Venezuela has recently expressed an interest in joining this capitalist
trading bloc.

Cort

http://links.org.au/node/3265

BRICS: 'Anti-imperialist' or 'sub-imperialist'?

*South African President Jacob Zuma and friend.*

[See also "*South Africa: brics-from-below! <http://links.org.au/node/3260>*"
For more on *BRICS click HERE* <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/768>. For
more articles by*Patrick Bond, click
HERE*<http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/661>
.]

By *Patrick Bond*

March 20, 2013 - *Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal*<http://links.org.au/node/3265> --
"We reaffirm the character of the ANC as a disciplined force of the left, a
multi-class mass movement and an internationalist movement with an
anti-imperialist outlook" -- so said Jacob Zuma, orating to his masses at
the year's largest African National Congress celebration, in Durban on
January 12, 2013.[1] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn1>

Eleven days later, Zuma spoke to the World Economic Forum's imperialists in
a small, luxurious conference room in Davos, Switzerland: "We are
presenting a South Africa that is open for business and which is open to
provide entry into the African
continent."[2]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn2> (As
a carrot, Zuma specifically mentioned the $440 billion in economic
infrastructure investment planned in coming years, while back at home,
above-inflation price increases were hitting those low-income consumers of
electricity, water and sanitation lucky not to have been disconnected for
non-payment.)

South African officials often talk anti-imperialist but walk
sub-imperialist. In 1965, Ruy Mauro Marini first defined the term using his
own Brazilian case: "It is not a question of passively accepting North
American power (although the actual correlation of forces often leads to
that result), but rather of collaborating actively with imperialist
expansion, assuming in this expansion *the position of a key
nation*."[3]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn3>

Nearly half a century later, such insights appear prescient, in the wake of
the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) as an
active alliance. By 2013 these five key nations encircling the traditional
Triad (the US, European Union and Japan) were decisive collaborators with
imperialism.

They advanced the cause of neoliberalism by reaffirming its global
institutional power structures and driving over-productive and
over-consumptive maldevelopment, and they colluded in destruction of not
just the world environment - through prolific contributions to climate
change - but in the sabotage of any potentially workable global-scale
ecological regulation (favouring instead deepened commodification through
emissions trading).

The BRICS agenda of relegitimising neoliberalism not only reinforces North
American power, of course. In each case, the BRICS countries' control of
their hinterlands for the sake of regional capitalist hegemony was another
impressive feature of sub-imperialism, especially in South Africa's case.
As Brazilian scholar Oliver Stuenkel remarked in 2012, "None of the BRICS
members enjoys meaningful support from its neighbours, and none has a
mandate to represent its respective region. Quite to the contrary, their
neighbours' suspicion of BRICS projects of regional hegemony is remarkably
similar for all members."[4] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn4>

Much of the long-standing (apartheid-era) critique of South African
sub-imperialism still applies, but what is new is that thanks to financial
deregulation associated with the country's "elite transition" from racial
to class apartheid during the 1990s, what were formerly Johannesburg and
Cape Town-based regional corporate powers - Anglo American Corporation,
DeBeers, Gencor (later BHP Billiton), Old Mutual and Liberty Life
insurance, SA Breweries (later merged with Miller), Investec bank, Didata
IT, Mondi paper, etc. - escaped.

These firms' financial headquarters are now in London, New York and
Melbourne, and the outflows of profits, dividends and interest are the main
reason South Africa was ranked the "riskiest" among 17 emerging markets by *The
Economist *in early 2009, requiring vast new foreign debt obligations to
cover the hard currency required to facilitate the vast capital flight.
South Africa cannot, thus, be described as "imperialist" - it is simply
retaining far little of the surplus.

Aside from lubricating world neoliberalism, hastening world
eco-destruction, and serving as coordinator of hinterland looting, what are
the other features of sub-imperialism that must be assessed, in a context
of Washington's ongoing hegemony? If a "new imperialism" entails - as the
City University of New York's renowned Marxist scholar David
Harvey[5]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn5> suggests
- much greater recourse to "accumulation by dispossession" and hence the
appropriation of "non-capitalist" aspects of life and environment by
capitalism, then South Africa and the other BRICS offer some of the most
extreme sites of new sub-imperialism in the world today.

The older generation of arguments about South Africa's "articulations of
modes of production" - i.e., migrant male workers from Bantustans providing
"cheap labour" thanks to black rural women's unpaid reproduction of
children, sick workers and retirees generally without state support - seems
to apply even more these days, when it comes to notorious Chinese pass-laws
or the expansion of the South African migrancy model much deeper into the
region in the wake of apartheid (notwithstanding tragic xenophobic
reactions from the local working class).

First, to make the case that sub-imperialism lubricates global
neoliberalism in these various ways, and that within BRICS South Africa
joins the other "deputy sheriffs" to keep regional law and order (e.g. in
the Central African Republic, at the time of writing in early 2013),
requires dispensing with naïve accounts of foreign policy that remain
popular in the international relations field.

Some scholars argue that South Africa's role is neither anti-imperialist
nor sub-imperialist - that as a "middle power", Pretoria attempts to
constructively "lead" Africa while acting in the continent's interests
(Maxi Schoeman),[6] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn6> through "building
strategic partnerships ... in a constant effort to win over the confidence of
fellow African states, and to convince the world community of its regional
power status" (Chris Landsberg),[7] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn7> thus
seeking "non-hegemonic cooperation" with other African countries (John
Daniel et al.).[8] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn8>

But these thinkers are missing an opportunity to interrogate the power
relations with the critical sensibility that these times demand, not least
because super-exploitative extractive industries based upon migrant labour,
without regard to community degradation and ecological damage (e.g. the
well-known Marikana platinum mine so profitable to Lonmin until 2012),
continue to be the primary form of BRICS countries' engagement with Africa.

Occasionally this agenda leads directly to war, a fetish about which is
also a common distraction among scholars attempting to elucidate
imperial-subimperial power relations. In the recent era, the main military
conflicts associated with Washington-centred imperialism have been in the
Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, and so Israel, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia are often cited as the West's sub-imperial allies.

But it was not long ago - from the 1960s through late 1980s - that Southern
Africa was the site of numerous wars featuring anti-colonial liberation
struggles and Cold War rivalries, with apartheid South Africa a strong and
comforting deputy to Washington.

Over two subsequent decades in this region, however, we have witnessed
mainly state-civil tensions associated with conflict-resource battles (e.g.
in the Great Lakes region where southern Africa meets central Africa and
where millions have been killed by minerals-oriented warlords),
neoliberalism (e.g. South Africa and Zambia), an occasional coup (e.g.
Madagascar), dictatorial rule (e.g. Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Malawi) or in
many cases, a combination.

The civil wars engineered by apartheid and the CIA in Mozambique and Angola
had ceased by 1991 and 2001, respectively, with millions dead but with both
Lusophone countries subsequently recording high GDP growth rates albeit
with extreme inequality.

Across Southern Africa, because imperial and sub-imperial interests have
both mainly focused upon resource extraction, a variety of
cross-fertilising intra-corporate relationships emerged, symbolised by the
way Lonmin (formerly Lonrho, named by British Prime Minister Edward Heath
as the "unacceptable face of capitalism" in 1973) "benefited" in mid-2012
from leading ANC politician Cyril Ramphosa's substantial shareholding and
connections to Pretoria's security apparatus, when strike breaking was
deemed necessary at the Marikana platinum mine.

South African, US, European, Australian and Canadian firms have been joined
by major firms from China, India and Brazil in the region. Their work has
mainly built upon colonial infrastructural foundations - road, rail,
pipeline and port expansion - for the sake of minerals, petroleum and gas
extraction. BRICS appears entirely consistent with facilitating this
activity, especially through the proposed BRICS Bank.

Might this conflict of interests result in armed conflict as a result of
Washington's more coercive role in this continent? The Pentagon's Africa
Command (Africom) has prepared for an increasing presence across the Sahel
(e.g. Mali at the time of writing) out to the Horn of Africa (the US has a
substantial base in Djibouti), in order to attack al Qaeda affiliates and
assure future oil flows and a grip on other resources. Since taking office
in 2009, US President Barack Obama has maintained tight alliances with
tyrannical African elites, contradicting his own talk-left pro-democracy
rhetoric within a well-received 2009 speech in Ghana.

According to Sherwood Ross, *one reason is that among 28 countries "that
held prisoners in behalf of the US based on published data", are a dozen
from Africa: Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Libya,
Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, South Africa and
Zambia.[9]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn9>
* In Gambia, for example, President Yahya Jammeh's acquiescence to the
CIA's need for a rendition site for US torture victims may explain Obama's
blind eye towards his dictatorship. Likewise, the US role in Egypt -
another rendition-torture hotspot - in propping up the Mubarak regime until
the final days spoke volumes about the persistence of strong-man
geopolitics, trumping the "strong institutions" that Obama had
promised.[10]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn10>

With fewer direct military conflicts in Africa but more subtle forms of
imperial control, and with "Africa Rising" rhetoric abundant since the
early 2000's commodity price boom, the continent and specifically the
Southern African region appear as attractive sites for investment, in no
small measure because of South Africa's "gateway" function, with
Johannesburg as a regional branch-plant base for a variety of multinational
corporations.

Throughout this period, there was a restrained yet increasingly important
Washington geopolitical agenda for Africa, which US President George W.
Bush's first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, described cogently in a
document, *Rising US Stakes in Africa:*

   - political stabilisation of Sudan (whose oil was craved by Washington);
   - support for Africa's decrepit capital markets, which could allegedly
   "jump start" the Millennium Challenge Account [a new US AID mechanism];
   - more attention to energy, especially the "massive future earnings by
   Nigeria and Angola, among other key West African oil producers";
   - promotion of wildlife conservation;
   - increased "counter-terrorism" efforts, which included "a Muslim
   outreach initiative";
   - expanded peace operations, transferred to tens of thousands of African
   troops thanks to new G8 funding; and
   - more attention to AIDS.

On all but Sudan, South African co-operation was crucial for the US
imperial agenda. However, after the US military's humiliating 1993 *Black
Hawk Down* episode in Somalia, there was insufficient appetite at the
Pentagon for direct troop deployment in Africa, and as a result, President
Bill Clinton was compelled to apologise for standing idly by during the
1994 Rwandan genocide. Instead, as Africa Command head Carter Ham explained
in 2011, Washington "would eventually need an AfriCom that could undertake
more traditional military operations ... [although] not conducting operations
- that's for the Africans to do."[11] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn11>

Likewise, the US Air University's *Strategic Studies Quarterly *cited a US
military advisor to the African Union: "We don't want to see our guys going
in and getting whacked... We want Africans to go
in."[12]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn12> In
late 2006, for example, when Bush wanted to invade Somalia to rid the
country of its nascent Islamic Courts government, he called in South
African President Thabo Mbeki to assist with legitimating the idea, though
it was ultimately carried out by Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian army three weeks
later.[13] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn13>

When in 2011, Obama wanted to invade Libya to rid the country of Muammar
Gaddafi, South Africa voted affirmatively for NATO bombing within the UN
Security Council (where it held a temporary seat), in spite of enormous
opposition within the African Union.

And in January 2013, Pretoria deployed 400 troops to the Central African
Republic during a coup attempt because, "We have assets there that need
protection", according to deputy foreign minister Ebrahim Ebrahim,
referring to minerals (according to his
interviewer)[14]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn14> or
to sophisticated weaponry that South Africa gifted the tyrant ruler there, *
François*ozizé (according to his reply in a debate with me in late
February).

There was similar reliance by the G8 upon G20, BRICS and even South African
"deputy sheriff" support on the economic battlefield. At the nadir of the
2008-09 crisis, for example, the G20 was described by Walden Bello: "It's
all show. What the show masks is a very deep worry and fear among the
global elite that it really doesn't know the direction in which the world
economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilize
it."[15]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn15>

According to Harvey, the G20 asked, simply, "how can we actually
reconstitute the same sort of capitalism we had and have had over the last
thirty years in a slightly more regulated, benevolent form, but don't
challenge the fundamentals?"[16] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn16>

For foreign policy, the big question raised by Zuma's presidency was
whether the momentum from Mbeki's expansionist "New Partnership for
Africa's Development" (Nepad) would be resumed after that project's demise,
given the former's preoccupations with domestic matters and comparatively
weak passion for the international stage. Only in 2012 was the answer
decisively affirmative: Nkozana Dlamini-Zuma's engineered election as
African Union Commission chairperson.

By mid-2012, Pretoria's National Development Plan - overseen from within
the South African presidency and endorsed at the ANC's December 2012
national conference - provided a variety of mandated changes in policy so
as to align with South Africa's new BRICS identity and functions. These
mainly involved pro-business statements for deeper regional economic
penetration, alongside the exhortation to change "the perception of the
country as a regional bully, and that South African policy makers tend to
have a weak grasp of African
geopolitics".[17]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn17>

That problem will haunt Pretoria in coming years, because like the
political carving of African in Berlin in 1884-85, the BRICS 2013 Durban
summit has as its aim the continent's *economic* carve-up, unburdened - now
as then - by what would be derided as "Western" concerns about democracy
and human rights. Also invited were 16 African heads of state to serve as
collaborators.

Reading between the lines, the Durban BRICS resolutions will:

   - support favoured corporations' extraction and land-grab strategies;
   - worsen Africa's retail-driven deindustrialisation (South Africa's
   Shoprite and Makro - soon to be run by Wal-mart - are already notorious in
   many capital cities for importing even simple products that could be
   supplied locally);
   - revive failed projects such as Nepad; and
   - confirm the financing of both African land grabbing and the extension
   of neo-colonial infrastructure through a new BRICS Bank, in spite of the
   damaging role of the Development Bank of Southern Africa in its immediate
   hinterland, following Washington's
script.[18]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn18>

With this evidence, and more, can we determine whether the BRICS are
"anti-imperialist" - or instead, "sub-imperialist", doing deputy-sheriff
duty for global corporations and neoliberal ideologues, while controlling
their own angry populaces as well as their hinterlands through a more
formidable security apparatus? The eco-destructive, consumerist-centric,
over-financialised, climate-frying maldevelopment model throughout the
BRICS works very well for corporate and parastatal profits, especially for
Western capital, but is generating repeated crises for the majority of its
people and for the planet.

Hence the label sub-imperialist is tempting. During the 1970s, Marini
argued that Brazil was "the best current manifestation of sub-imperialism",
for three central reasons:

"Doesn't the Brazilian expansionist policy in Latin America and Africa
correspond, beyond the quest for new markets, to an attempt to gain control
over sources of raw materials - such as ores and gas in Bolivia, oil in
Ecuador and in the former Portuguese colonies of Africa, the hydroelectric
potential in Paraguay - and, more cogently still, to prevent potential
competitors such as Argentina from having access to such resources?

"Doesn't the export of Brazilian capital, mainly via the state as
exemplified by Petrobras, stand out as a particular case of capital export
in the context of what a dependent country like Brazil is able to do?
Brazil also exports capital through the constant increase of foreign public
loans and through capital associated to finance groups which operate in
Paraguay, Bolivia and the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, to mention
just a few instances.

"It would be good to keep in mind the accelerated process of monopolization
(via concentration and centralization of capital) that has occurred in
Brazil over these past years, as well as the extraordinary development of
financial capital, mainly from 1968
onward."[19]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn19>

Matters subsequently degenerated on all fronts. In addition to these
criteria - regional economic extraction, "export of capital" (always
associated with subsequent imperialist politics) and internal corporate
monopolisation and financialisation - there are two additional roles for
BRICS regimes if they are genuinely sub-imperialist. One is ensuring
regional geopolitical "stability": for example, Brasilia's hated army in
Haiti and Pretoria's deal-making in African hotspots like South Sudan, the
Great Lakes and the Central African Republic for which $5 billion in
corruption-riddled arms purchases serve as military back-up.

The second is advancing the broader agenda of neoliberalism, so as to
legitimate deepened market access. Evidence includes South Africa's Nepad;
the attempt by China, Brazil and India to revive the WTO; and Brazil's
sabotage of the left project within Venezuela's Bank of the South
initiative. As Eric Toussaint remarked at a World Social Forum panel in
2009, 'The definition of Brazil as a peripheral imperialist power is not
dependent on which political party is in power. The word imperialism may
seem excessive because it is associated with an aggressive military policy.
But this is a narrow perception of
imperialism."[20]<http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn20>

A richer framing for contemporary imperialism is, according to agrarian
scholars Paris Yeros and Sam Moyo, a system "based on the *
super-exploitation* of domestic labour. It was natural, therefore, that, as
it grew, it would require external markets for the resolution of its profit
realisation crisis."[21] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn21>

This notion, derived from Rosa Luxemburg's thinking a century ago, focuses
on how capitalism's extra-economic coercive capacities loot mutual aid
systems and commons facilities, families (women especially), the land, all
forms of nature, and the shrinking state; Harvey's accumulation by
dispossession, and in special cases requiring militarist intervention,
Naomi Klein's *Shock Doctrine*. [22] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn22>

The forms of BRICS sub-imperialism are diverse, for as Yeros and Moyo
remark, "Some are driven by private blocs of capital with strong state
support (Brazil, India); others, like China, include the direct
participation of state-owned enterprises; while in the case of South
Africa, it is increasingly difficult to speak of an autonomous domestic
bourgeoisie, given the extreme degree of de-nationalisation of its economy
in the post-apartheid period. The degree of participation in the Western
military project is also different from one case to the next although, one
might say, there is a 'schizophrenia' to all this, typical of
sub-imperialism."[23] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftn23>

All these tendencies warrant opposition from everyone concerned. The
results are going to be ever easier to observe,

   - the more that BRICS leaders prop up the IMF's pro-austerity financing
   and catalyse a renewed round of World Trade Organisation attacks;
   - the more a new BRICS Bank exacerbates World Bank human, ecological and
   economic messes;
   - the more Africa becomes a battleground for internecine conflicts
   between sub-imperialists intent on rapid minerals and oil extraction (as is
   common in central Africa);
   - the more the hypocrisy associated with BRICS/US sabotage of climate
   negotiations continues or offsetting carbon markets are embraced; and
   - the more that specific companies targeted by victims require unified
   campaigning and boycotts to generate solidaristic counter-pressure, whether
   Brazil's Vale and Petrobras, or South Africa's Anglo or BHP Billiton
   (albeit with London and Melbourne headquarters), or India's Tata or
   Arcelor-Mittal, or Chinese state-owned firms and Russian energy
   corporations.

In this context, building a bottom-up counter-hegemonic network and then *
movement* against both imperialism and BRICS sub-imperialism has never
beenmore important. [24]
*Notes*[1] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref1>. J Zuma, "ANC January
8th statement 2013", speech to the African National Congress, Durban,
January 12, 2013.

[2] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref2>. J Zuma, "South Africa is open
for business", speech to the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 23, 2013.

[3] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref3>. RM Marini, "Brazilian
interdependence and imperialist integration", *Monthly Review*, 17, 7,
1965, p. 22. Two preliminary debates can be joined. First, recommending
Marini's ideas to fellow South Africans, Melanie Samson offers a valid
critique of earlier analysis: "Although Bond is clear as to who benefits
from sub-imperialism, he does not explicitly elaborate a theorisation of
sub-imperialism. As an aside he asserts that, in the earlier imperial
period analysed by classical theorists, imperial capacity was 'reproduced
through sub-imperial processes'. He also notes continuities in South
Africa's sub-imperial project in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the
apartheid and post-apartheid eras. Despite his careful elaboration of the
changing nature of imperialism, Bond presents an ahistorical, unchanging
conceptualisation of sub-imperialism." (M Samson, "(Sub)imperial South
Africa? Reframing the debate",*Review of African Political Economy*,
36,119, 2009, p.96.) The rise of BRICS offers an opportunity to correct
this conceptualisation, although I hold to the standard argument that
imperialism in Africa is largely exercised through the looting of resources
and the application of neoliberal socio-economic policies, with South
Africa mainly lubricating that process; for an earlier version, see P Bond,
*Looting Africa, *London, Zed Books, 2006.

Second, "While Pretoria might at times be justifiably accused of
sub-imperialism and arrogance", writes Ian Taylor, "the incomplete form of
capitalism in much of southern Africa militates against a too easy
application of the concept of sub-imperialism within the region... liberal
regionalism and South African foreign policy are unlikely to enjoy an easy
ride if and when they confront the non-hegemonic state and its ruling
classes across the subcontinent." I am not convinced, because
sub-imperialism follows not only from Marini's definition, but from
worsening "combined and uneven development" which incorporates and
amplifies "incomplete" capitalism (via "accumulation by dispossession").
Moreover, those advocating neoliberalism in the region *did indeed *enjoy
an easy ride, to the extent widespread imposition of structural adjustment
programs was accomplished hand-in-glove with local ruling classes. See I
Taylor, "South African 'imperialism' in a region lacking regionalism", *Third
World Quarterly*, 32, 7, 2011, pp.1233-1253.

[4] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref4>. O Stuenkel, "Can the Brics
Co-operate in the G-20? A View from Brazil", South African Institute for
International Affairs, Occasional Paper 123, Johannesburg, December 2012.

[5] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref5>. D Harvey, *The New
Imperialism, *Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.

[6] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref6>. M Schoeman, "South Africa as
an emerging Middle Power, 1994-2003", in J Daniel, A Habib and R Southall
(Eds), *State of the Nation: South Africa 2003-04*, Pretoria, HSRC, 2003.

[7] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref7>. C Landsberg, "South Africa's
global strategy and status", Johannesburg, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung *New
powers for global change?* Briefing Paper, February 2006,
http://www.fes-globalization.org/projects/new_powers.htm.

[8] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref8>. J Daniel, V Naidoo and S
Naidu, "The South Africans have arrived: Post-Apartheid corporate expansion
into Africa", in J Daniel, A Habib and R Southall (Eds), *State of the
Nation: South Africa 2003-04*, Pretoria, HSRC, 2003.

[9] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref9>. S Ross, "Rendition and the
global war on terrorism: 28 nations have supported the US in the

detention and torture of 'suspects'", *Global Research*, 1 April, 2010,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18419.

[10] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref10>. P Bond, "Who will get
'whacked' next in Africa?", *Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal,*September 30, 2012, http://links.org.au/node/3043.

[11] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref11>. AfriCom Public Affairs,
"Ham discusses AFRICOM mission with African journalists, PAOs at
symposium", Garmisch, Germany, August 29, 2012,
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=8266&lang=0

[12] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref12>. S Cochran, "*Security
assistance, surrogate armies, and the pursuit of US interests in
Sub-Saharan Africa", Strategic **Studies Quarterly,* Spring 2010, 4, 1,
http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2010/spring/cochran.pdf.

[13] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref13>. White House Press Office,
"Press release: Remarks by President Bush and President Mbeki of South
Africa in photo opportunity", Washington, December 8, 2006. Specifically,
Mbeki referred to: "the difficult situation in Somalia" - ("Yes, sir", Bush
intervened) and Mbeki continued, "and the President, together, we are very
keen that, indeed, something must move there. This was a failed state. It's
necessary to support the transitional government, to restoring a government
and to reunify the country, and so on. It's an important thing because the
problem, one of the big problems is that as it is, it provides a base for
terrorists, find safe haven there and then can spread out to the rest of
the continent. It's something that is of shared concern." Within three
weeks, at Washington's behest, Ethiopia invaded Somalia. (See *Sudan
Tribune, *December 10, 2010, reporting on WikiLeaks cables:
http://www.sudantribune.com/US-behind-Ethiopia-invasion-in,37189).

[14] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref14>. K Patel, "The world
according to Dirco (v. Jan 2013)", *Daily Maverick, *January 25, 2013.

[15] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref15>. W Bello, "U-20: Will the
global economy resurface?", *Foreign Policy in Focus*, March 31, 2009.

[16] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref16>. D Harvey, "The G20, the
financial crisis and neoliberalism", Interview on *Democracy Now!,* New
York, April 3, 2009.

[17] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref17>. National Planning
Commission, *2030, Our future - make it work: National Development
Plan,*Minister
in the Office of the President, Pretoria, August 2012, Chapter 7.

[18] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref18>. *CityPress, *"SADC banks on
own development bank", June 23, 2012,
http://www.citypress.co.za/business/sadc-banks-on-own-development-bank-20120623/
 and for more on the neo-colonial comparison, see T Ferrando, "Brics and
land grabbing: Are South-South relationships any different?", unpublished
paper, Pretoria, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174455.

[19] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref19>. R.M. Marini, *Subdesarrollo
y Revolución*, Mexico City, Siglo XXI Editores, 1974, pp. 1-25, translated
at http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bt280210p.html#_edn13 .

[20] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref20>. O Bonfond, E Toussaint and
M.T. Gonzales, "Will capitalism absorb the WSF?", *MRzine, *February 28,
2010, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bt280210p.html#_edn13 .

[21] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref21>. P Yeros and S Moyo,
"Rethinking the theory of primitive accumulation", paper presented to the
2nd IIPPE Conference, May 20-22, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey, p.19.

[22] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref22>. Harvey, *The New
Imperialism, op cit;* N Klein, *Shock Doctrine, *Toronto, Knopf Canada,
2007.

[23] <http://links.org.au/node/3265#_ftnref23>. *Op cit, *p.20.

[24]. The objective of a "brics-from-below" counter-summit in late March
2013, described athttp://ccs.ukzn.ac.za and http://links.org.au/node/3260.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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