Niger coup: Why West Africa has become the center of inter-imperialist standoff

By Nikos Mottas.

The military coup d'etat of July 26th in Niger, which deposed pro-French President Mohammad Bazoum, is part of the broader imperialist confrontation of the Western powers (USA, NATO, EU) with Russia and China. This time, the imperialist standoff is focused on the resource-rich region of Sahel, activating the decades-old political divisions in West Africa. 

KKE: On the tension between the USA and China

In a statement about the recent escalation of tension between the United States and China over the visit of Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) points out (here in Greek):

“The recent visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives in Taiwan, the mobilization of US military forces and the broader tension in the Indo-Pacific, are links in the chain of the dangerous competition between USA and China for the primacy in the global capitalist system. 

A Leninist approach to the inter-imperialist clash in Ukraine

By Nikos Mottas.

 

“The working class”, V.I Lenin was stressing out, “in case it is conscious, will not support any group of imperialistic predators” (1). More specifically, concerning the stance of the workers' movement towards imperialists, he was using the following characteristic example:

 

“A country, let us say, possesses three-fourths of Africa, whereas another possesses one-fourth. A repartition of Africa is the objective content of their war. To which side should we wish success? It would be absurd to state the problem in its previous form, since we do not possess the old criteria of appraisal: there is neither a bourgeois liberation movement running into decades, nor a long process of the decay of feudalism. It is not the business of present-day democracy either to help the former country to assert its “right” to three-fourths of Africa, or to help the latter country (even if it is developing economically more rapidly than the former) to take over those three-fourths. Present-day democracy will remain true to itself only if it joins neither one nor the other imperialist bourgeoisie, only if it says that the two sides are equally bad, and if it wishes the defeat of the imperialist bourgeoisie in every country. Any other decision will, in reality, be national-liberal and have nothing in common with genuine internationalism. [...] In reality, there can now be no talk of present-day democracy following in the wake of the reactionary imperialist bourgeoisie, no matter of what “shade” the latter may be“ (2).

KKE on the dangerous tension between USA-NATO and Russia

Following the dangerous escalation in the relations between the Euro-Atlantic forces and Russia on the issue of Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued a statement calling for Greece's disengagement from the dangerous US-NATO military plans. 

The full statement (here in Greek) reads:

The ineffective meeting of the US and Russian Foreign Ministers in Geneva, their inability to reach and agreement even on the subject of the talks, has been accompanied in the last 24 hours by tension in aggressive rhetoric and military moves by the US, NATO, EU and capitalist Russia. The confrontation in Ukraine, which in recent years has been consistently at the center of intra-imperialist competitions, is once again rekindling.