By Owei Lakemfa
Henry (Heinz) Alfred Kissinger, the most infamous United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, passed away peacefully at 100 on November 29, 2023 and is guaranteed a marked grave. Not so for the tens of thousands Africans, Latin Americans and Asians who experienced violent deaths in their youth and had no tomb stones in their names due to the policies formulated and implemented by Kissinger.
A prolific author, brilliant academic and highly cerebral intellectual, he, like his fellow German, Adolf Hitler, used his knowledge and skills to perpetuate unspeakable crimes against humanity.
One of the most vulnerable periods of Africa was in
the 1970s, and tragically for the continent, it was the era Kissinger was most
active, and perhaps most vicious, with no human compunction.
In that decade, Africa was in
the struggle for life as a vicious regime in Portugal massacred Africans in
Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Angola in an attempt to perpetuate
its colonial rule. It was also the time, the Saharawi people led by POLISARIO,
fought the Spanish for independence, and the Apartheid regime, assisted by the
racist Ian Smith gang, tried to exterminate Africans in Zimbabawe (Rhodesia)
Namibia (South West Africa) and South Africa itself.
Kissinger was a major supporter
of Apartheid and got the US to prop up that evil regime which was also invading
various independent African countries.
An opportunity for freedom
opened in 1974 when a Portugal in turbulence virtually abandoned its four to
five centuries colonialism of Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Angola.
However, rather than hand over
to the main liberation movement, the MPLA led by Dr Agosthinho Neto or organise
elections, Portugal simply abandoned Angola.
This gave the US and its Central
Intelligence Agency, CIA, the opportunity to try stopping the radical MPLA from
running the country. First, Kissinger helped revive an old CIA asset,
Holden Roberto leader of the FNLA who was living in Zaire (DRC) under his
in-law, then President Joseph Mobutu Seseseko, to race to Luanda and take
power. When the chances of Roberto did not appear bright, US propped up Jonas
Savimbi of UNITA. When it did not appear these could stop the MPLA government,
Kissinger engineered a combined force of the FNLA, UNITA, American mercenaries
and the awesome Apartheid military, to seize power in Angola.
These forces pushed towards
Luanda but Africa was angry that Apartheid was trying to claim another African
country. A meeting of the Organisation of Africa Unity, OAU (now AU), was
called for January 11, 1976 to take a position. Kissinger flew to Africa,
warning the African leaders not to dare recognise the MPLA government.
An enraged Nigerian Head of
State, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, who had previously decided to send his
Deputy, General Olusegun Obasanjo, to represent him at the summit, changed his
mind, deciding to personally attend.
In his blistering speech at the OAU, Mohammed
regretted that: “Rather than join hands with the forces fighting for
self-determination and against racism and Apartheid, the United States policy
makers clearly decided that it was in the best interests of their country to
maintain White supremacy and minority regimes in Africa.”
He went on to deliver the killer
punch: “Africa has come of age. It’s no longer under the orbit of any extra
continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however
powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or to mar. For too
long have we been kicked around; for too long have we been treated like
adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly.” With that
and other speeches, Africa recognised the Angola government. Thirty two days
later, General Mohammed was gunned down in Lagos in an attempted coup.
At the US National Security
Council Meeting of May 11, 1976, Kissinger told President Gerald Ford that his
actions in Angola and Africa were because “a communist victory in Angola would
quicken events in Southern Africa, encourage radicalism and discourage
moderates.” At the time of this Kissinger briefing, Apartheid South Africa was
massacring African children in Soweto and here was Kissinger asking the US to
prevent the collapse of Apartheid!
Kissinger also told Ford that
the continent must not be allowed to develop because “Africa is important
to us. Many key products—coffee, cocoa, cobalt, chrome, iron ore, diamonds—come
from Africa, 30 to 60 per cent of our consumption; and for our European allies,
the figures are even higher. The radicalisation of Africa would turn the
Europeans, vis-a-vis Africa, into commercial enterprises rather than
governments (we must) arrest the armed struggle in Southern Africa… The
strategy was to slow down the struggle and get control of the process as we did
in the Middle East.” Cuba, led by Fidel Castro sent troops into Angola to stop
the Apartheid-led push towards Luanda; that changed the tide of the war and led
to the eventual collapse of the racist regime in Zimbabwe and the Apartheid
regimes in Namibia and South Africa.
In Chile, Kissinger was a main
co-ordinator of the bloody 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet against
elected President Salvador Allende. That coup took the lives of over 3,000
Chileans with tens of thousands imprisoned and over 200,000 fleeing the junta.
As humanity raised its voice in horror at the massacres of the innocent
in Chile, Kissinger lied that it was a communist propaganda against the
Pinochet regime. Yet, with the CIA assisting Pinochet with the repression and
the US having an embassy and diplomats in Santiago, Kissinger was well informed
about the horrors being perpetuated in Chile.
One of the most criminal acts of
Kissinger against humanity was the carpet bombing of Cambodia from 1969. The US
was not at war with that country, yet it dropped about 500,000 tons of bombs on
innocent Cambodians. Kissinger claimed that the bombs were targeted at
Vietnamese soldiers whom the US suspected were hiding in that country. It was a
precursor to the 2023 Israeli bombing and destruction of hospitals in Gaza
because it had the false belief that the Hamas is operating beneath hospitals.
In December 1972, the US,
desperate to withdraw its troops from Vietnam, dropped over 20,000 tons of
bombs on Hanoi over a 12-day period to force a quick peace accord. Kissinger
said the bombing was designed to shake the Vietnamese “to their core”.
The following year, the Nobel
Peace Prize was awarded to both the warmonger, Kissinger and Vietnamese
revolutionary, Le Duc Tho. The latter, pissed off by the such blatant
hypocrisy, rejected the award.
If the world were built on
justice, Kissinger would have spent the rest of his life in jail for crimes
against humanity. But he was from God’s Own Country. God bless America!
*Lakemfa
is a commentator on public issues
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