Durban - EFF leader Julius Malema has given the French government 14 days to respond to a list of demands including granting full independence to all African countries that are its former colonies while allowing them to determine their own currencies, monetary policies and economic direction.
Malema and supporters of the EFF picketed outside the French embassy in Tshwane where Malema handed over the EFF’s memorandum of demands to Aurélien Lechevallier, the French ambassador to South Africa.
Amongst the demands was that France end all colonial taxes it charges its former colonies as this, Malema said, was the wealth of the African continent. The blood and sweat of all Africans built the infrastructure which African countries are forced to pay for many decades after so-called independence.
“France must immediately remove all its military bases which are currently stationed in Africa. This includes but is not limited to, military bases, French soldiers, French aid through and any presence of French influence in the armies or militia groups in Africa.
“France must desist from interfering in the economic affairs of African countries, through monetary policy and the usage of their currency in West Africa must gradually decrease towards establishing currency systems determined by Africans themselves,” Malema demanded.
He also called for France to return all mineral or fiscal resources held by the French treasury to African nations and their former colonies.
Malema said that France must also pay reparations to all its former colonies, particularly regarding the greatest slave rebellion known to humanity, in Haiti.
“Haiti has had its development stunted by a racist global world order, which feared African independence and the first black-led state,” Malema said.
Continuing the list of demands, Malema also agitated for the removal of French as an official language in Africa, in favour of continental reconstruction of African identity, away from the imposition of white civilisation standards and norms as a measure of humanity.
“France must stop its sponsorship of divisions that occur in Africa’s continental multilateral institutions, particularly in the Pan African Parliament and the African Union. These demands are made to the government of France and sent to all colonial and neo-colonial forces in the African continent including the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and the United States of America,” Malema said.
“All forms and manifestations of colonialism in the African continent must be dismantled and it is our obligation as generation to work fearlessly to dismantle colonial and neo-colonial rule,” Malema said.
He said that the EFF would do everything in its power to destabilise all forms of colonialism on the African continent and will play an unapologetic and leading role in the dismantling of all remnants of colonialism and colonial rule on the African continent.
“We stand on the shoulders of great anti-colonial Pan Africanists such as Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Emperor Haile Selasie, Ben Bella, Thomas Sankara, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Julius Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba, Kenneth Kaunda, Robert Mugabe, Robert Sobukwe and many other Pan Africanists who genuinely resisted colonialism and stood for the unity of the African continent.
“The EFF expects a response to all these demands within 14 working days. If there is no believable and practical response within the 14 days, we will as the leadership of the EFF outline a clear and practical programme on how we will undermine and counter France’s continued colonisation of the African continent,” Malema said.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE