consequences of conflict and war is the absence of access to justice for women who find themselves in a situation where they are abused by the military, primarily because this situation favours systematic and patriarchal violence by not creating the social and political conditions needed to guarantee women’s human rights. Various studies have also shown that militarisation appears to cause a persistent increase in prostitution in areas surrounding military bases, placing women in a situation where they are subjected to sexually transmitted diseases, in particular HIV. This context increases social, community and family tensions that then become expressed in an increase in interfamilial and domestic violence. This cycle of violence places women in particularly vulnerable situations. Social and family ties are destroyed; women do not leave their houses for fear of having to face the military. Children stop going to school, poverty worsens and drug and alcohol abuse increases.
US Africa Command is a weapon against women mainly because a militarised Africa is not an Africa that is pro-women. It is an Africa that acts systematically as an architect of genocide through the consolidation of feminicidal violence. This is an Africa we must reject.
