How America Deliberatly Exploits The Third World (The Land Of The Not So Free And The Home Of The Not So Brave)
These are images of Zambia. And of the majority of the population that live in this nation.
For those of you who don’t know, Zambia is a country located in Central Africa. It borders Angola in the West, RDC, and Tanzania in the North, and Malawi, and Mozambique in the East. And Zimbabwe and Namibia in the South. Zambia is a landlocked country.
It is rich in natural resources. These include copper, cobalt, silver, uranium, lead, coal, zinc, gold, and emerald. It is one of the main producers of semi-precious gemstones and cobalt.
But yet it’s people live in poverty.
Why?
According to Zambian government debt data, the country accumulated $31.74 billion by the end of 2021, of which $17.27 billion was external debt.
Nearly one-third of the debt — $5.78 billion — is owed to China.
And the rest is likely owed to the IMF and World Bank.
Zambia was the 1st African country to default on its debts during the pandemic.
It needed a $1.3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund to get by.
Why is a country so rich in natural resources struggling to pay off its debts?
Let’s Find Out.
The History Of Zambia
Zambia is a country with many tribes originating from the Bantu group.
The Bantu were a group of tribes that had their origins in now modern Cameroon and Nigeria. These tribes expanded with the Bantu expansion centuries ago, through out central, eastern and southern Africa.
In where it exists Zambia today. There used to be the kingdom of Luba-Lunda, The Maravi Confederacy, and the Mutapa Empire.
Until it, all ended a few years after the expedition of David Livingston in the region.
In the late 19th century, Britain seized the territory and named it Northern Rhodesia. It was under the sovereignty of the British South Africa Company (BSA Company).
And from then on, Zambia became a colony in 1888. In the year of the Berlin Conference.
How Zambia Gained Its “Independence” From Great Britain
Zambia became “independent” from the british empire in October 24th, 1964.
And it wasn’t a simple process.
Before all of this Zambia was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in the British Empire.
On December 31, 1963, the federation was dissolved. And Kaunda was elected as Northern Rhodesia’s sole prime minister in January 1964. Kaunda was encouraged to run for the position by Sir Evelyn Hone, the Colonial Governor, who was close to him.
Soon after. Alice Lenshina led the Lumpa Uprising in the north of the country. marking Kaunda’s first domestic conflict as the country’s president.
On October 24, 1964, the former Northern Rhodesia was renamed the Republic of Zambia. With Kenneth Kaunda serving as the first president. Zambia experienced significant difficulties at independence despite having a significant mineral resource.
Few Zambians with formal education and training were capable of leading the country. And the economy was dependent on outside knowledge. John Willson CMG contributed in part to this knowledge.
How Zambia And Third World Lost It’s “Independence” Through Debt By The IMF and World Bank
Zambia’s relationship with the IMF goes back to 1956. Almost a decade before independence.
According to Jacob Mwanza’s IMF paper,
[It goes deeper into this issue than I could do in this article]
Zambia’s imbalances started in the mid-1970s. Decades after the copper boom experienced after independence. At the time, Zambia enacted inappropriate policies.
“Over-expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, in conjunction with narrow tax bases and poor public enterprise performance, domestic pricing policies biased against agriculture, and overvalued currencies, are some of the policies cited.”
The country was struggling when the copper prices plummeted. Making it worse when the government was unable to develop a diversified economy. All these events, combined caused the economic decline.
To correct the imbalances, the IMF has urged the country to embark on economic reforms. Disregarding the country of application, these reforms generally comprise two main objectives. Macro-economic stabilization and structural reforms.
“As a result, in 1973, Zambia adopted its first IMF-supported stabilization package. A total of SDR 19 million was extended to stem the decline in reserves and correct the budget deficit. But a continuing decline in the balance of payments compelled Zambia to enter into a second stand-by arrangement with the IMF in 1976 amounting to SDR 62 million, which involved imposing ceilings on the money supply, overall credit, and especially government credit. In addition, for the first time in the country’s history, a devaluation of its currency, amounting to 20 percent, had to be effected. However, with the closure of the Southern Route,3 due to an intensified war of liberation in Zimbabwe, the program did not yield any significant positive results.”
And this is how the debt trap started for Zambia. From this point on, Zambia has been completely dependent on the IMF to stay afloat.
This how the process for debt colonialism begins:
The country is facing economic struggles so it goes to IMF to get “aid”. Then the IMF provides a loan. The IMF forces nations to accept atrocious neoliberal practices. That only contributes to their fall.
Such as reducing or eliminating tariffs on foreign products. Privatization of national corporations. Exportation of cash crops and the devaluation of the local currency.
With the exportation of these crops, it’s expected for the country to start paying back its loans. If it fails to do so, the country will ask to get another loan and renegotiate the debt. And so the cycle continues like this many times.
These conditions make an excellent environment for multinational companies. They enter the country and exploit it.
The economy becomes outward-facing. It becomes focused on the extraction of raw materials and agricultural produce. While the debt-trap country gets left in the dust.
According to Africa Mining IQ, there are 11 companies operating in Zambian mines. Of which 7 are from abroad.
3 of these companies are from Canada (Axmin Inc, Barrick Gold Corp & First Quantum Minerals Ltd);
2 are from Britain. (Glencore Plc and Vedanta Resources. {It operates in the country with the subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines Plc};
1 is from Jersey (Caledonia Mining Corporation);
1 is from China [China Nonferrous Metals Corporation (CNMC)];
The 2 biggest mines are the Lumwana Mine and the Konkola Mining Complex. They extract copper.
Barrick Gold Corp controls the Lumwana Mine. Vedanta Resources controls the Konkola Mining Complex.
We don’t know the financial statements and yields of the mines, but both have a value of $USD 1.3 Billion.
Zambia and Third World Countries in general aren’t poor. They are being robbed with impunity.
Final Thoughts
It’s a bitter pill to swallow. To know that as an African, this is still our reality.
And as a Zambian.
[I hope many of you reading this are from. I am not from Zambia by the way. I’m from Angola]
Your people fought to become independent from the UK, but at the end of the day, you’ve never been free.
It makes you question the fighting and struggle your people went through. To know that you passed from an already bad position to a worse position. Ok, now there aren’t any brits to exploit you.
But now who does it is the IMF and World Bank in the name of “economic growth”. Not Zambia’s economic growth.
Debt is more destructive than war. Debt is subtle in the approach to exploitation. Its proponents claim to help, but they usually make things worse. By making their victims more dependent on loans to survive.
It robs a country’s wealth, resources, capital, and people. It is a slow and deadly bleeding. In the process, it brings an unstable political climate, social unrest, and poverty.
This cycle can pass unnoticed by the local populace. It’s invisible poison. Greece is in debt since 1825, and it still is in debt today.
If the country spends more money on interest payments than on its own healthcare. The country is being exploited by the creditor (The IMF).
How can your country be prosperous if its treasury is bleeding without necessity? Because of interest payments, your nation can’t prosper.
It’s quite unfortunate.
And it’s not just the debt traps. It is the kleptocratic autocracies that currently rule most of the African continent. It is the corruption of our goverments and people. The Human capital flight (Or Brain Drain).
(Remember Gaddafi’s plan of a strong African currency? We all know how the US impunitively overthrow and destabilized his country).
It’s the West interfering in our continent everytime we want to unite. Everytime we want fight this Oppressive Old Regime governments in our continent. We as Africans, we have a duty to put an end to this.
The US goverment talks about support Ukraine as if they have a moral high ground. As if they really care about democracies. News flash, they don’t.
They care about toppling goverments that don’t serve their interests, like Iraq. If the USA really cared about democracies, they would topple almost every goverment that exists in our continent.
The African continent has 54 countries, more than 20 are dictatorships.
And the Asian and American continents too. They should start with Saudi Arabia. But they wouldn’t because “Petrodollar”.
If you care about helping the people from Zambia, here is the link to cancel their debts. They don’t deserve to spend years of life working to become poorer.
It seems that we already got some impact.
Here’s the link if you want to read it:
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14xbzvGbShFePURri27kwFERC7Uomk2Yx7Thank you for spending time in reading this article, more is coming on the way and I will see you soon.