News & Comment
TICAD Summit: A Continuation of Capitalist Exploitation on Africa’s Wealth

News

Kenyan Media Outlets widely covered the Sixth Tokyo International on African Development (Ticad) hosted in Kenya’s capital Nairobi on 27th and 28th August 2016. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined 36 African Heads of States along with 10,000 delegates from 74 regional and international organizations. This was the first ever TICAD summit to be hosted in Africa and has described as milestone in the economy of the Continent. The Summit was concluded with a Declaration known as Nairobi Declaration which cited main challenges that Africa is facing since 2013. These are the decline of global commodity prices, Terrorism and Violent Extremism. It was pointed out that despite that Africa has made some progress; these are the challenges that have caused more hiccups towards its development. In their recommendations the delegates proposed blue and green economic alternatives for Africa. On dealing with the issue of Terrorism, the Delegates urged the African Governments to work for social stabilities among the poor families.

Comment

The TICAD was launched in 1993 by the Government of Japan as an attempt to promote Africa’s development, peace and security, through the strengthening of relations in multilateral cooperation and partnership. Normally its conferences are co-organized after every three years by the Japanese Government and International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and United Nations on Development after every three years. It is claimed that in the course of the past 20 years Ticad conventions has evolved into formidable efforts for mobilizing and sustaining international support for Africa’s development under the principles of African "ownership" and international "partnership".

From the Africa’s Head of States statements in the summit which were echoed by the Media that Africa has made progress in business and economic sectors do not match reality. This is nothing other than a revelation of how Capitalist media keeps repeating a lie only to be absorbed as a truth. So it was not a surprise to learn from media that Africa has won and gained a lot from the conference.

The convention has apparently proved that Africa is still under the yoke of colonial powers. African Governments are made to rely on foreign loans/grants to cater for their own citizens. It is very shameful that constructing roads, building hospitals and universities in Africa depend on Foreign Aids which have trapped Africa’s economy in lifetime debt. These are merely colonial tools to exploit the Africa’s vast resources!

The context of cooperation and foreign investment which are often mentioned as effective ways for strengthening the economy of Africa is to pressurize the Continent to bow down to the foreign owned Multinationals companies that rob the raw materials to process into the final products and export to the African Market at a fixed price. Therefore, the decline of the price means the loss they have incurred in their markets. In addition the high quality products are sold at high price. The vast natural resources of Africa are solely the main cause of scramble of the Western gigantic corporations. Today, the US uses Japan in the struggle with China over plundering the Africa’s wealth. Alternatives such as green and blue economy are just a mockery to Africa because the major western companies keep generating emissions and green gases with the presence of Kyoto Protocol. With regard to Terrorism, this is a new pretext for bringing Western armies on African soil to protect the interest of western imperialists and their companies. It should be clearly apprehended in the Operation Desert Fox 2003, the US and UK under the banner of mass destructive weapons invaded Iraq to siphon its Oil.

TICAD is among the capitalist strategic attempts working to serve the greedy capitalists. Not being the first Western attempts as there are already existing tools such as IMF and World Bank which in 1966 another attempt known as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) was launched by IMF and World Bank. The move was intended to help the 38 third world countries which have been struggling in paying the loans. This is the true picture of Capitalist system which bases its economy on debts. By initiating the economic alternatives, Capitalists are attempting to cover up the failure of their entire economic system which should be uprooted. Problems facing Africa have originated from the absence of Islam and its unique ruling system – Khilafah "Caliphate". Only the Khilafah "Caliphate" system upon the method of the Prophethood with a profound Islamic economic system, Africa will save Africa and the world from all shackles of Capitalism keep causing crises and catastrophes for humanity.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shabani Mwalimu
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Kenya