\u201cFrance has interests to preserve.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFrance believes that it needs to keep West African countries as its colonial assets, and within its area of influence,\u201d Kan-Senaya said, \u201cThe anger in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea is [also] a result of France establishing their regional economic policy. The reserves of the three countries [as well as many other Francophone countries] are kept in France. France also retains the right to confiscate their national financial reserves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to the neocolonial arrangements inherited at independence, French companies have been given precedence in public contracts and tenders, in addition to having the right to supply military equipment and train military officers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added further, \u201cFrance also retains the first rights of preference over mineral reserves discovered in these countries, and reserves the right to use military force to defend its interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this context, WAPO has called for greater cooperation and unification, which will serve as a \u201cfresh attempt to implement the Pan-Africanist model left to us by our founding fathers,\u201d Kan-Senaya said. \u201cThe current attempts by France, and the US, to keep Francophone countries under their area of influence will not succeed, given the multipolar world order that is now emerging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfrica should be allowed to determine who its friends are, and to be able to develop its national economies from dependent economies to self-reliant ones. When our countries are united, we can do common planning, develop our countries to benefit our people, and not have to continue under these neocolonial arrangements which exploit our resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The efforts towards cooperation have also taken place following the suspension of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which proceeded to impose both individual as well as collective sanctions, some of which have been partially lifted after Burkina Faso and Mali presented plans for fresh elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the bloc rejected a joint request to lift the sanctions and to revoke the three countries\u2019 suspension last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cECOWAS has a membership made up of heads of state and governments that do not represent the aspirations of the people of West Africa. The people do not want sanctions or foreign military intervention in these countries. What they want is for the three countries to proceed with the unification effort,\u201d Kan-Senaya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs WAPO we believe that the unification of our people across colonial boundaries is necessary for the meaningful independence and democratic development. Our people have been exploited, repressed and humiliated for centuries, they may consider unification an expensive enterprise. And we accept that there will be internal challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WAPO has added in its statement, that the \u201ccapacity of leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea to inform, educate, and carry their citizens along in a fundamental reconstitution of their sovereignty, economies, democracies, and security will be far more profoundly democratic than the reinstatement of neo-colonial constitutions and corrupt elites that ECOWAS demands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kan-Senaya added, \u201cDemocracy is the rule of the people by the people, and that requires the building of new institutions towards developing a society which will be able to offer equality and justice, and be able to provide the basic material needs for survival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WAPO has committed to offering principled, ideological and political support \u201ctaking the lead from our comrades in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea so as to give this struggle the greatest chances of success. We will press for a popular process that mobilizes all citizens of the three countries based on anti-imperialist, self-reliant, peaceful development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on The Real News Network<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Africa Peoples Organisation has welcomed the proposal for greater collaboration between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea, and has called for coordinating and planning production, trade, infrastructure, economic development, and defense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1775,5582,55805],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015611,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015610\/revisions\/1015611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}