>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian Pacific naval exercise scheduled for April; 300,000 troops deployed to Caucasus

>The USSR2 is no doubt ramping up for their second joint military exercise with their strategic partner, the People’s Republic of China, probably to be held in the summer. Will it be called, in an effort to assuage any concerns in the Pentagon, “Peace Mission 2006”?

Major Russian naval exercise to be held in Pacific
12:37 31/ 03/ 2006
VLADIVOSTOK
(RIA Novosti, Anatoly Ilyukhov)

Large-scale naval exercises will be held in Russia’s Far East in early April, the press service of the Pacific Fleet said Friday.

The seven-day exercises off the Kamchatka Peninsula will involve main naval groups of the northeast joint command, including ships, submarines, aircraft and coastal defense troops, which will practice interoperability in simulated combat operations.

“Coastal troops will conduct direct artillery and small arms shooting practice. They will be supported by aircraft of the Pacific Fleet’s air force and air-defense force,” a representative said, adding that pilots would be eliminating targets at different altitudes and in cloud conditions.

The missions of anti-submarine ships, minesweepers and submarines will form the central part of the exercises.

Source: Novosti

In the meanwhile, Russia’s neo-Soviet leadership rebukes the USA for impending test of massive conventional bomb in Nevada desert. The article below states that the bomb is designed to destroy facilities that are buried “deep underground.” Would this include the USSR2’s underground nuclear war-fighting city in the Ural Mountains, Yamantau? I hope so.

The article also notes that a “Russian military expert” believes that the USA is endeavoring to “intimidate hostile regimes.” Good. The neo-Soviet state is the most hostile of the world’s hostile regimes. The same expert, Anatoly Tsiganok, assures the West that Russia has no intention of conducting similar tests. How noble. Instead, the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces will test-fire yet another ICBM or SLBM . . .

Russian expert says U.S. test explosion is “political” move
15:30 31/ 03/ 2006
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti)

Washington’s decision to conduct a large-yield high-explosive test has political overtones, a Russian military expert said Friday, speculating that the United States intended to use the test to intimidate hostile regimes.

“It could be a move to threaten Iran, North Korea or any other regimes that the United States is not pleased with,” said Anatoly Tsiganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting, adding that it could be regarded as an attempt to demonstrate U.S. military superiority over Russia and China.

The U.S. earlier told Russia it planned to detonate 700 tons of TNT during the Divine Strake test as part of a program to develop weapons capable of destroying facilities buried deep underground.

The experiment is sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and is scheduled for June 2, 2006 at the Nevada Test Site.

Tsiganok said Russia was unlikely to follow the U.S. example, and would not conduct similar tests.

“We have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the use of conventional explosives with yield comparable to that of a small nuclear bomb could be regarded as a violation of the treaty,” he said.

The expert said that the U.S. move could “provoke an escalation of tensions in the world, and particularly in the Middle East.”The U.S. has not yet ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Source: Novosti

Perhaps Tsiganok would like to comment on the presence of 300,000 Russian soldiers that have apparently been deployed in the Caucasus region since the beginning of 2005. Surely the New Red Army is not there to quell the Chechen secessionists since a sizeable minority of the population there, including Presidents Yandarbiyev and Maskhadov, has already been exterminated per Comrade Czar Putin’s promise to hunt down and kill “terrorists,” even while they are using the toilet (or some such “tough guy” talk for which Russian men are renowned). Perhaps the USSR2 is preparing to counter the impending US invasion of Iran, which is located just south of the Caucasus.

Actually, methinks Moscow would prefer to hurl her forces through the middle of Western Europe, via compliant “post-communist” communist Belarus and the GRU-infested Czech Republic, one of the Soviet Bloc’s many Trojan horses in the New European Soviet (EU). This apparent militarization of the Caucasus could very well be a feint in advance of the USSR2’s preparations for retaking Europe. Iran is already in Moscow’s backpocket and will provide a convenient distraction to tie down the United States Armed Forces.

Taking into consideration that Kavkaz Center is a pro-Islamic, pro-Chechen propaganda website that has been relentlessly pursued by FSB hackers across Scandinavia, the following article is worth reading:

Moscow is getting ready for the great war in Northern Caucasus

The observers, special services and journalists all over Russia discuss an opportunity of great war throughout Northern Caucasus which some commentators have already baptized as “the second caucasian war. The serious signs of impendent war also specify various western analytical sources, in particular experts of Jamesstone university of USA .

The Kremlin is getting ready for it. By the beginning of 2005 Moscow has concentrated 300 000 soldiers in Caucasus . Part of them, more than 100 000 (according to some data up to 200 000), are directly in the Chechen Republic .

Up to now the Russian forces have been dispersed over significant territory, including Rostov area which is populated by Russians , the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories. Currently, Moscow concentrates them in the Caucasian republics.

Yet on the 13th May the head of armies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russian Federation Rogojkin declared, that additional units of his formations will be entered into Elista (Kalmikia), Cherkessk, Nalchik and Sochi. The militarization of all Northern Caucasus goes at full speed.

In the beginning of 2006 the brigades and battalions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Northern Caucasus will be replaced with regiments and divisions. Instead of battalions with 600 trucks there will be regiments with 2000. Besides in Dagestan and Karachaevo – Circassia will be based 2 additional mountain brigades. Officially they will serve supposedly ” for the protection of borders “. But actually the task of the mountain brigade in Karachaevo – Circassia consists in protection of the Black sea coast against attacks of mojaheds, and the brigade in Dagestan will defend the coast of Caspian sea from attacks of mojaheds from the Chechen Republic .

At the same time Russian occupational garrisons will be reinforced in the Chechen Republic , Kabardino-Balkariyas, Ingushetia and Northern Ossetia .

This year Putin’s regime has already began openly to prepare the citizens for general war in Caucasus . And this is after 6 years since he has publicly promised to people to finish with Chechen mojaheds within 2-3 months.

Prospects of total war openly are openly discussed even in army circles. Among the officers of an occupational grouping in the Chechen Republic this theme is one of main issue. Practically nobody doubts, that general destabilization and bloody fights are not far off.

The local puppet militia under the order of the Kremlin are trying to anticipate mojaheds and carry out so-called “stripping”. Especially actively operate the puppet militiamen in Dagestan where their losses grow day by day due to impacts of Dagestan mojaheds.

In Ingushetia for prevention of possible scale operations from the mojaheds side, armies and local puppet militia establish new blocks and block roads between a mountain part of republic and plain. In Kabardino-Balkariya mombers of OMON regularly comb the area of Elbrus. Recently in suburb of Nalchik they have implemented searches in all houses after there were killed some militiamen.

Practically all observers and commentators specify that mojaheds have kept their promise, expanded a zone of guerrilla operation all over Northern Caucasus . Along with Dagestan, the attacks of mojaheds take place in Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachaevo – Circassia , Ingushetia.

According to last military sessions of mojaheds command under the supervision of the president Sheikh Abdul-Halim Sadulaev, significant activization of mojaheds in Northern Caucasus is expected. Thus commentators reckon that the establishments of the control from the mojaheds side in important territories is almost inevitable.

Musa Strone, Kavkaz Center
2005-08-18 00:30:20

Source: Kavkaz Center

>Red World: Africa, Part 1: Communist and socialist regimes dominate "Red Continent" into twenty-first century

> Pictured here: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert fraternizes with his country’s enemy, Egypt’s Nasserist dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Arab Republic of Egypt (1922)
(formerly known as United Arab Republic until 1970; unified under that name with Syria, 1958-1961)
Type of state: Socialist (Nasserist) dictatorship with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Egypt: Ahmed Nazif (National Democratic Party): July 14, 2004-present
President of Egypt: Hosni Mubarak (National Democratic Party): October 14, 1981-present
Communist government:
1) National Democratic Party (formerly legal faction in Arab Socialist Union), 1978-present
2) Arab Socialist Union (formerly Free Officers Movement; including members of defunct Communist Party of Egypt, 1965), sole legal party, 1962-1978
3) Free Officers Movement/Liberation Rally, 1953-1962
4) Revolution Command Council, 1952-1953
Socialist International presence: National Democratic Party
Communist parties: Communist Party of Egypt (refounded 1975), National Democratic Party, National Progressive Unionist Party, Egyptian Section of the Fourth International (United Secretariat), Socialist People’s Party, 20th March Movement for Change
Important notes:
1) The clandestine, revolutionary Free Officers Movement (FOM) deposed the Egyptian monarchy and established the Revolution Command Council in 1952. The FOM consisted of Major General Muhammad Naguib, Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, Lieutenant Colonel Anwar El-Sadat and others. From the FOM emerged the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), of which Sadat was a member. Sadat’s assumption of power in 1970 was called the Corrective Revolution and supposedly purged anti-Soviet elements from government.
2) In 1976 Sadat decreed the formation of distinct political platforms within the ruling ASU, to represent the right (Liberal Socialist Organization), the center (Egypt Arab Socialist Organization) and the left (National Progressive Unionist Organization; NPUO). From these platforms emerged a number of parties, including the NDP (social democratic) and the Socialist Labor Party in 1977. The ASU was finally dissolved in 1980.
3) The National Progressive Unionist Party, Arab Democratic Nasserist Party and Egyptian Arab Socialist Party are committed to safeguarding the pan-Arab socialist principles of the 1952 Revolution. Egypt has the largest military in Africa and the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel.
4) Notwithstanding the delegation that the National Progressive Unionist Party (NPUP; formerly NPUO) sent in 1986 to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany, the NPUP is more accurately described as a representative of national communism, or pro-Soviet Arab neo-fascism, rather than international communism. The Egyptian Communist Party also sent a delegation.
5) Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi organized a similar group of “free officers” committed to pan-Arab socialism to overthrow King Idris in 1969, while the Syrian Ba’ath Party used still another group of free officers to overthrow the Nasser-organized union between Egypt and Syria, the United Arab Republic, in 1961.
6) The social revolutionary quasi-Masonic Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, won 88 seats in the 2005 parliamentary election. The Muslim Brotherhood candidates ran as independents. The society has branches in Syria, the Palestinian National Authority, Jordan and Iraq, where it is known as the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Burkina Faso (1960)
(formerly Republic of Upper Volta prior to 1984)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Burkina Faso: Tertius Zongo (Congress for Democracy and Progress): June 4, 2007-present
President of Burkina Faso: Blaise Compaoré (Congress for Democracy and Progress): October 15, 1987-present
Communist government:
1) Congress for Democracy and Progress (including Organization for Popular Democracy/Labour Movement), 1996-present
2) Organization for Popular Democracy/Labour Movement (including Union of Burkinabè Communists), 1989-1996
3) President Blaise Compaoré with support of Union of Burkinabè Communists, 1987-1989
4) Communist Officers’ Group/National Revolutionary Council with support of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, 1983-1987 (ends in second coup)
Socialist International presence: Congress for Democracy and Progress
Communist parties: African Independence Party (Ouédraogo), African Independence Party (Toure), Congress for Democracy and Progress, Convergence for Social Democracy (Sankarist), Convergence of Hope (Sankarist), Democratic and Popular Rally (Sankarist), Movement for Tolerance and Progress (Sankarist), National Patriots’ Party (Sankarist), Party for Democracy and Socialism, Patriotic Front for Change (Sankarist), Sankarist Democratic Front, Sankarist Panafrican Convention, Social Forces Front (Sankarist), Union for Renaissance/Sankarist Movement, Union of Independent Democrats and Patriots (Sankarist), United Burkinabe Opposition, United Socialist Party, Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party (Stalinist)
Important notes:
1) Founded in 1996 the Congress for Democracy and Progress consists of the Organization for Popular Democracy/Labour Movement, National Convention of Progressive Patriots/Social Democratic Party, Group of Revolutionary Democrats, Movement for Socialist Democracy, Party of Action for the Liberalism in Solidarity, Party for Democracy and Rally, Rally of Independent Social Democrats, Union of Social Democrats, Union of Democrats and Patriots of Burkina, factions of Groups of Patriotic Democrats, and Burkinabè Socialist Bloc. Founded in 1989 the Organization for Popular Democracy/Labour Movement, in turn, consists of the Union of Burkinabè Communists, Revolutionary Military Organization, factions of Communist Struggle Union-The Flame, and Burkinabè Communist Group.
2) Thomas Sankara, the first President of Burkina Faso, was an advocate of African socialism. Many Burkinabè parties since his assassination have claimed his ideological legacy as “Sankarist.” During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo a group of young officers formed a secret organization called the Communist Officers’ Group, the best-known members of which were Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Thomas Sankara, and Blaise Compaoré, who apparently organized Sankara’s assassination and has been president of Burkina Faso since 1987.
3) Libya’s Revolutionary Leader Qaddafi supported and Compaoré organized the communist coup that installed Sankara in 1983. The ruling party of Burkina Faso, the Congress for Democracy and Progress, supposedly renounced Marxism in 1997.

Central African Republic (1960)
(formerly Central African Empire, 1976-1979)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty state with resurgent elements of old regime
Prime Minister of CAR: Faustin-Archange Touadéra (independent): January 22, 2008-present
President of CAR: François Bozizé Yangouvonda (independent) March 15, 2003-present
Communist government:
1) Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People under communist President Ange-Félix Patassé, 1993-2003
2) Imperial Government under leadership of communist Prime Minister Ange-Félix Patassé, 1976-1978
Socialist International presence: Patriotic Front for Progress (observer)
Communist parties: African Party for a Radical Transformation and the Integration of the States, Central African Socialist Movement, Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People
Important notes:
1) Ange-Félix Patassé, the first democratically elected President of the Central African Republic (CAR), was head of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (MPLC). Prior to holding the presidency between 1993 and 2003, Patassé, according to Profiles of People in Power, was a “former agronomist and communist militant” who spent most of the 1980s in detention or exile. He began his political career in 1965 when he was appointed minister of development in 1965. Emperor Bokassa I, who formerly held the post of president as Jean-Bédel Bokassa, appointed Patassé as prime pinister of the first Imperial Government of the CAR in 1976. Patassé remained in this position until 1978, when he sought exile in France. There he remained in exile, founding the MPLC, until the overthrow of Bokassa in 1979.
2) François Bozizé Yangouvonda, initially Armed Forces Chief of Staff under Patassé, established a base of operations in neighboring Chad to oust Patassé. Beginning in 2002 he instigated raids into the CAR throughout 2002. With the help of Libya’s Revolutionary Leader Qaddafi and the Uganda-supported Movement for the Liberation of Congo, an insurgent group from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patassé repelled Bozizé’s forces. Patassé accused President Idriss Déby of Chad of assisting Bozizé. Déby denied the charge.
3) Bozizé finally seized power in 2003 and introduced a military government. He won the country’s 2005 presidential election, while the pro-Bozizé coalition National Convergence won the 2005 parliamentary election. The MPLC is now in opposition, with the second largest number of seats. Its presidential candidate obtained the second largest number of votes after Bozizé. Although Bozizé is not openly associated with any party, in early March 2004 he invited the ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Marxist, to seek exile in the country. Aristide, however, remained there only briefly.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, 1960)
(formerly DRC, 1966-1971, and Republic of Zaire, 1971-1997)
Type of state: Neo-communist state
Prime Minister of DRC: Adolphe Muzito (Unified Lumumbist Party): October 10, 2008-present
President of DRC: Joseph Kabila (People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, received military training in People’s Republic of China, son of Marxist rebel Laurent-Désiré Kabila): January 26, 2001-present
Communist government:
1) People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy in collaboration with Unified Lumumbist Party, 2006-present
2) Neo-Lumumbist regime under President Joseph Kabila, People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, and Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2003-2006
3) Neo-Lumumbist regime under President Joseph Kabila, Transitional Parliament, and technocratic cabinet, 2001-2003
4) Neo-Lumumbist regime under President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Transitional Parliament, and People’s Power Committees, 1999-2001
5) Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, 1997-1999
6) Congolese National Movement-Lumumba, Soviet-backed counter-government in Stanleyville, 1960-1961
Socialist International presence: Union for Democracy and Social Progress
Communist parties: 17th May Movement, Action Movement for the Rebirth of the Congo, Congolese Front of Socialists, Congolese Movement for Direct Democracy (Revolutionary Committees), Congolese National Liberation Front (1968), Congolese National Liberation Front (1987), Congolese National Liberation Front (1997), Congolese National Movement-Lumumba (Albert Onawelho and Daniel Mayele), Congolese National Movement-Lumumba (François Lumumba), Congolese National Movement-Lumumba Original (Lambert Mende), Congolese Socialist Movement, Congolese Socialist Party, Coordination of Lumumbist Mulelist Kabilist Revolutionary Nationalist Forces, Federalist Republican Forces, Front of Patriots-Labour Party, National Lumumba Movement, Party of Genuine Lumumbist Patriots, Patriotic Front for the Renovation and the Progress (Maoist), Patriotic Front-Red Flag, People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (Lumumbist), Progressives’ Congress for Liberation, Union of the Congolese Left, United Front of Congolese Nationalists, Unified Lumumbist Party
Important notes:
1) The founder of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), Laurent-Désiré Kabila, also founded the People’s Revolutionary Party in 1967 and the secessionist Marxist state of South Kivu which, like the party, endured until 1988. President Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and succeeded by his son Joseph. The ADFL is a former insurgent army consisting of the revived People’s Revolutionary Party, National Council of Resistance for Democracy, Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Congo, and Democratic Alliance of the People. After the overthrow of President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 the ADFL became the new national army of the DRC. In 2002 Joseph Kabila organized the People’s Party for Reconstuction and Democracy (PPRD). PPRD member Kikaya Bin Karubi, then also DRC information minister, affirmed that the party would follow the “patriotic teachings” of Congo’s first prime minister Patrice Lumumba and those of the assassinated Laurent-Désiré. According to Adrian Pongo, Secretary General of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, the elder Kabila “swam between Maoist and Marxist waters.”
2) In his classic treatment of United Nations involvement in the Katanga Crisis, The Fearful Master, G. Edward Griffin provides a biography of Antoine Gizenga, who led a Soviet-backed rebel government in Stanleyville between 1960 and 1961. More than four decades later, Gizenga was the DRC’s legitimate prime minister between 2006 and 2008, when he resigned for age- and health-related reasons.

Gizenga was a minor personality in Congolese politics until he was invited to Prague, Czechoslovakia, for Communist cadre training. When he returned, he became one of Lumumba’s strongest supporters and worked closely with him to implement plans for the Communist take-over of the whole Congo. When Lumumba was arrested and then killed, Gizenga set himself up as Lumumba’s successor. He established a Communist regime in the neighboring province of Orientale and gathered all of Lumumba’s followers around him. The Soviet and Czechoslovakian diplomats and consular officials who were kicked out of Leopoldville by Colonel Mobutu popped up in the Gizenga stronghold of Stanleyville where they quickly received official accreditation. The Soviets lost no time in announcing to the world that they now recognized Gizenga’s regime as the “only legitimate Government of the Congo.”

3) The rapid fall of Uganda, Rwanda and Zaire to communism and neo-communism in the 1980s and 1990s is intimately related. The civil war that wracked Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 was also characterized in part by ethnic strife between two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, the former being ousted by the latter at the end of the conflict. An opposite situation occurred in the neighboring Republic of Burundi between 1993 and 2003, in which two different groups of Hutus, one Marxist and the other not, contested the rule of the Tutsi-dominated government.
4) A brief history of The Congo/Zaire is instructive here. During the Congo Crisis, Patrice Emery Lumumba, Prime Minister of The Congo between June 1960 and his assassination in January 1961 and leader of the pro-communist faction of the Mouvement National Congolais, directed the country into a relationship with the Soviet Union. In response, the pro-Western, anti-communist Governor Moise Tshombe of Katanga declared that his province would secede from The Congo. The United Nations dispatched troops to The Congo to suppress the seceding Katangese.
5) The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, founded in 1960 and located in Moscow, was renamed the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University. In 1992 the institution’s name reverted to the original. During the Cold War, the university’s function was to indoctrinate Third World students with Marxism. Since the continuing/ restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union still controls the USSR2, this mandate presumably has not changed.
6) The First Congo War between 1996 and 1997 once again placed the country under the control of a Marxist government when the ADFL overthrew the government of long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, President of The Congo/Zaire from 1965 to 1997, and installed self-admitted Marxist-Maoist Kabila into that office. Kabila’s supporters included leftists who remembered the brief rule of the pro-Soviet Lumumba with nostalgia, ethnic and regional minorities who resented the central government in Kinshasa, and the Marxist regimes of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda and Paul Kagame in Rwanda, the latter only recently installed in 1994 with Ugandan assistance. Kabila had been introduced to Kagame and Museveni by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania. Since 1997 the governments of both Uganda and Rwanda have openly acknowledged the role that Kagame and Museveni played in the formation of the AFDL and in sending Ugandan and Rwandan troops into The Congo to support the ADFL.
7) The Second Congo War (“Africa’s World War”) between 1998 and 2003 when Kabila expelled Ugandan and Rwandan military advisors, aggravating his former allies Museveni and Kagame, as well as rebel factions in the DRC that had not been incorporated into the Kabila regime. These rebel factions included the Tutsi-dominated Rally for Congolese Democracy, which was devoted to the protection of Tutsis residing in the DRC, as well as advancing the interests of the new Tutsi-dominated regimes in Rwanda and Burundi; the Hutu-dominated Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda, which operated in the DRC and was committed to eradicating the Tutsi presence in that country, as well as overthrowing the new Tutsi regimes in Rwanda and Burundi; and the Ugandan armed forces and Uganda-supported rebel armies, such as the Movement for the Liberation of Congo.
8) The governments of Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Chad, Libya, and Sudan, the first three being openly Marxist, supported Kabila’s new regime. Chad dispatched 1,000 troops on Libyan aircraft to the DRC in support of Kabila. Zimbabwe also supplied troops to support the DRC government.
9) A ceasefire was brokered in 1999 and more than 5,000 United Nations-sanctioned troops arrived in the DRC, repeating scenes witnessed nearly 40 years before during the Congo Crisis, to monitor the peace between the armed factions operating in Kinshasa-, Ugandan- and Rwandan-controlled regions of the country.

Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe (1975)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of São Tomé and Príncipe: Joaquim Rafael Branco (Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe-Social Democratic Party): June 22, 2008-present
President of São Tomé and Príncipe: Fradique de Menezes (Force for Change Democratic Movement-Liberal Party): July 23, 2003-present
Communist government:
1) Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe-Social Democratic Party, 2008-present
2) Independent Democratic Action (crypto-communist): 2008
3) Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe-Social Democratic Party, 1990-2001, 2002-2006
4) Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe, sole legal party, 1975-1990
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe, Sao Tomean Workers’ Party (possibly)
Important note:
1) In 1986 Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP) sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. The Democratic Convergence Party-Reflection Group was founded in 1990 by dissidents, independents and young professionals from the MLSTP. The “post”-communist government of the MLSTP-PSD was briefly interrupted in 1995 and 2003 by military coups.

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
(formerly People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 1987-1991)
Type of state: Neo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Ethiopia: Meles Zenawi (Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front): August 23, 1995-present
President of Ethiopia: Girma Wolde-Giorgis (independent): October 8, 2001-present
Communist government:
1) Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, 1991-present
2) Workers’ Party of Ethiopia, sole legal party, 1984-1990
3) Communist Derg (Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army), 1974-1984
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (consisting of Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization, Amhara National Democratic Movement, South Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Front, and Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front); United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (consisting of Oromo National Congress, Ethiopian Social Democratic Federal Party, Southern Ethiopia People’s Democratic Coalition, All-Amhara People’s Organization, Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party, Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement, Ethiopian Democratic Union-Tehadiso, Ethiopian National United Front, Ethiopian People Federal Democratic Unity Party, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, Gambella People’s United Democratic Front, Oromo People’s Liberation Organization, and Tigrean Alliance for Democracy)
Important notes:
1) Ethiopia is unique among African countries in that it was never colonized by a European power, although Fascist Italy endeavored to militarily subjugate the Ethiopians and Somalis between 1935 and 1940. British and American forces ousted the Italian occupational army during the East African Campaign. Liberia is the only other African country that was never colonized by a European power.
2) In 1986 the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia, which is now defunct, sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. Since 1991 Mengistu Haile Mariamhe, the deposed communist dictator of Ethiopia, and some 50 other Derg members have resided in Zimbabwe as “guests” of that country’s communist dictator, Robert Mugabe.

Federal Republic of Nigeria (1960)
Type of state: Multiparty state with democratically elected government and history of military dictatorship
President of Nigeria: Goodluck Jonathan (People’s Democratic Party): May 5, 2010-present
Semi-communist government:
1) People’s Democratic Party (centrist) under leadership of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua: 2007-2010
Communist parties: Communist Party of Nigeria (founded 2002), Democratic Socialist Party (Trotskyist), Nigeria Socialist Alliance, People’s Democratic Party (communist infiltrated), People’s Redemption Party (communist infiltrated), Progressive Liberation Party, Socialist Congress of Nigeria, Socialist Workers’ and Farmers’ Party of Nigeria (banned 1966), Socialist Revolutionary Vanguard, Socialist Workers’ Movement, Workers’ Alternative
Communist insurgency: Movement for the Emancipation of the @#!*% Delta, Movement for the Liberation of Nigeria, @#!*% Delta People’s Volunteer Force, @#!*% Delta Vigilantees

Important notes:
1) Nigeria is one of a handful of countries in Africa that have never suffered under some form of communist domination, until its present regime. Tragically, a history of back-to-back military dictatorships, instead, have delayed the introduction of freedom to this populous, resource-rich country. During the national assembly that drafted the constitution for what became Nigeria’s short-lived Second Republic between 1979 and 1983, attempts to define Nigeria as a “socialist” state were soundly repudiated. According to BBC News, however, Nigeria’s former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (1951-2010) was a communist: “As an undergraduate student in Nigeria’s Ahmadu Bello University, Mr Yar’Adua was a self-confessed Marxist and criticised his elder brother’s ‘capitalist’ leanings.” In a May 2007 interview in the Nigerian press Lawal Ibrahim, one of Yar’Adua’s students at Katsina College of Art, Science and Technology, described the former governor of Katsina State and current national president as a “rabid socialist”:

I have known Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua for forty-one years, precisely I first met him in 1966 during the days of Katsina State Student Union when he was the president. From then on our paths crossed in a number of ways including the fact that in 1976 when he just finished his National Youth Service, (NYSC), he was employed by the then Katsina College of Art, Science and Technology in Zaria to teach chemistry and I happened to be one of the students he taught chemistry that year. It was in the class and outside the chemistry that class Umaru taught me communism, because he was a rabid socialist. He was a hardcore and staunch social communist. Then we found ourselves first in different political camps, the NRC and SDP and in 1998/99 we found ourselves in the PDP and before that, K34. So I have known him for 41 years and in the five-year period between 1976 and 1981 we spent at least four hours in a week with each other.

2) The Communist Party of Nigeria (CPN) was legally registered in 2002, but it is uncertain as to whether this organization is continuous with the pro-Soviet Socialist Workers’ and Farmers’ Party of Nigeria that was banned by the military government in 1966.
3) The @#!*% Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and the related Movement for the Emancipation of the @#!*% Delta have been waging war against the federal government and sabotaging foreign oil production facilities since at least 2004. The jailed leader of the NDPVF is a self-declared Marxist and Muslim by the name of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, born Dokubo Melford Goodhead Jr. Asari has publicly declared his admiration of Osama bin Laden and apparently has financial connections with the Saudi terrorist leader.
4) Communist superpowers Russia and China are assuming control of Nigeria’s energy industry through an under-reported program of stealthy corporate takeovers that former President Yar’Adua facilitated. In January 2008 the Financial Times revealed that Kremlin-owned Gazprom is seeking to secure access to Nigeria’s vast energy reserves: “A senior Nigerian oil industry official, who declined to be named, said the company was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for the chance to develop some of the biggest gas deposits in the world. The Russian move is part of a courtship that saw Vladimir Putin writing to Yar’Adua last year to seek energy co-operation.” In February 2008 UC RusAl, the world’s largest aluminum and alumina producer, launched the Alscon smelter in Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom State. State-run Novosti reports: “RusAl closed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Alscon (Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria) in February 2007, receiving a 77.5% share in a 193,000-ton smelter, as well as a port on the Imo River and a power station. Germany’s Ferrostaal AG and the government of Nigeria remain minority shareholders with 7.5% and 15% respectively.” The owner of UC RusAl is Russia’s richest oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.
5) In February 2008 the Nigerian media also reported that President Yar’Adua intended to establish a strategic energy partnership with Red China that will entail Beijing’s support for Nigeria’s drive to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. On March 1 Yar’Adua completed a four-day state visit to China. The Nigerian president’s entourage included his minister of finance, foreign minister, minister of energy, and minister of transportation, as well as two state governors and leading representatives of Nigeria’s banking and industrial sectors.

Gabonese Republic (1960)
Type of state: Single-party dominant system
Prime Minister of Gabonese Republic: Jean Eyeghe Ndong (Gabonese Democratic Party): January 20, 2006-present
President of Gabonese Republic: Rose Francine Rogombé (Gabonese Democratic Party): June 10, 2009-present (interim)
Socialist International presence: Gabonese Progress Party
Communist parties: Association for Socialism in Gabon, Socialist Emancipation Movement of the People

Islamic Republic of Mauritania (1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty state under military dictatorship, with resurgent elements of old regime
Prime Minister of Mauritania: Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf (nonpartisan): August 14, 2008-present (appointed by military junta)
President of High Council of State: General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Nasserist): August 6, 2008-present (deposed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed El Waghef)
Communist government:
1) Mauritanian People’s Party, sole legal party, 1961-1978
Socialist International presence: Rally of Democratic Forces (observer)
Communist parties: African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (black nationalist), Communist Party of Mauritania (apparently defunct), Democratic Socialist Union (Syrian Ba’athist), National Rebirth Party (Iraqi Ba’athist, banned), National Vanguard (Iraqi Ba’athist, banned), People’s Progressive Alliance (Nasserist), Rally of Democratic Forces, Union of Progress Forces
Important note:
1) Before founding the Mauritanian People’s Party by merging the country’s four largest parties, Moktar Ould Daddah had joined the center-left Progressive Mauritanian Union. Daddah, the first president of post-independence Mauritania, was committed to transforming the country into a republic based on Islam, nationalism, and socialism. To this end, in 1975, he presented a charter to his fellow countrymen that was at first popular and well received by his opposition. Daddah currently heads the Rally of Democratic Forces, which won 15 seats in the December 2006 parliamentary elections, the second largest bloc after Al-Mithaq, which consists of moderate Islamists.

Kingdom of Lesotho (1966)
Type of state: Monarchy with democratically elected neo-communist government
Prime Minister of Lesotho: Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili (Lesotho Congress for Democracy): April 1, 1998-present
Communist government:
1) Lesotho Congress for Democracy (faction of Basotho Congress Party), 1997-present
2) Basotho Congress Party (pan-Africanist socialist), 1993-1994, 1994-1997
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Communist Party of Lesotho, Lesotho Workers’ Party, Popular Front for Democracy (front for Communist Party of Lesotho)
Important notes:
1) The Basotho Congress Party (BCP) was founded as the Basutoland African Congress in 1952 and won the 1970 parliamentary election, the results of which the military overturned in a coup, preventing the BCP from ascending to power. The losing Basotho National Party ruled by decree until a military coup in 1986. Consequently, the BCP organized an insurgent army called the Lesotho Liberation Army, trained in Libya, and instigated guerrilla warfare in 1979.
2) The Communist Party of Lesotho (CPL) was founded in 1962, banned in 1970, and re-legalized in 1991 by the military junta. After the end of apartheid in 1994, the CPL advocated the union of Lesotho with South Africa, which completely surrounds the kingdom. In 2005 Khabele Matlosa and Caleb Sello wrote that the CPL “established strong links with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which brought some external resources for party activities. The CPL also maintained strong links with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the ANC, much to the annoyance of the then apartheid regime.”

Kingdom of Morocco (1956)
Type of state: Monarchy with democratically elected neo-communist government
Prime Minister of Morocco: Abbas El Fassi (Independence Party): September 19, 2007-present
Communist government:
1) Independence Party (monarchist), National Rally of Independents (centrist), Socialist Union of Popular Forces (social democratic), and Party of Progress and Socialism (formerly Moroccan Communist Party): 2007-present
2) Socialist Union of Popular Forces in coalition with Independence Party, National Rally of Independents, Party of Progress and Socialism (formerly Moroccan Communist Party), People’s Movement, and National People’s Movement, 2002-2007
3) Socialist Union of Popular Forces in coalition with Independence Party, National Rally of Independents, National People’s Movement, Party for Progress and Socialism (formerly Moroccan Communist Party), Social Democratic Party, and Democratic Forces Front (communist), 1998-2002
Socialist International presence: Socialist Union of Popular Forces
Communist parties: The Democratic Way, Fidelity for Democracy, Democratic Forces Front, Militant, Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Current-Partisan of the Proletarian Line, Party of the National Ittihadi Congress, Party of Progress and Socialism (formerly Moroccan Communist Party), Party of the United Socialist Left, Rally of the Democratic Left, Section of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers’ International, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Democratic Vanguard Party, Socialist Workers’ Organization
Communist insurgency: Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Polisario, Western Sahara)
Important notes:
1) The Moroccan Communist Party (MCP) was banned between 1969 and 1974. Its program was similar to that of the trade union wing of the socialist National Union of Popular Forces, the predecessor of the social democratic Socialist Union of Popular Forces. The MCP later changed its name to the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS). In 1986 the PPS sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
2) The Justice and Development Party (PJD) is a moderate Islamist party that supports the establishment of an Islamic state in Morocco. In the 2007 parliamentary election the PJD obtained the second largest number of seats, after the Independence Party, which organized a coalition government that locked out the Islamists from power.

Kingdom of Swaziland (1968)
Type of state: Absolute monarchy with no legal parties
Prime Minister of Swaziland: Themba Diamini (nonpartisan): November 26, 2003-present
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Swaziland Communist Party(founded in 1994 and suppressed since then)
Communist insurgency: People’s United Democratic Movement (probable)
Important note:
1) In 1983 Mario Masuku founded the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), which is committed to transforming Swaziland’s absolute monarch into a constitutional one. In 2002 Masuku was held for eight months on sedition charges, but was found innocent by High Court Chief Justice Stanley Sapire in August of that year. The ruling outraged King Mswati III and Sapire was fired a few months later. In 2003 a United Nations news agency reported: “A string of unsolved petrol bombings in the country date back to 1995, when the House of Assembly chamber in the Parliament Building was gutted by arson. A bomb destroyed the Deputy Prime Minister’s office in downtown Mbabane in 1998, killing a security guard. And a police barracks in Mbabane was petrol bombed earlier this year, resulting in three injuries.” PUDEMO enjoyed the support of the South African Communist Party as recently as 2007.

People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (1962)
Type of state: Socialist (Nasserist) dictatorship with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Algeria: Ahmed Ouyahia (National Rally for Democracy, pro-Bouteflika): June 23, 2008-present
President of Algeria: Abdelaziz Bouteflika (National Liberation Front): April 27, 1999-present
Communist government:
1) Presidential Alliance (consisting of National Liberation Front, National Rally for Democracy, and Movement for the Society of Peace (Islamist)): 2005-present
2) National Liberation Front in coalition with National Rally for Democracy and Movement for the Society for Peace, 1997-2005
3) National Liberation Front, supported by military during Algerian Civil War, 1991-1997
3) National Liberation Front, 1988-1991
4) National Liberation Front (formerly Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action), sole legal party, 1962-1988
Socialist International presence: Socialist Forces Front (split from National Liberation Front)
Communist parties: Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (formerly Algerian Communist Party (ACP) faction), Democratic and Social Movement (formerly ACP faction), National Liberation Front, Workers’ Party (linked to French Workers’ Party)
Important notes:
1) Although President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a leader in the Algerian War of Independence, and Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahiaare are members of the RND, in the 2002 parliamentary election the long-ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) obtained an overwhelming majority of the popular vote. By contrast, as a result of the 1997 parliamentary election, the FLN was the RND’s junior coalition partner. The politically potent Algerian armed forces, formerly the insurgent National Liberation Army (ALN), supported the FLN regime during the Algerian Civil War.
2) Characterizing the ideology of Algeria’s FLN is difficult. At the time of their ascension to power, international anti-communists assiduously hunted for self-avowed communists in the ranks of the FLN, but found none. Although the FLN prefers to eschew the label “communist” in favor of “socialist,” and has in fact suppressed the ACP in the past, the FLN tellingly selected the term “People’s Democratic Republic,” normally associated with overt communist regimes, for Algeria’s official post-independence name. Moreover, in 1963 Algeria’s first post-independence President Ahmed Ben Bella welcomed military support, including tanks and several hundred troops from Fidel Castro, to repel an invasion from Morocco; in 1986 the FLN sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany; and in 2005 the Communist Party of China received a delegation from Algeria, headed by Goudjil Salah, who sits on the Secretariat of the FLN’s Executive Committee, with the intent of cementing relations between the two parties. Although the labels “Arab socialist” and “Arab neo-fascist” are appropriate descriptions of the FLN, “national communist” might equally characterize Algeria’s dominant party.
3) Following the 1991 parliamentary election, in which the Islamic Salvation Front obtained the most number of votes, the military cancelled the results and the Algerian Civil War ensued until 1998. During that period, Islamic rebels, including the Armed Islamic Group, Islamic Armed Movement and Islamic Salvation Army, endeavored to dislodge the single-party national communist state controlled by the FLN.
4) Notwithstanding its continuing communist associations, FLN revolutionaries initially accepted aid from the German neo-Nazi diaspora under the leadership of postwar Socialist Reich Party founder Otto Ernst Remer. The neo-Nazi émigrés had established a base of operations in Cairo, which was also the nerve center for the Algerian rebels under Ben Bella’s leadership. Remer was the go-between for German arms manufacturers and Arab nationalists across North Africa, including the FLN. In 1956 Ben Bella and four other FLN leaders conferred with Remer in a face-to-face meeting in Rabat, Morocco. In addition to smuggling arms to the FLN, German neo-Nazis such as former SS officer Ritter Franz von Scholl, provided military training to FLN recruits at a camp in Morocco.
5) The Algerian Communist Party (ACP) was formed in 1920. In 1951 an Algerian Front was formed by the ACP, Society of ‘Ulema, Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto, and Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD). An MTLD splinter group demanding armed rebellion established the Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action, which was later renamed as the FLN. The ACP later attempted to infiltrate the FLN during the Algerian War for Independence. FLN leaders, however, apparently rejected communist support.
6) After the FLN assumed control of Algeria, the ACP was banned in 1964, after which it was clandestinely reorganized as the Socialist Vanguard Party (SVP). In 1989 the SVP was legalized and four years later the it split into Ettehadi and the Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism. In 1999 Ettehadi was renamed the Democratic and Social Movement.

Republic of Angola (1975)
(formerly People’s Republic of Angola, 1975-1992)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Angola: António Paulo Kassoma (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour): September 30, 2008-present
President of Angola: José Eduardo dos Santos (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour): September 10, 1979-present
Communist government:
1) Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour, 1992-present
2) Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour, sole legal party, 1983-1992
3) Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, sole legal party,1975-1983
Socialist International presence: Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour
Communist parties: Communist Party of Angola (not to be confused with Angolan Communist Party, which joined MPLA-PT), Party of the Alliance of Youth, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour, Workers and Peasants of Angola, Party of the Angolan Communist Community
Important notes:
1) The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Party of Labour (MPLA-PT) is a former insurgent army consisting of the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola, Angolan Communist Party (founded by Portuguese Communist Party), Movement for the National Independence of Angola, and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Angola. António Agostinho Neto, the founder of the MPLA-PT, was an advocate of African socialism.
2) Before independence from Portugal in 1975 the Soviet Union supported the MPLA-PT as a “national liberation” movement and institutionalized its relationship with Angola’s new communist government by way of a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and several military agreements.
3) Following independence, Cuban troops actively supported the MPLA-PT in their war against the rival insurgent army, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was initially Maoist in orientation, but later supported with US weaponry in the 1980s. Cuban troops withdrew in 1989 when UNITA was making headway against MPLA-PT forces. UNITA’s insurgent war continued sporadically until 2002 when long-time UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in an ambush.
4) The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), and MPLA formed the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies in 1961.

Republic of Benin (1960)
(formerly People’s Republic of Benin, 1975-1990)
Type of state: Post-communist state with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Benin: Yayi Boni (independent, supported by Cauri Forces for an Emerging Benin): April 6, 2006-present
Communist government:
1) Presidential Movement, consisting of Union for Future Benin (alliance of Action Front for Renewal and Development and Social Democratic Party), African Movement for Development and Progress, Key Force, Impulse to Progress and Democracy, Alliance MDC-PS-CPP (alliance of Movement for Development by Culture, Salute Party, and Congress of People for Progress), Alliance of Progress Forces, Movement for Development and Solidarity, and Rally for Democracy and Progress, 2003-2006
2) Action Front for Renewal and Development (consisting of former members of Popular Revolutionary Party of Benin), 1996-2003
3) Popular Revolutionary Party of Benin, 1980-1991
4) Marxist military dictatorship under leadership of National Revolutionary Council and Popular Revolutionary Party of Benin, 1974-1980
5) Marxist military dictatorship under leadership of National Revolutionary Council, 1972-1974
Socialist International presence: Social Democratic Party
Communist parties: Action Front for Renewal and Development, Communist Party of Benin (formerly Communist Party of Dahomey), Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Benin, National Workers’ Party of Benin, Party of Labour and Democracy/African Workers’ Party, Socialist Party of Benin
Important notes:
1) The Popular Revolutionary Party of Benin (PRPB), under the leadership of President Mathieu Kérékou (pictured above with Brazil’s neo-communist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), established an overt Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Benin between 1974 and 1991. Following the fake demise of Beninese communism in 1991, former PRPB leaders like Daniel Tawéma organized a new party, Action Front for Renewal and Development, to support Kérékou. During the first Kérékou regime Tawéma was Deputy Director of the Civil Cabinet in April 1979 and Director of the Cabinet from 1983 to 1989. From August 1989 to March 1990 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. The Presidential Movement, which currently supports Kérékou, consists of the Action Front for Renewal and Development and a number of other parties (see above). Kérékou supposedly converted to Islam and changed his first name to Ahmed in 1980. Later, however, he started to use the name Mathieu again and professed to be a “born-again” Christian.
2) On March 15, 2007 Kérékou’s successor Yayi Boni was the target of a failed assassination attempt. Four presidential bodyguards were wounded in the attack, which occurred during President Boni’s campaign tour for the parliamentary elections scheduled to occur on March 31. Kérékou’s Action Front for Renewal and Development obtained no seats in that election. Several days after the ambush, six suspects were arrested. Beninese General Mathieu Boni, whose family relationship to the new president, if any, is not clear, suggested that the ambushers were not merely bandits but purposely targeted President Boni. The South African media speculated about the motives of the attackers: “Boni was a political unknown before his surprise election victory 12 months ago that displeased many political heavyweights in the west African country. Elected with 74 percent of the vote, the former banker made economic growth and the fight against corruption a major plank of his campaign.” President Boni is a strong critic of the former communist dictator’s record. Although Kérékou stepped down graciously from the presidency in April 2006, one can only speculate that remnants of Benin’s old Marxist regime tried to orchestrate the demise of Boni.

Republic of Botswana (1966)
Type of state: Single-party dominant system
President of Botswana: Seretse Khama Ian Khama (Botswana Democratic Party): April 1, 2008-present
Socialist International presence: Botswana National Front (main opposition)
Communist parties: Botswana National Front (“ex”-communist), Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Movement, International Socialist Organization
Important note:
1) Botswana is unique among post-independence African countries in that it has never experienced a coup or civil war. The country’s stability is attributed to the Botswana Democratic Party’s continuous, conservative government.

Republic of Burundi (1962)
(formerly Kingdom of Burundi until 1966)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Burundi: Pierre Nkurunziza (National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy): August 26, 2005-present
First Vice President of Burundi: Yves Sahinguvu (Union for National Progress): November 8, 2007-present
Communist governments:
1) Front for Democracy in Burundi (former members of Marxist Burundi Worker’s Party), 2003-2005
2) Union for National Progress, 1996-2003
3) Front for Democracy in Burundi, 1994-1996
4) Union for National Progress, 1993-1994
5) Military regime under leadership of Committee of Public Salvation and supported by Union for National Progress, 1993
6) Front for Democracy in Burundi in coalition with Union for National Progress, 1993
7) Socialist military dictatorship supported by Union for National Progress, sole legal party, 1966-1993
Socialist International presence: Front for Democracy in Burundi
Communist parties: Burundian Communist Party, Front for Democracy in Burundi, Independent Workers’ Party, Pan-africanist Socialist Movement-Shield of the Freedom of Speech of Burundi
Important notes:
1) The first President of the Republic of Burundi, Michel Micombero, was an advocate of African socialism who seized control of the Tutsi-dominated Union for National Progress (UPRONA) after his 1966 coup d’etat and later accepted aid from the People’s Republic of China. In 1986 the governing UPRONA party sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
2) The Burundi Civil War between 1993 and 2003 was sparked by the Tutsi-orchestrated assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye, who represented the Hutu-dominated Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU). FRODEBU was formed in 1986 by former members of Ndadaye’s disbanded Marxist Burundi Workers’ Party and legalized in 1992. In June 2007 AllAfrica.com reported that FRODEBU was declining to work with the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy: “According to the results of the 2005 elections, FRODEBU is entitled to five ministerial posts. But it has refused to join the government until talks are held on crucial issues such as human rights and corruption.”
3) Former FRODEBU leader Leonard Nyangoma founded the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD) and its armed wing, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, in 1994, in response to the Hutu-led coup that ousted and killed President Ndadaye. The CNDD subseqently split into two factions. Pierre Nkurunziza, a “born-again” Christian, is the current President of Burundi and leads the larger faction, which is known as the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy. Nyangoma leads the smaller faction, which is known simply as the National Council for the Defense of Democracy.

Republic of Cameroon (1960)
Type of state: Single-party dominant state
Prime Minister of Cameroon: Ephraïm Inoni (Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement): December 8, 2004-present
President of Cameroon: Paul Biya (Cameroon National Union/Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement): November 6, 1982-present (previously prime minister from June 30, 1975 to November 6, 1982)
Socialist International presence: Social Democratic Front
Communist parties: African Movement for New Independence and Democracy, Alliances of Progressive Forces, Cameroon People’s Union (Nlend), Cameroon People’s Union (Kodock), Cameroon People’s Union (Mack-Kit), Cameroonian Socialist Party, Communist Party of Cameroon, Movement for Democracy and Interdependence, Cameroon Section of International Liaison Committee for a Workers’ International, Social Program for Liberty and Democracy-Moral Rebellion
Important note:
1) The Cameroon People’s Union (UPC) was established under the auspices of the French Communist Party as the Cameroon section of the African Democratic Rally (RDA). The UPC was eventually expelled from the pan-African socialist RDA for being too radical. In 1955 the UPC instigated a campaign of sabotage and terrorism that continued sporadically until 1971 and during which as many as 80,000 Cameroonians perished. The UPC is still an active party in Cameroon.

Republic of Cape Verde (1974)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Cape Verde: José Maria Neves (African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde): February 1, 2001-present
President of Cape Verde: Pedro Pires (African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde): March 22, 2001-present (previously prime minister between July 8, 1975 and April 4, 1991
Communist government:
1) African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, 2001-present
2) African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (formerly African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), sole legal party, 1980-1991
3) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, sole legal party, 1974-1980
Socialist International presence: African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde
Communist parties: African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, Labor and Solidarity Party (possibly)
Important notes:
1) The founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Amílcar Cabral, was an advocate of African socialism. In 1980 João Bernardo Vieira, who re-assumed the presidency of Guinea-Bissau in 2005, ousted Cabral from this office. As a result, the Cape Verde section of the PAIGC was renamed as the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). The PAIGC’s military wings were known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People and the People’s Guerillas. The PAIGC, Liberation Front of Mozambique, and Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola formed the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies in 1961. In 1986 the PAICV sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
2) See entry for Republic of Guinea-Bissau for additional information on the PAIGC.

Republic of Chad (1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with history of military dictatorship
Prime Minister of Chad: Youssouf Saleh Abbas (Transitional Government of National Unity, Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, studied in Soviet Union): April 15, 2008-present
President of Chad: Lieutenant General Idriss Déby Itno (Patriotic Salvation Movement): December 2, 1990-present
Communist government:
1) Transitional Government of National Unity, consisting of People’s Armed Forces (merger of First Liberation Army of National Liberation Front of Chad and most units of Command Council of Armed Forces of the North (formerly Second Liberation Army of National Liberation Front of Chad), under leadership of Goukouni Oueddei), Popular Movement for the Liberation of Chad (formerly Third Liberation Army of National Liberation Front of Chad, under leadership of Aboubakar Abdel Rahmane), and Democratic Revolutionary Council (under leadership of Ahmat Acyl), 1979-1982
2) National Movement for the Cultural and Social Revolution (formerly Chadian Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally), sole legal party, 1973-1975
3) Chadian Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally, sole legal party, 1962-1973
4) Chadian Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally, 1960-1962
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Chad Action for Unity and Socialism (Ley, Stalinist), Chad Action for Unity and Socialism (Moungar, Stalinist), National Liberation Front of Chad/Provisional Revolution Council, Renewed African Socialist Movement, Socialist Movement for Democracy in Chad, Workers’ Party of Chad (Trotskyist
Communist insurgency: Coordination of the Armed Movements and Political Parties of the Opposition/Dialogue-Democracy (including Chadian Action for Unity and Socialism (Moungar))
Important notes:
1) The Chadian Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally (PPT-RDA), which governed the country for the first 15 years of its post-independence existence, was the Chadian section of the African Democratic Rally (RDA), a pan-African socialist party. Beginning in 1966 Chad was wracked by civil war between leftist rebels from the Muslim-dominated north and the armed forces of socialist President François Tombalbaye.
2) The National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT), which launched the insurgency against Tombalbaye, was created through a merger of the leftist Chadian National Union, founded under the leadership of two socialist revolutionaries: Abba Siddick, formerly of the PPT-RDA, and Ibrahim Abatcha; and the Islamist General Union of the Children of Chad/Liberation Front of Chad, founded under the leadership of Ahmed Hassan Musa, who had close relations with the Muslim Brotherhood. FROLINAT was active between 1966 and 1993 and received economic and logistical support from Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. Between 1973 and 1994 Libyan troops occupied the Aozou Strip in northern Chad. Goukouni dissolved FROLINAT in 1993.
3) Several factions emerged from FROLINAT to form separate insurgent groups. Goukouni Oueddei led the People’s Armed Forces and later became the President of the Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) between 1979 and 1982. Aboubakar Abdel Rahmane led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Chad, which also joined the GUNT. Anti-communist Hissène Habré led the Armed Forces of the North, which overthrew the GUNT in 1982, and proceeded to rule Chad until he was in turn in 1990 deposed by one of his top generals, Idriss Déby Itno, the current president of Chad. Déby’s insurgency was originally based in Sudan with financial support from Libya.
4) Since 2002 President Déby’s authoritarian Patriotic Salvation Movement has governed in coalition with the National Union for Democracy and Renewal and the Union for Renewal and Democracy. The leader of the last party Wadel Abdelkader Kamougué was involved in the military coup d’etat that overthrew Chad’s socialist dictator President François Tombalbaye in 1975. Since 2006 the little-known Renewed African Socialist Movement has also participated in the governing coalition.
5) In December 1999 13 opposition groups gathered in Paris to anounce the creation of a new alliance against President Déby, the Coordination of Armed and Political Movements of the Opposition.
6) Beginning in December 2005 a second civil war has wracked Chad, sparked in part by President Déby’s decision to alter the constitution, permitting him to run for that post a third time. This move provoked mass dessertions from the Chadian Army and provided new recruits for an array of anti-government rebels, including the United Forces for Development and Democracy (UFDD), Rally of Democratic Forces, National Accord of Chad, and Janjaweed militiamen. The Janjaweed are Arabic nomads who live in both eastern Chad and western Sudan. The government in Khartoum has used the Janjaweed as counter-insurgency troops against the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, which in 2006 merged to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan.

Republic of the Congo (1960)
(formerly People’s Republic of The Congo, 1970-1992)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of the Congo: Isidore Mvouba (Congolese Labour Party): January 7, 2005-present
President of the Congo: Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congolese Labour Party): October 25, 1997-present, February 8, 1979-August 31, 1992
Communist government:
1) Congolese Labour Party in coalition with United Democratic Forces, 2002-present
2) Congolese Labour Party, 1997-2002
3) Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (defectors from Congolese Labour Party), 1992-1997
4) Congolese Labour Party, 1979-1992
5) Marxist military regime supported by Congolese Labour Party, 1969-1979
6) Marxist military regime under leadership of National Council of the Revolution, 1968-1969
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Congolese Labour Party, Congolese Socialist Party, United Democratic Forces
Important notes:
1) In 1968 President Marien Ngouabi, an advocate of African socialism who came to power in a military coup that year, proclaimed the People’s Republic of The Congo, Africa’s first Marxist-Leninist state. The National Revolutionary Movement was transformed into the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) the following year. In 1986 the PCT sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. Pascal Lissouba, leader of Pan-African Union for Social Democracy and President of the Republic of The Congo between 1992 and 1997, formerly sat on the Central Committee of the PCT.
2) In 1997 the Congo descended into civil war as presidential elections scheduled for July approached. On June 5 the Congolese army, loyal to “ex”-PCT cadre President Lissouba, attacked former president Denis Sassou Nguesso’s compound in Brazzaville. Sassou used the incident as a pretext for armed insurrection to openly reinstate the PCT dictatorship, igniting a four-month conflict that damaged much of Brazzaville. Ironically, Laurent Kabila, the new Marxist president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, deployed hundreds of troops to Brazzaville to fight on Lissouba’s behalf. Concurrently, Angola’s Marxist government dispatched tanks, troops, MiG fighter jets, and arms to shore up Sassou’s rebels. Together Sassou and his Angolan allies re-established their control over Brazzaville on October 16. Lissouba fled the capital while his soldiers surrendered and citizens looted. Shortly thereafter, Sassou declared himself president and appointed a 33-member PCT cabinet.

Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast, 1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime; territory divided between Ivorian Army-held south, loyal to President Gbagbo, and rebel-held north, loyal to Prime Minister Soro
Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire: Guillaume Soro (Student Federation of Cote d’Ivoire, linked to Ivorian Popular Front; Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire, New Forces of Côte d’Ivoire, neo-Houphouëtiste movement): April 4, 2007-present
President of Côte d’Ivoire: Laurent Gbagbo (Ivorian Popular Front): October 26, 2000-present
Communist government:
1) Ivorian Popular Front in coalition with New Forces of Côte d’Ivoire, which supports legacy of President Houphouët-Boigny and Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, 2003-present
2) National Public Salvation Committee under leadership of retired General Robert Guéï, who supported legacy of President Houphouët-Boigny and Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, 1999-2000
3) Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire-African Democratic Rally, 1990-1999
4) Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire-African Democratic Rally, sole legal party, 1960-1990
Socialist International presence: Ivorian Popular Front
Communist parties: African Union of Internationalist Communist Workers (Trotskyist), Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire-African Democratic Rally, Ivorian Communist Party, Ivorian Workers’ Party (left socialist), Movement for the Total Liberation of Côte d’Ivoire (left socialist), New Forces of Côte d’Ivoire (political coalition of Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire, Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West, and Movement for Justice and Peace), Party for Progress and Socialism, Proletarian Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire, Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire, Côte d’Ivoire Section of International Liaison Committee for a Workers’ International, Socialist Front for Independence and Freedom, Socialist People’s Union, The Renaissance (left socialist)
Communist insurgency: Insurgent armies linked to recent Ivorian Civil War (2002-2007): Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West, Movement for Justice and Peace, Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire
Important notes:
1) The Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire-African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) was an original member of the pan-African socialist party known as the African Democratic Rally, originally led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, but now defunct. Houphouët-Boigny was president of Côte d’Ivoire from 1960 until his death in 1993.
2) Ethnic strife and political dissent are two factors behind the Ivorian Civil War, which began in 2002 and officially ended in 2007, although most hostilities terminated in 2004. In 1996 26 percent of the population of Côte d’Ivoire was of foreign origin, 56 percent of whom were Burkinabés. The policy of the ruling Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire was to grant citizenship to Burkinabés resident in Côte d’Ivoire.
3) Following the election of Ivorian Popular Front leader Laurent Gbagbo in October 2000, soldiers loyal to retired General Robert Guéï, who advocated the legacy of deceased President Houphouët-Boigny and the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, began to plot against the new regime. One such conspirator was Guillaume Soro, who founded the Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI). Soro was formerly associated with the Student Federation of Cote d’Ivoire, which has been characterized by some human rights organization as a violent gang controlled by President Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front. However, Soro later transfered his loyalty to the Houphouëtistes and General Guéï, whom he eulogized after the general and his wife were mysteriously killed on the first day of the civil war: “I pay tribute to General Robert Guei who was tragically executed. If war resumes in Cote d’Ivoire tomorrow, we will know the author is none other than the FPI [Ivorian Popular Front] which is still refusing to join its brothers in the search for peace in the country.”
4) The civil war began on September, 19 2002 when dissident soldiers attacked the commercial capital Abidjan over demobilization plans. The mutiny quickly tranformed into a rebellion, with the MPCI and its allies seizing control of the northern and western regions of Côte d’Ivoire. During the height of the civil war, the MPCI commanded the loyalty of some 10,000 guerrillas, of whom 450 originated from the Ivorian Army. President Gbagbo allegedly recruited Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, and Liberian mercenaries to support his government during the civil war. Beginning in February 2004 the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire has maintained a buffer zone between the government armed forces in the southern half of the country and the rebel New Forces in the north.
5) According to the terms of a second peace accord, established in March 2007, Soro was appointed prime minister the following month. In June of last year PM Soro was the target of a failed assassination attempt at Bouaké Airport, in rebel-held territory. President Gbagbo strongly condemned the attack. General elections, the first since 2000 and 2001, are scheduled for June 2008. The New Forces of Côte d’Ivoire and the Rally of Houphouëtistes, consisting of the Rally of the Republicans and the formerly ruling Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire-African Democratic Rally, will form a coalition to contest the elections. The RDR was founded by defectors from the PDCI-RDA in 1994.

Republic of Djibouti (1977)
Type of state: Single-party dominant system
Prime Minister of Djibouti: Dileita Mohamed Dileita (People’s Rally for Progress): March 7, 2001-present
President of Djibouti: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (People’s Rally for Progress): May 8, 1999-present
Communist parties: People’s Independence Movement (Marxist-Leninist, backed by Ethiopia’s former communist dictator Haile Mariam Mengistu, active as of 1977)
Important notes:
1) The Union for a Presidential Majority, which supports President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, consists of the People’s Rally for Progress, Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy, Social Democratic People’s Party and National Democratic Party. In 1999 Guelleh succeeded his uncle Hassan Gouled Aptidon, the first President of the Republic of Djibouti. Between 1991 and 2000 two factions of the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD), which consists of ethnic Afars, instigated an armed insurgency against the predominantly ethnic Somali government. We were unable to determine whether the FRUD was motivated by Marxism. In 2003 the FRUD joined the governing coalition.
2) The French government maintains one of its largest military bases outside France in Djibouti. Approximately 2,600 French troops, including a unit of the French Foreign Legion, the 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade, are stationed there.

Republic of Equatorial Guinea (1968)
Type of state: Single-party nationalist dictatorship with history of nominal communist dictatorship
Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea: Ignacio Milam Tang (Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea): July 8, 2008-present
President of Equatorial Guinea: Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea; alleged nephew of previous dictator Francisco Macías Nguema): 1987-present (previously Chairman of Revolutionary Military Council/Supreme Military Council, 1979-1987)
Communist government:
1) United National Workers’ Party, sole legal party, 1968-1979
Socialist International presence: Convergence for Social Democracy
Communist parties: Equatorial Guinean Resistance (RGE, presumably Marxist)
Communist insurgency: National Resistance Army of Equatorial Guinea (armed wing of RGE, active as of 2001)
Important notes:
1) The United National Workers’ Party appears to have been a vehicle for the grandiose political ambitions of the mentally unstable, anti-Spanish President Francisco Macías Nguema, who was only nominally Marxist, praised Adolf Hitler and aped Francisco Franco, rather than a real communist party.
2) Many international observers consider the government of megalomaniac President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to be the most oppressive regime in the world. Miguel Abia Biteo Boricó, who was the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea between 2004 and 2006, studied mining engineering in the Soviet Union.

Republic of the Gambia (1965)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system
President of the Gambia: Yahya Jammeh (Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction): October 18, 1996-present (previously Chairman of Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council, 1994-1996)
Vice President of the Gambia: Isatou Njie Saidy (Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction): March 20, 1997-present
Communist government:
1) People’s Progressive Party, restored with assistance of Senegalese army, 1981-1994
2) Marxist military regime under National Revolutionary Council, with Libyan support, July 30-August 5, 1981
3) People’s Progressive Party, 1965-1981
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Gambia Freedom Democratic Movement (black nationalist), Movement for Justice in Africa-Gambia (left socialist), National Alliance for Democracy and Development (consisting of People’s Progressive Party (social democratic), People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (radical socialist), National Reconcilitation Party, National Democratic Action Movement, and United Democratic Party (social democratic)), World of Free Access (close to World Socialist Movement)
Important notes:
1) Senegal and The Gambia were briefly united in the Senegambia Confederation between 1982 and 1989. Prior to the military coup of 1994 that deposed long-serving, democratically elected People’s Progressive Party President Dawda Jawara, The Gambia was one of the oldest multiparty democracies in Africa.
2) Although not overtly a Marxist, former military officer and current President of The Gambia Yahya Jammeh views the former Marxist dictator of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, as his mentor. The Fall 2002 issue of the Journal of Third World Studies observes the personal bond and ideological affinity between Jammeh and Rawlings:

While Jammeh’s conception of human rights lacks precision and consistency, it appears to have been influenced by Western, African and Islamic perspectives and in particular, by President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, whose ideas on human rights borrowed heavily from its Marxist variant. Thus, Jammeh’s pronouncements on human rights are often derived or premised on any or all of these perspectives. Apparently, his support of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a practice common in Gambia, reflects a conservative view of the practice in Gambia and Africa, generally. Similarly, his admiration and emulation of President Rawlings of Ghana have heavily shaped Jammeh’s views on “democracy,” even though Jammeh has not claimed to be a Marxist

Following the 1994 coup d’etat, Lt. Jammeh projected himself as a populist leader in the same mold as Ft. Lt. Rawlings of Ghana who led a successful coup on December 31, 1981. Rawlings’ post coup pronouncements were explicitly Marxist. Though Jammeh appealed to Gambians for their support on class terms, he did not use explicit Marxist parlance. In effect, junior officers in both countries rejected the more individual based Western conception of human rights, perhaps out of conviction, yet used it self-servingly to repress dissent in Ghana and Gambia respectively.

Similar to the African and Islamic perspectives on human rights, the Marxist perspective denies that the individual could have any rights separate and apart from the group to which the individual belongs. To Marxists, inequality undermines human rights and where economic rights are grossly unequal and the acquisition of material wealth is concentrated in a few hands, it is likely that the provision of civil and political rights would be severely unequal. Clearly, Rawlings has a better grasp of these conceptual niceties; ideologically he is to the “left” and more intellectual and charismatic than Jammeh.

Republic of Ghana (1957)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Ghana: John Atta Mills (National Democratic Congress, vice president under Jerry Rawings, 1997-2001): January 7, 2009-present
Vice President of Ghana: John Dramani Mahama (National Democratic Congress, studied at Moscow’s Institute of Social Sciences, 1988): January 7, 2009-present
Communist government:
1) National Democratic Congress (founded by Jerry Rawlings), 1993-2001, 2009-present
2) Marxist military regime under Provisional National Defence Council (led by Jerry Rawlings), 1981-1993
3) Marxist military regime under Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (led by Jerry Rawlings), 1979
4) Convention People’s Party, sole legal party, 1964-1966
5) Convention People’s Party, 1951-1964
Socialist International presence: National Democratic Congress (consultative)
Communist parties: Convention People’s Party (Nkrumahist), International Socialist Organization (Trotskyist), Marxist Study Group, National Democratic Congress, People’s National Convention(Nkrumahist), Socialist Forum of Ghana (Marxist)
Important notes:
1) The first president of post-independence Ghana and founder of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) was Kwame Nkrumah, an advocate of African socialism. The CPP was banned in 1966 after a military coup and remained dissolved until 1996, when the National Convention Party and the People’s Convention Party merged to re-form the Convention People’s Party. Based on the principles of Nkrumahism, the new CPP has contested each election since 1996. In the 2004 parliamentary election the party won three out of 230 seats, while the CPP candidate in the presidential election of the same year, George Aggudey, won only 1.0 per cent of the vote.
2) In 1986 the ruling Provisional National Defense Council, then chaired by Ghanaian Air Force Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, dispatched delegate Kojo Tsikata to attend the Ninth Congress of the ruling communist party of East Germany, the Socialist Unity Party. Rawlings’ communist dictatorship maintained relations with Libya’s Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi, Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Yasser Arafat. According to some leftsts, Rawlings was a Marxist in rhetoric only. However, shortly after his coup he imposed strict economic controls and set up Workers’ Defence Committees and People’s Defence Committees to promote “popular democracy” in Ghana. Rawlings formed the National Democratic Congress, which affiliates with the Socialist International, and successfully ran for the presidency in 1992 and 1996. He stepped down from that office in 2001.
3) The previous President of Ghana, John Kufuor, founded the Progress Party in 1969, the Popular Front Party in 1979, and the New Patriotic Party, which governed Ghana from 2001 to 2009. Kufuor was held in political detention as a result of Rawling’s 1981 coup that overthrew the Third Republic government of the People’s National Party. Kufuor does not appear to have any connections to the former Rawlings regime.

>Red World: Africa, Part 2: Communist and socialist regimes dominate "Red Continent" into twenty-first century

>Republic of Guinea (1958)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system under rule of military junta
Prime Minister of Guinea: Kabiné Komara (independent): December 30, 2008-present
President of Guinea: Captain Moussa Dadis Camara (National Council for Democracy and Development): December 24, 2008-present
Communist government:
1) Democratic Party of Guinea-African Democratic Rally, sole legal party, 1958-1984
Socialist International presence: Rally of the Guinean People
Communist parties: African Democratic Party of Guinea (split from PDG-RDA), Democratic Party of Guinea-African Democratic Rally
Important notes:
1) The founder of the Democratic Party of Guinea-African Democratic Rally (PDG-RDA), Ahmed Sékou Touré, was an advocate of African socialism. The PDG-RDA was an original member of the pan-African socialist party, the African Democratic Rally (RDA), originally led by long-time Ivory Coast president Félix Houphouët-Boigny but now defunct. The PDG-RDA was dissolved in 1984 and revived again in 1992 under the leadership of El Hadj Ismael Mohamed Gassim Gushein. In the 2002 parliamentary election the PDG-RDA won 3.4 per cent of the popular vote and three out of 114 seats.
2) In 1973 then Colonel Lansana Conté (pictured above) commanded the Boké military zone in northwestern Guinea with the intent of assisting the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde’s Marxist insurgent army in adjacent Portuguese Guinea, now Guinea-Bissau. In 1975 Conté was promoted to assistant Chief of Staff of the Army. In 1977 Conté, a Muslim, participated in the ruling Democratic Party of Guinea’s official pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1984 Conté overthrew Touré’s successor, Interim President and Prime Minister Louis Lansana Beavogui, in a bloodless military coup and ruled the country until his death in December 2008.
3) Determining the ideology of Conté, who received military training in the Soviet Union, is difficult. According to a 2004 United Nations report Conté endeavored to dismantle the communist bureaucracy after his coup d’etat: “The first civil service reform implemented from 1985 to 1993 sought to reclassify and reduce the high number of A and B categories of employees inherited from the former Marxist regime. This first reform also reduced the number of categories from seven to three in 1987.” However, in 1992 he permitted the PDG-RDA, which was banned after his seizure of power, to openly reorganize and run for the national legislature. Furthermore, in July 1999, as reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Conté acknowledged North Korean President Kim Il Sung’s death with a gift and message lauding the communist dictator:

A floral basket came from Lansana Conte, President of Guinea, on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the President Kim Il Sung’s passing away. The adviser to the President on political and foreign affairs and the chief of state protocol visited the DPRK embassy in Guinea and conveyed the floral basket to the ambassador, authorized by the President on July 8. Written on the ribbon hanging from the basket were the letters “The great leader President Kim Il Sung will be immortal. General Lansana Conte, President of the Republic of Guinea.” The adviser said that the history of invariable development of the friendly relations between the DPRK and guinea was associated with the outstanding feats of President Kim Il Sung and that his august name would be remembered forever by the Guinean people. The floral basket was laid before a portrait of the President at the embassy.

4) Rising food prices, water shortages, and power outages, and widespread opposition to the Conté presidency led to paralyzing strikes in February 2007, in which more than 137 protesters were killed by Guinean soldiers. Frustrated by the slow pace of reform, one year later union leaders threatened another general strike for March 31, 2008.

Republic of Guinea-Bissau (1974)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau: Carlos Domingos Gomes Júnior (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde): January 2, 2009-present, May 10, 2004-November 2, 2005
President of Guinea-Bissau: Raimundo Pereira (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde): March 3, 2009-present (acting)
Communist government:
1) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), 2008-present
2) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in coalition with Social Renewal Party and United Social Democratic Party, 2007-2008
3) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, 2004-2007
4) Military Committee for the Restitution of Constitutional and Democratic Order under leadership of PAIGC member and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Veríssimo Correia Seabra, 2003-2004
5) Social Renewal Party (split from PAIGC), 2000-2003
6) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, 1991-2000
7) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, sole legal party, 1984-1991
8) Military regime supported by African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, sole legal party, 1980-1984
9) African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, sole legal party, 1974-1980
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, Democratic Social Front, Guinean Socialist Democratic Party, Party of Solidarity and Labour, Socialist Alliance of Guinea, Workers’ Party of Guinea-Bissau (founded 2002)
Important notes:
1) The founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Amílcar Cabral, was an advocate of African socialism. The PAIGC’s military wings were known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People and People’s Guerillas. The PAIGC/PAICV, Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), and Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) formed the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies in 1961. In 1986 the PAIGC/PAICV sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
2) A bloodless coup in September 2003 overthrew the government of the Social Renewal Party, founded by “former” PAIGC member Kumba Ialá in 1992. Ialá led a PAIGC delegation in 1987 to Moscow in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Long-time PAIGC member João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira held the presidency between 1980 and 1999 and again assumed that post in October 2005 as an “independent.” Renegade soldiers, loyal to the country’s top general Batista Tagme Na Wai, assassinated Vieira on March 2, 2009. Wai himself was killed in a bomb attack on army headquarters on March 1.
3) See Republic of Cape Verde for more information on the PAIGC.

Republic of Kenya (1963)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Kenya: Raila Odinga (Kenya Revolutionary Movement, Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya, National Development Party, Kenya African National Union, Rainbow Movement, Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Party/National Alliance Party of Kenya, National Rainbow Coalition, Orange Democratic Movement; studied mechanical engineering in East Germany): April 17, 2008-present
President of Kenya: Mwai Kibaki (Kenya African National Union, Democratic Party/National Alliance Party of Kenya, National Rainbow Coalition, National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya, Party of National Unity; supported by KANU leader Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo, and former President Daniel arap Moi): December 30, 2002-present
Communist government:
1) Grand coalition consisting of Party of National Unity (consisting of Kenya African National Union, National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya, Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya, Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-People, Democratic Party/National Alliance Party of Kenya (former KANU members), and Shirikisho Party of Kenya) and Orange Democratic Movement (former KANU and Liberal Democratic Party members): 2007-present
2) Democratic Party/National Alliance Party of Kenya (former KANU members) in coalition with Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya and National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya (Kibaki loyalists), 2005-2007
3) National Rainbow Coalition (alliance of Liberal Democratic Party (former KANU members), Democratic Party/National Alliance Party of Kenya (former KANU members), Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya, and National Party of Kenya), 2002-2005
4) Kenya African National Union in coalition with National Development Party, 2000-2002 (absorbs NDP in 2002)
5) Kenya African National Union, 1992-2000
6) Kenya African National Union, sole legal party, 1969-1992
7) Kenya African National Union, 1963-1969 (absorbs Kenya African Democratic Union in 1964)
Communist parties: Anti-Capitalist Convergence of the Kenya (anarchist), Front for Popular Change, Kenya African National Union, Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (Trotskyist), Kenya Socialist Party, Labour Party Democracy, Poor Man’s Liberation Front, World Socialist Movement
Important notes:
1) Between 1932 and 1933 Jomo Kenyatta, the “founding father of the Kenyan nation,” lived in Moscow and studied economics at the Communist International’s University of the Toilers of the East, before his sponsor, the Trinidadian communist George Padmore, fell out of favor with the Soviet leaders. In 1934 Kenyatta attended the University College London and then in 1935 studied social anthropology at the London School of Economics. The most well-known leaders of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, were both advocates of African socialism. In 1946 Kenyatta joined Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in founding the Pan-African Federation, which promoted the independence of African countries from European powers. British authorities arrested Kenyatta in 1952 on charges of organizing the Mau Mau Rebellion and in the following year he was sentenced to seven years of hard labour. Since January 2005 Uhuru Kenyatta, Jomo’s son, has been head of KANU, although this is disputed by leadership contender Nicholas Biwott .
2) In December 1991, a few days after the repeal of Section 2A of the Kenyan Constitution, which “restored” the multiparty system, Mwai Kibaki “defected” from KANU and founded the Democratic Party. In advance of the 2002 parliamentary elections, the Democtratic Party merged with 13 other parties and changed its name to the National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK). NAK then entered an alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party to create the National Rainbow Coalition. Kibaki has been head of state of Kenya since the presidential election of 2002, which coincided with a parliamentary election.
3) In 2005 the National Rainbow Coalition government collapsed after voters rejected President Mwai Kibaki’s constitutional reforms in a referendum. Most Liberal Democratic Party members left the coalition at this time. The 2007-2008 Kenyan crisis refers to a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis that erupted after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election held on December 27, 2007. Supporters of Kibaki’s opponent, Raila Odinga, who formerly led KANU but now the Orange Democratic Movement, insisted that Kibaki rigged the election, an allegation widely confirmed by international monitors. In addition to staging nonviolent protests, Odinga loyalists went on a rampage in several areas of the country. Police shot a number of demonstrators, provoking more violence against authorities. On February 28, 2008 Kibaki and Odinga signed the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, which re-establishes the office of prime minister and organizes a coalition government.
4) Raila Odinga is the son of the first Vice President of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He claims to be a first cousin of US President Barack Obama through the latter’s father, Barack Obama Sr., who Odinga asserts was his maternal uncle. This claim has not been confirmed, but Obama Sr. did come from the same Luo tribe as Odinga.

Republic of Liberia (1847)
Type of state: Multiparty state with recent attempt to install neo-communist government
President of Liberia: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Unity Party): January 16, 2006-present
Vice President of Liberia: Joseph Boakai (Unity Party): January 16, 2006-present
Communist government:
1) National Patriotic Party, supported by Libya, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, 1997-2003
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Liberian People’s Party, Liberian Unity Front, Movement for Justice in Africa, National Patriotic Party with armed wing National Patriotic Front of Liberia
Important notes:
1) The American Colonization Society established Liberia in 1822 as a haven for repatriated Black Americans. A republic was declared in 1847.
2) In 1980 a military coup under the leadership of the pro-Western, Green Beret-trained, Ronald Reagan-admiring Samuel Kanyon Doe overthrew the entrenched True Whig establishment.
3) The First Liberian Civil War began in 1989 when Marxist warlord Charles Ghankay Taylor, a former ally of Doe, invaded the country from Ivory Coast to prosecute a guerrilla war against the Doe regime. Taylor’s insurgent army was known as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, which defeated government troops in 1996. Taylor formed the National Patriotic Party and won the 1997 presidential election.
4) The Second Liberian Civil War began in 1999 when a rebel army supported by the government of neighboring “post”-communist Guinea, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), invaded northern Liberia. In 2003, a second rebel army, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, invaded southern Liberia. Taylor, whose forces controlled only the national capital Monrovia and the central part of the country, resigned the presidency and was exiled to Nigeria. In June 2003 a United Nations justice tribunal issued a warrant for Taylor’s arrest, charging him with war crimes. On March 29, 2006 Taylor tried to cross the border into Cameroon, but he was arrested by Nigerian security forces. On June 16 the UN Security Council ordered that Taylor be sent to The Hague for trial. On August 20, 2007 Taylor’s defense obtained a postponement of the trial until January 7, 2008.
5) The political turmoil that afflicted Liberia in the 1990s was related to the turmoil that also afflicted neighboring Sierra Leone. In 1991 Foday Sankoh founded an insurgent army called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in the latter country. Among that initial group of RUF insurgents were dissidents from Sierra Leone, mercenaries from communist Burkina Faso, and Taylor loyalists. Taylor and Sankoh cemented their relationship in the 1980s when both men trained in Libya with the intent of obtaining logistical and ideological support from Revolutionary Leader “Colonel” Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi.
6) The Progressive Democratic Party, formed in 2005, fielded presidential candidate Sekou Conneh, who chaired the rebel group LURD during Liberia’s second civil war. In January 2004 LURD was divided by a power struggle between its chair, Sekou, and his wife Aisha, who is an adviser to the President of Guinea, Lansana Conté.

Republic of Madagascar (1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime
Prime Minister of Madagascar: Monja Roindefo (Determined Malagasy Youth, backed by military, family of former communist dictator Didier Ratsiraka): March 17, 2009-present (de facto, unrecognized internationally)
President of Madagascar: Andry Rajoelina (Determined Malagasy Youth, as above): March 17, 2009-present (de facto, as above)
Communist government:
1) Determined Malagasy Youth (possible front for AREMA): 2009-present
2) Association for the Rebirth of Madagascar (AREMA, formerly Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution), 1989-1993, 1997-2002
3) Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution, as head of National Front for the Defense of the Revolution, 1975-1989
4) Social Democratic Party, sole legal party, 1960-1972
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Association for the Rebirth of Madagascar-Ratsiraka (party founder), Association for the Rebirth of Madagascar-Rajaonarivelo (National Secretary), Malegachian Militant Movement, Militant Action Party for Sovereignty of Madagascar, Militants for the Progress of Madagascar (“ex”-Maoist), Monima Socialist Organisation (“ex”-Maoist), Movement for the Progress of Madagascar (“ex”-leftist), National Movement for the Independence of Madagascar-Madagascar for the Malagasy, New Rebirth of the Social Democratic Party, Party of the Independence Congress of Madagaskar (communist), Party of the Independence Congress of Madagascar-Renewal, Rebirth of the Social Democratic Party, Socialist Progressive Party, Workers’ and Peasants’ Militants
Important notes:
1) Didier Ratsiraka, founder of the Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution, was an advocate of African socialism and known as the “Red Admiral.” From 1978 until 1991, President Ratsiraka followed a policy of nonalignment and cultivated relations with socialist and other radical regimes, including North Korea, Cuba, Libya, and Iran. A delegation from the Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution, also known as the National Front for the Defense of the Revolution (FNRD), attended the 24th Congress of the French Communist Party in 1982. Between 1976 and 1989 the Party of the Independence Congress of Madagascar (AKFM) was part of the ruling FNRD. The founding president of the AKFM was Richard Andriamanjato, who had links to the French Communist Party.
2) In the 2001 presidential election Marc Ravalomanana, then running as an independent, challenged former communist dictator Ratsiraka, winning handily in the first round of balloting, according to official sources. However, Ratsiraka contested the election results and formed a counter-government in Toamasina that recognized him as president on February 22, 2002. Meanwhile Ravalomanana seized control of the national capital Antananarivo, where he consolidated his power base. On June 26 the USA recognized Ravalomanana as Madagascar’s legitimate president. On July 5 Ratsiraka abandoned his dream to perpetuate his rule over Madagascar and fled to the socialist island state of Seychelles. On August 6, 2003 Ratsiraka was accused of stealing US$8 million dollars in public funds from the central bank in Toamasina shortly before fleeing the country. Tried in absentia, he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.
3) In both the 2002 and 2007 elections Marc Ravalomanana’s nationalist I Love Madagascar Party secured an overwhelming majority of seats in the national legislature. Ratsiraka’s nephew Roland, then mayor of Toamasina, ran unsuccessfully in the 2006 presidential election. Despite the Red Admiral’s failed 2002 coup, the transition to multiparty democracy in Madagascar appears to be genuine.

Republic of Malawi (1966)
Type of state: Multiparty state with history of nationalist single-party dictatorship
President of Malawi: Bingu wa Mutharika (United Democratic Front (liberal), Democratic Progressive Party): May 24, 2004-present
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: undetermined
Important note:
1) Founded as the Nyasaland African Congress, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) won every seat in the national legislature in the 1961 Nyasaland elections and led the country to independence as Malawi in 1964. When Malawi became a republic two years later, the MCP was constitutionally the only legal party. The MCP gave up its monopoly on power in a 1993 referendum and was defeated in the country’s first free elections the next year. Unlike other former single parties, the MCP remains a major force in Malawi, attracting supporters in the central region where the Chewa and Nyanja tribes reside.

Republic of Mali (1960)
Type of state: Multiparty state with history of communist and military dictatorship, and democratically elected communist government
Prime Minister of Mali: Modibo Sidibé: September 28, 2007-present
President of Mali: Amadou Toumani Touré (Coalition for Change and Democracy, independent but supported by Alliance for Democracy and Progress; former commander of Malian paratrooper, received military training in Soviet Union): June 8, 2002-present
Communist government:
1) Alliance for Democracy and Progress (consisting of Alliance for Democracy in Mali-Pan-African Party for Liberty, Solidarity and Justice (ADEMA); Union for the Republic and Democracy (former ADEMA members); Patriotic Movement for Renewal; National Congress for Democratic Initiative; Union for Democracy and Development; Movement for the Independence, Renaissance and Integration of Africa (former ADEMA members); Party for Solidarity and Progress; Alternation Bloc for Renewal, Integration, and African Cooperation; Bloc for Democracy and African Integration; Citizens’ Party for Revival; National Rally for Democracy; and Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally), 2007-present
2) Alliance for Democracy in Mali-Pan-African Party for Liberty, Solidarity and Justice and Malian Popular and Democratic Front, 1992-2002
3) Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally, sole legal party, 1960-1968
Socialist International presence: Alliance for Democracy in Mali-Pan-African Party for Liberty, Solidarity and Justice (full member), Rally for Mali (consultative)
Communist parties: African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence, Alliance for Democracy in Mali-Pan-African Party for Liberty, Solidarity and Justice (ADEMA; merger of Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally (“ex”-communist), Malian Party for Revolution and Democracy, Malian Party of Labour (Marxist-Leninist), and Malian Popular and Democratic Front), Communist Party of Mali, People’s and Workers’ Movement, Rally for Labor Democracy
Important notes:
1) Modibo Keïta, the first President of Mali, joined the Communist Study Groups cell in Bamako, the capital of Mali, sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s. In 1945 he and Mamadou Konaté, both advocates of African socialism, founded the Sudanese Union, which later became part of the pan-African socialist party, the African Democratic Rally.
2) Moussa Traoré, who was the military dictator of Mali between 1968 and 1991, resided in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, in the 1960s, during which time he provided military instruction to that country’s liberation movements. He formed the Democratic Union of the Malian People.
3) Alpha Oumar Konaré, the President of Mali between 1992 and 2002, attended the University of Warsaw between 1971 and 1975. Following the coup d’état of General Moussa Traoré in 1968, he became an activist for the clandestine Malian Party of Labour (PMT), which was part of Mali’s governing coalition between 1992 and 2002. In 1978 however, Konaré accepted a post in Traoré’s government as Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts, and Culture. In 1990 he assisted in the formation of the Alliance for Democracy in Mali and subsequently ADEMA, a coalition that united the PMT with other anti-Traoré parties (see above).
4) Amadou Toumani Touré, the current President of Mali, is known as the “Soldier of Democracy,” having been a commander of the Malian Parachute Corps. He undertook military training in the Soviet Union. Although the Hope 2002 coalition has the largest number of seats in the national parliament, Touré does not openly belong to any party. His prime minister, Ousmane Issoufi Maïga studied at the University of Kiev when Ukraine was still a constituent republic of the old Soviet Union.

Republic of Mauritius (1968)
Type of state: Multiparty state dominated by socialist parties
Prime Minister of Mauritius: Navin Ramgoolam (Mauritian Labour Party): July 5, 2005-present
President of Mauritius: Anerood Jugnauth (Militant Socialist Movement): October 7, 2003-present
Communist government:
1) Social Alliance, consisting of Mauritian Labour Party, Mauritian Party of Xavier-Luc Duval, The Greens, Republican Movement, and Mauritian Militant Socialist Movement, 2005-present
2) Militant Socialist Movement in coalition with Mauritian Militant Movement, 2000-2005
3) Mauritian Labour Party, 1997-2000
4) Mauritian Labour Party in coalition with Mauritian Militant Movement, 1995-1997
5) Militant Socialist Movement in coalition with Mauritian Militant Movement, 1990-1995
6) Militant Socialist Movement (union of defectors from Mauritian Militant Movement and Mauritian Socialist Party), 1983-1990
7) Mauritian Socialist Party in coalition with Mauritian Militant Movement, 1982-1983
8) Mauritian Labour Party (alone or in coalition), 1947-1982
Socialist International presence: Mauritius Labour Party, Mauritian Militant Movement
Communist parties: Communist Party of Mauritius, Mauritius Labour Party (entrenched social democratic), Mauritian Militant Socialist Movement, Militant Solidarity Movement, Socialist Labour Movement (Stalinist), Socialist Workers’ Party (Stalinist), The Struggle (Trotskyist)
Important note:
1) The Mauritian Militant Movement and Militant Socialist Movement, which are currently in opposition, should not be confused with the Mauritian Militant Socialist Movement, which is part of the governing Social Alliance.

Republic of Mozambique (1975)
(formerly known as People’s Republic of Mozambique, 1975-1990)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Mozambique: Luisa Diogo (Liberation Front of Mozambique): February 17, 2004-present
President of Mozambique: Armando Guebuza (Liberation Front of Mozambique: February 2, 2005-present
Communist government:
1) Liberation Front of Mozambique, 1994-present
2) Liberation Front of Mozambique, sole legal party, 1975-1994
Socialist International presence: Liberation Front of Mozambique
Communist parties: Communist Party of Mozambique (probably defunct), Labor Party, Liberation Front of Mozambique
Important notes:
1) Prior to becoming a political party, Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) was an insurgent army under the leadership of African socialists Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel. Organized in Tanzania in 1962, FRELIMO represented a merger of three Marxist-oriented nationalist organizations, the Mozambican African National Union, National Democratic Union of Mozambique, and National African Union of Independent Mozambique.
2) FRELIMO, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), and Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) formed the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies in 1961.
3) In 1986 FRELIMO sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.

Republic of Namibia (1990)
Type of state: Neo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Namibia: Nahas Angula (South West African People’s Organization, United Nations bureaucrat): March 21, 2005-present
President of Namibia: Hifikepunye Pohamba (South West African People’s Organization, studied political science in Soviet Union in early 1980s): March 21, 2005-present
Communist government:
1) South West African People’s Organization, 1990-present
Socialist International presence: South West African People’s Organization (consultative), Congress of Democrats (consultative)
Communist parties: Socialist Alliance (consisting of SWANU and WRP), South West African National Union of Namibia (SWANU), South West African People’s Organization, United Democratic Front (including Communist Party of Namibia), Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP, Trotskyist)
Important notes:
1) Beginning in 1920 South Africa undertook administration of German South West Africa under terms established by the League of Nations. In 1946 the League was replaced by the United Nations, which insisted upon placing South West Africa under its own trusteeship. South Africa, however, refused to abandon its mandate, intending to include South West Africa into its own territory. Although this incorporation never officially transpired, South Africa administered the region as a de facto province in which the white minority enjoyed representation in the South African Parliament.
2) In 1966 the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO), based in Zambia, instigated an insurgency against South Africa with the intent of establishing an independent state in South West Africa. After Angolan independence, SWAPO moved their bases to that country to continue their insurgency.
3) The founding president of SWAPO, Sam Nujoma, is an advocate of African socialism and is currently implementing a communist land reform scheme in Namibia, by which the country’s white farmers will be dispossessed of their land with some compensation. He has commended communist dictator Robert Mugabe’s “land reforms” in Zimbabwe where white farmers have been not only dispossessed of their land without compensation but also terrorized and murdered by government-connected gangs.
4) In 1986 SWAPO sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.

Republic of Niger (1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty state under rule of military junta
Prime Minister of Niger: Danda Mahamadou (National Movement for the Development of Society): February 23, 2010-present
President of Niger: Major Salou Djibo (Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy): February 19, 2010-present
Communist government:
1) National Movement for the Development of Society, in coalition with Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism, 1994-1996
2) Alliance of the Forces of Change, consisting of Democratic and Social Convention and Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism, 1993-1994
3) Nigerien Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally, sole legal party, 1960-1974
Socialist International presence: Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism
Communist parties: Democratic and Socialist Renewal Union, Democratic Union of Progressive Forces, Masses Party for Labor, Nigerien Party for Socialism, Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (left socialist), Patriotic Movement for Solidarity and Progress (Stalinist), Revolutionary Organization for the New Democracy (radical left)
Important note:
1) The Nigerien Progressive Party-African Democratic Rally was an original member of the pan-African socialist party, the African Democratic Rally (RDA), originally led by long-time Ivory Coast president Félix Houphouët-Boigny but now defunct.

Republic of Rwanda (1962)
Type of state: Neo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Rwanda: Bernard Makuza (Democratic Republican Movement): March 8, 2000-present
President of Rwanda: Paul Kagame (National Resistance Army (Uganda), Rwandan Alliance for National Unity/ Rwandan Patriotic Front): March 24, 2000-present
Communist government:
1) Rwandan Patriotic Front, in coalition with Christian Democratic Party, Islamic Democratic Party, Rwandan Socialist Party, and Democratic Union of the Rwandan People, 2003-present
2) Transitional Broad Based Government, consisting of Rwandan Patriotic Front (Tutsi), National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (Hutu), Democratic Republican Movement (Hutu), Social Democratic Party, Liberal Party, and Christian Democratic Party, 1993-2003
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: African Democratic Congress, Rwandan Patriotic Front (“ex”-International Communist Seminar) with armed wing Rwandan Patriotic Army, Rwandan Socialist Party
Important notes:
1) The rapid fall of Uganda, Rwanda and Zaire to communism and neo-communism in the 1980s and 1990s is intimately related. The civil war that wracked Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 was also characterized in part by ethnic strife between two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, the former being ousted by the latter at the end of the conflict. The opposite situation occurred in neighboring Burundi between 1993 and 2003, in which two different groups of Hutus, one Marxist and the other not, overthrew the rule of the Tutsi-dominated UPRONA government.
2) In 1985 Uganda-based Marxists Paul Kagame and Fred Rwigema founded the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), with the intent of overthrowing the Hutu-dominated government in neighboring Rwanda. They enlisted the support of other exiled Tutsis who had previously acquired military experience in the National Resistance Army (NRA), previously known as the Uganda National Liberation Army, which was committed to overthrowing the regime of Milton Obote, the President of Uganda. In 1978 Rwigema travelled to Mozambique and joined the insurgent Liberation Army of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which subsequently became the government of that country, following the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration. Kagame and Rwigema joined the NRA in 1979. After the demise of the Obote regime in 1985, the NRA became the new Ugandan army, renamed in 1996 as the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF). Ugandans resented the presence of Tutsis in the UPDF and, as a result, many of them shifted their allegiance to Kagame and the RPF.
3) In 1990 the Tutsi-dominated RPF instigated its invasion of Rwanda from bases in southern Uganda. While the RPF consolidated its gains in 1994 against the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government, two Hutu militias Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, perpetrated the Rwandan Genocide by slaughtering nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus between April and July. Western countries declined to intervene and stop the massacre. After its conquest of Rwanda, the RPF split itself into a political division, which retained the same name, and a military division, the Rwandan Patriotic Army, which transformed itself into the new Rwandan Defence Forces.
4) The NRA and RPF were Marxist insurgent armies and are now ruling Marxist parties. Therefore it can be accurately stated that both Rwanda and Uganda are currently communist states.

Republic of Senegal (1960)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty state with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Senegal: Abdoulaye Wade (Senegalese Democratic Party, Coalition Sopi 2007): April 1, 2000-present
Prime Minister of Senegal: Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré (independent): June 19, 2007-present
Communist government:
1) Coalition Sopi (consisting of Senegalese Democratic Party, Union for Democratic Renewal (founded by Djibo Leyti Kâ, formerly of Socialist Party of Senegal), and nearly 40 other parties): 2007-present
2) Coalition Sopi (consisting of Senegalese Democratic Party and And-Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism), 2005-2007
3) Coalition Sopi (consisting of Senegalese Democratic Party, Democratic League-Movement for the Labour Party, and And-Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism), 2000-2005
4) Coalition Sopi (consisting of Senegalese Democratic Party, Democratic League-Movement for the Labour Party, And-Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism, and Party of Independence and Labour), 2000
5) Socialist Party of Senegal, 1998-2000
6) Socialist Party of Senegal in coalition with Democratic League/Movement for the Labour Party, 1993-1998
7) Socialist Party of Senegal, 1992-1993
8) Socialist Party of Senegal in coalition with Senegalese Democratic Party, 1991-1992
9) Socialist Party of Senegal, 1978-1991
10) Socialist Party of Senegal (formerly Senegalese Progressive Union) with support of Senegalese Democratic Party and African Independence Party, 1976-1978
11) Senegalese Progressive Union, sole legal party, 1966-1976
12) Senegalese Progressive Union, 1960-1966
Socialist International presence: Socialist Party of Senegal (formerly ruling)
Communist parties: African Independence Party, African Party for Independence of the Masses, Alliance of the Forces of Progress, And-Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism (merger of And-Jëf/Revolutionary Movement for New Democracy, Socialist Workers’ Organization, and Union for People’s Democracy; under leadership of Landing Savané, who founded Senegalese Communist Party), Democratic League/Movement for the Labour Party (“ex”-communist), Movement for Democracy and Socialism, Movement for Socialism and Unit-Aim 21, Movement for Socialism and Unity-Mamadou Dia, Movement for the Conference of the Left, Party of Independence and Labour (formerly Senegalese section of African Independence Party), Senegalese Communist Party (pro-Chinese; defunct), Socialist Party of Senegal, Rally of the African Workers-Senega, Senegalese Popular Party, Union for the Democratic Renewal/Front for Alternation, Workers’ Party
Important notes:
1) The first President of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor, was an advocate of African socialism and a member of the long-ruling Senegalese Progressive Union/Socialist Party of Senegal. The Socialists and other parties formerly allied with the Democratic Party in Coalition Sopi boycotted the 2007 parliamentary election. As a result, the Democratic Party and its new allies won.
2) The Senegalese Democratic Union was founded by the Communist Study Groups, which was active in French West Africa, including Senegal, and in turn founded by the French Communist Party in 1943. The Senegalese Democratic Union, like the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, was later expelled from the pan-African socialist party, the African Democratic Rally, for being too radical. It was substituted by the more moderate Senegalese Popular Movement.

Republic of Seychelles (1976)
Type of state: Socialist dictatorship with potemkin multiparty system
President of Seychelles: James Michel (Seychelles People’s Progressive Front): August 16, 2004-present
Vice President of Seychelles: Joseph Belmont (Seychelles People’s Progressive Front): August 16, 2004-present
Communist government:
1) Seychelles People’s Progressive Front, 1993-present
2) Seychelles People’s Progressive Front, sole legal party, 1979-1993
3) Seychelles People’s Progressive Front (formerly Seychelles People’s United Party), 1978-1979
4) Seychelles People’s United Party, 1977-1978
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Seychelles People’s Progressive Front
Important notes:
1) During the era of one-party rule the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front (SPPF) received financial support from the governments of Tanzania, Algeria, Libya, and East Germany. The SPPF, however, remains firmly in control of the government. The Seychelles consists of an archipelago of 115 islands 1,600 kilometers east of Africa, in the Indian Ocean.
2) Long-ruling President France-Albert René, who resigned in 2004, styled himself an “Indian Ocean socialist,” rather than a Soviet-style communist. He has opposed the Anglo-American military facility on nearby Diego Garcia due to the alleged storage of nuclear weapons and incarceration of suspected terrorists on that island.

Republic of Sierra Leone (1961)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Sierra Leone: Ernest Bai Koroma (All People’s Congress): September 17, 2007-present
Vice President of Sierra Leone: Samuel Sam-Sumana (All People’s Congress): September 17, 2007-present
Communist government:
1) All People’s Congress (current commitment to socialism unclear), 2007-present
2) All People’s Congress (absorbs Sierra Leone People’s Party), sole legal party, 1978-1992
3) All People’s Congress, 1967, 1968-1978
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: All People’s Congress
Important notes:
1) President Siaka Stevens, a “pragmatic” socialist,” founded the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in 1951 and the All People’s Congress (ACP), under a different name, before Sierra Leonean independence in 1961. The SLPP was aborbed into the ACP during the period of single-party rule between 1978 and 1992.
2) An ideologically unclassifiable insurgent army, Revolutionary United Front (RUF), terrorized Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2001. RUF founder Foday Sankoh became a student activist in 1970s, was briefly jailed, and trained at a guerrilla camp in Libya where Revolutionary Leader “Colonel” Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi preached communist doctrine to West African dissidents.
3) The political turmoil that afflicted Sierra Leone in the 1990s was related to the turmoil that also afflicted neighboring Liberia. Among that initial group of RUF insurgents were dissidents from Sierra Leone, mercenaries from communist Burkina Faso, and soldiers loyal to Charles Taylor, President of Liberia between 1997 and 2003. Taylor and Sankoh cemented their relationship in the 1980s in Libya where Taylor also sought logistical and ideological support from Libya’s Qaddafi.

Republic of South Africa (1910)
(formerly Union of South Africa, 1910-1961)
Type of state: Neo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
President of South Africa: Kgalema Motlanthe (African National Congress, former agent of ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe): September 25, 2008-present
Deputy President of South Africa: Baleka Mbete (African National Congress): September 25, 2008-present
President of African National Congress: Jacob Zuma (supported by ANC’s left wing, ANC Youth League, SACP, and COSATU): December 18, 2007-present
Communist government:
1) Tripartite Alliance (consisting of African National Congress, South African Communist Party, and Congress of South African Trade Unions), 1994-present
Socialist International presence: African National Congress
Communist parties: African National Congress (infiltrated by SACP), African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa (Trotskyist), Azanian People’s Organization, Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist), Democratic Socialist Movement (Trotskyist), International Socialist Movement (Trotskyist), Keep Left (Trotskyist), Labour Left Collective, New Unity Movement (Trotskyist), Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Socialist Party of Azania (Trotskyist), South African Communist Party, Spartacist, Workers’ International Vanguard League (Trotskyist), Workers’ Organization for Socialist Action (Trotskyist), Workers’ Party, World Socialist Movement, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation
Important notes:
1) The African National Congress (ANC) was formed in 1912 to represent the interests of tribal chiefs, black professionals, black church organizations, and other prominent individuals.
2) The ANC Youth League was founded in 1944 by Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo, who were initially committed to non-violence mass action against South African’s white minority government.
3) In 1959 a number of ANC members broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), under the leadership of Robert Sobukwe. Although initially opposed to the policies of the South African Communist Party, in the 1960s a prominent section of the PAC’s leadership adopted a Maoist position. The military wing of the PAC was launched in 1962 and eventually called the Azanian People’s Liberation Army.
4) Following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, both the ANC and the PAC were banned. The ANC, including Mandela, subsequently took their political activities underground and shifted their tactics to include violent protest and terrorism.
5) International opposition to the apartheid regime increased during the 1950s and 1960s, stimulated by political agitation from newly independent countries in Africa, the UK-based Anti-Apartheid Movement, and the civil rights movement in the USA.
6) In 1950 the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, a primary policy goal of the new National Party government. The CPSA conducted its activities covertly and in 1953 repackaged itself as the SACP. The Suppression of Communism Act was also applied against all other organizations committed to ending apartheid. The Lithuanian-born Joe Slovo was a prominent leader in the SACP. In 1984 he was elected to the post of general secretary, a position he held until 1991, when poor health required him to relinquish leadership of the SACP to Chris Hani.
7) In 1961 Mandela joined forces with SACP member Slovo (both men pictured above) to found the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (meaning Spear of the Nation and abbreviated MK). Mandela coordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets, and prepared for guerrilla warfare against the white minority government if sabotage failed to dislodge apartheid. Mandela visited various African governments to generate funds for the MK insurgency, arranged paramilitary training, and established ANC bases in Tanzania and Zambia.
8) Initially MK was headquartered in a suburb of Johannesburg called Rivonia. In 1963 Mandela and 18 other ANC and MK leaders were arrested at a farm in Rivonia, which had been purchased with SACP funds. In the subsequent Rivonia Trial 10 ANC leaders were tried for more than 200 acts of sabotage designed to instigate revolution. Walter Mkwayi, MK chief of staff at the time, escaped during the trial. Slovo later assumed that position.
9) MK executed numerous bombings of military, industrial and civilian sites. While most operations were oriented toward sabotage, MK eventually employed urban guerrilla warfare in the 1980s. The total number of people killed or injured in MK’s three-decade campaign is undetermined. MK suspended operations in 1990, the same year in which the SACP was legalized.
10) Following Slovo’s “retirement” in 1991 Hani continued to lead both the SACP and MK until his assassination in 1993. His assassin was Polish immigrant Janusz Walus, who was arrested along with Clive Derby-Lewis, a pro-apartheid senior Conservative Party Member of Parliament, who had provided Walus with his pistol.
11) In 1986 both the ANC and the SACP sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. Slovo was the SACP delegate.
12) In 2001 Mandela was made an honorary citizen of Canada and an honorary companion of the Order of Canada, that country’s highest honour. At the time the government in power was the long-ruling pro-communist Liberal Party of Canada. Mandela has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush, and the Order of Merit and the Order of St. John from Queen Elizabeth II.
13) The fact that the ANC and the SACP combined in an armed struggle against the white minority government of South Africa clearly implicates the “saintly” Mandela, common perceptions to the contrary, as a revolutionary socialist, rather than a social democrat. Indeed, Mandela is the author of the pamphlet How to Be a Good Communist.
14) The current President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki is the son of Govan Mbeki (1910-2001), a long-time member of both the ANC and the SACP.

Republic of Sudan (1956)
(formerly Democratic Republic of Sudan, 1969-1985)
Type of state: Islamo-Marxist dictatorship with elements of former socialist (Nasserist) dictatorship and potemkin multiparty system
President of Sudan: Field Marshal Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir (National Congress Party, Islamist): June 30, 1989-present
First Vice President of Sudan/President of Southern Sudan: Salva Kiir Mayardit (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement): August 1, 2005-present
Second Vice President of Sudan: Ali Osman Taha (National Congress Party, Islamist): January 9, 2005-present
Communist government:
1) National Congress Party (absorbs Nimeiry’s socialist Alliance of Working Peoples’ Forces Party) in collaboration with Marxist Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, 2005-present
2) Sudanese Socialist Union, sole legal party, 1971-1985
3) Sudanese Communist Party carries out coup, briefly removing Nimeiry from power, July 19-22, 1971
4) Socialist military dictatorship under leadership of Revolutionary Command Council and military officer Gaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiry, 1969-1971
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Sudan African Congress, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement with armed wing Sudan People’s Liberation Army, National Democratic Alliance (front for Sudanese Communist Party), Sudanese Communist Party
Important notes:
1) Nimeiry, the President of Sudan between 1971 and 1985 founded the Sudanese Socialist Union, which was the sole legal party during his presidency. In 1952 Nimeiry graduated from the Sudan Military College, where he was powerfully affected by the Arab neo-fascist ideology of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Free Officers Movement, which seized power in Egypt the same year. Nimeiry lived in exile in Egypt from 1985 to 1999, after which he returned to Sudan and joined the ruling National Congress Party/National Islamic Front.
2) John Garang, the founder of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement, which has participated in the Sudanese government since 2005, formerly attended the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. There Garang joined the University Students’ African Revolutionary Front and became acquainted with the youth group’s founder Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, currently the president of Uganda. In 2005 Garang was briefly First Vice President of Sudan as well as President of South Sudan, a new autonomous region organized by the Naivasha Agreement, until his demise on July 30 in a helicopter crash that the Sudanese government officially refered to as accidental. At the time Garang was returning to Sudan from Uganda, where he had been visiting his old friend President Museveni.
3) In 1986 the Sudanese Communist Party sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is a coalition of parties that was established in 1989 to oppose the military coup and Islamic republic of the current President of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The NDA consists of the Sudanese Communist Party and the following parties: Democratic Unionist Party, Umma Party, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army, Union of Sudan African Parties, General Council of the Trade Unions Federations, Legitimate Command of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Beja Congress, Sudan Alliance Forces, Federal Democratic Alliance, Free Lions Association, Arab Ba’th Socialist Party (neofascist), Sudanese National Party, “independent national figures,” and “representatives of the liberated areas.”

Republic of Uganda (1962)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Uganda: Apolo Nsibambi (National Resistance Movement): April 5, 1999-present
President of Uganda: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (University Students’ African Revolutionary Front, Front for National Salvation, Uganda Patriotic Movement, Popular Resistance Army, National Resistance Movement): January 29, 1986-present
Communist government:
1) National Resistance Movement, 1986-present
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: National Resistance Movement with armed wing National Resistance Army (merger of Popular Resistance Army and Uganda Freedom Fighters), Socialist Club
Important notes:
1) Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who has been President of Uganda since 1986, participated in the war that overthrew Idi Amin’s dictatorship in 1979 and in the rebellion that resulted in the demise of Milton Obote’s regime in 1985. Earlier, Museveni studied at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he became an unreconstructed Marxist and an advocate of radical pan-Africanism. While a student he formed the University Students’ African Revolutionary Front and sponsored a student delegation to FRELIMO territory in Portuguese Mozambique. There he received his guerrilla training.
2) The armed wing of the National Resistance Movement was the National Resistance Army, which became the Uganda People’s Defense Force, the government armed forces. Political parties are tolerated under the NRM regime, but proscribed from participating in elections. This policy was reversed in 2005.
3) See Democratic Republic of The Congo and Republic of Rwanda for more information on the influence of communist Uganda on these other countries.

Republic of Zambia (1964)
(formerly Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia)
Type of state: Post-communist multiparty system with resurgent elements of old regime
President of Zambia: Rupiah Banda (United National Independence Party, Movement for Multiparty Democracy; held diplomatic posts in Kenneth Kaunda regime): June 29-November 2, 2008 (acting), November 2, 2008-present
Vice President of Zambia: George Kunda: June 29, 2008-present
Communist government:
1) Movement for Multiparty Democracy/United National Independence Party, 2008-present
2) United National Independence Party, sole legal party, 1972-1991
3) United National Independence Party, 1964-1972
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Revolutionary Socialist Party, Socialist Caucus, United National Independence Party
Important notes:
1) The first post-independence President of Zambia Kenneth David Kaunda (“KK”) used the United National Independence Party to implement African socialism in Zambia. He also allowed several Marxist-oriented “national liberation” fronts, such as the pro-Moscow Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the pro-Beijing Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) of Southern Rhodesia, and the African National Congress of South Africa, to establish bases in Zambia.
2) The first President of Zambia after the Kaunda dictatorship was Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba, who held the position between the restoration of democracy in 1991 and 2002. At one time Chiluba chaired the National Union of Building, Engineering and General Workers. Chiluba is apparently an “ex”-socialist and does not appear to have any personal connections to the former communist regime. The same appears to be the case with Zambia’s third president, Levy Patrick Mwanawasa.
3) In October 1997 Kaunda was implicated in a coup attempt by army commanders against the government of President Frederick Chiluba. The former communist dictator was released from jail in June 1998.
3) The transition to multiparty democracy in Zambia in 1991 appears to be genuine, although the current president Rupiah Banda was a member of the formerly ruling UNIP. In August 2007 President Levy Mwanawasa appointed Banda as special envoy to Harare for the purpose of restoring relations between Zambia and Zimbabwe, once Northern and Southern Rhodesia, respectively. See Republic of Madagascar for another recent example of an apparently genuine transition communism to democracy in an African country.

Republic of Zimbabwe (1965)
(formerly unrecognized Republic of Rhodesia, 1965-1979; Republic of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, 1979)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
President of Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe (National Democratic Party (later Zimbabwe African People’s Union), Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) with armed wing Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front): December 31, 1987-present (prime minister between April 18, 1980 and December 31, 1987; post abolished)
Vice Presidents of Zimbabwe: Joseph Msika (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front): December 23, 1999-present; Joyce Mujuru (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front): December 6, 2004-present
Speaker of Parliament of Zimbabwe: Lovemore Moyo (Zimbabwe African People’s Union, Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai): August 25, 2008-present
Communist government:
1) Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in power-sharing arrangement with Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai: 2008-present
2) Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (merger of ZANU and Zimbabwe African People’s Union), 1988-2008
3) Zimbabwe African National Union, 1980-1988
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: International Socialist Organization (Trotskyist), Marxian Solidarity, Movement for Democratic Change-Left Wing (Trotskyist), Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, Zimbabwe Labour Party
Important notes:
1) Southern Rhodesia was a British Crown Colony until 1965, when the white Premier Ian Douglas Smith issued his Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom. Six years after black majority rule was instituted in 1980, Smith’s Rhodesian Front changed its name to the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ), opening its membership to voters of all races. Many former members of the CAZ transferred their support to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when the latter group, Zimbabwe’s chief opposition party, was formed in 1999. Smith died in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2007.
2) The founder of the Zimbabwe African National Union and Prime Minister/President of Zimbabwe since 1980, Robert Mugabe, is an advocate of African socialism. The armed wing of ZANU was the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, while the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which merged with ZANU in 1987, was the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army. ZANU is pro-Beijing to this day, while ZAPU was pro-Moscow.
3) ZANU’s pro-Beijing orientation is evident through President Mugabe’s “Look East” policy in which Mandarin Chinese-language instruction will be promoted in Zimbabwe universities, presumably under the tutelage of “teachers” who will be imported from the People’s Republic of China. The Zimbabwe National Association of Student Unions is not in favor of the government policy. In February 2008 Mugabe begged Communist China to loan Zimbabwe £25 billion to repair the country’s economy, shattered by 28 years of Marxist economic policies. In January of the same year Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate reached 100,580 per cent.
4) The virulently racist President Mugabe has implemented a largely underreported, covert policy of genocide against Zimbabwe’s rural white population, by inciting gangs of murderous thugs to invade farms. This phenomenon has been replicated on a smaller scale in a no less underreported fashion in South Africa.
5) In 2002 Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s major opposition party, the social democratic Movement for Democratic Change, was charged with plotting to assassinate President Mugabe. The treason charge was later dropped. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which originally supported Mugabe, was the driving force behind the formation of the MDC. The International Socialist Organization opposes both the ZANU-PF and the MDC, although it was briefly associated with the latter between 1999 and 2002.

Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (1951)
Type of state: Partyless socialist (Nasserist) dictatorship
Prime Minister of Libya: Baghdadi Mahmudi: March 5, 2006-present
Leader and Guide of the Revolution: “Colonel” Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi (Free Officers Movement, Arab Socialist Union): September 8, 1969-present
Communist government:
1) Revolutionary Command Council and General People’s Congress, 1972-present
2) Arab Socialist Union, 1971-1972
3) Free Officers Movement, 1969-1971
Socialist International presence: political parties banned
Communist parties: political parties banned
Important notes:
1) Characterizing the ideology of Libya’s long-ruling Revolutionary Command Council is difficult. Although the labels “Arab socialist” and “Arab neo-fascist” seemed appropriate descriptions of “Colonel” Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi’s regime, “national communist” might equally characterize the current Libyan state. Officially, the ideology of the Libyan Jamahiriya, or republic, is based on Arab nationalism, or pan-Arabism, and Islamic socialism, or pan-Islamism. After the death of Egypt’s Abdul Nasser, whom Qaddafi admired, Libya’s “Revolutionary Leader” proclaimed in 1972 a “Federation of Arab Republics,” consisting of Libya, Egypt and Syria, with the intent of forming a pan-Arab state. However, the proposed union collapsed when the three countries rejected the specific terms of union. In 1974 Qaddafi signed an agreement with Tunisia’s Habib Bourguiba. That agreement also collapsed. At one time, in the late 1960s, the military leaders of North Yemen also considered admission to such a pan-Arab federation, the union between Egypt and Syria having long since dissolved.
2) Qaddafi’s intelligence and security services, the Maktab Maaloumat al-Kaed and the Jamahiriya Security Organization, were initially organized by the East German Ministry of State Security, or Stasi, itself modeled on the Soviet Ministry of State Security (MGB), the KGB’s predecessor. The entire intelligence and security apparatus was overhauled in 1993.
3) In 1986 US military action against Libya prevented the General People’s Congress of Libya from sending a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
4) Although during the 1990s “Colonel” Qaddafi, whose only earned promotion is that of captain, has endeavored to present a more moderate image, Libya has funded, supplied and trained communist and other revolutionaries throughout Africa, southwestern Asia and western Europe, such as the Irish Republican Army. In August 2003, two years after Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted in a British court, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment and is serving his sentence in a Scottish prison.

Somali Republic (1960, 2000)
(formerly Somali Democratic Republic, 1969-1991)
Type of state: Post-communist state in throes of civil war with weak, internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (TFG)
Prime Minister of TFG: Nur Hassan Hussein (former chief of police under communist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre): November 24, 2007-present
President of TFG: Adan Mohamed Nuur Madobe (Rahanweyn Resistance Army, Koranic instructor): December 29, 2008-present
Communist government:
1) Transitional Federal Government with the support of Somali Democratic Movement, Somali National Front/Allied Somali Forces/Juba Valley Alliance, Somali Patriotic Movement, Somali Salvation Democratic Front, United Somali Parliamentarians, and United Somali Congress, 2004-present
2) Transitional National Government under President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, Barre’s last interior minister (formerly controlled National Security Service and Investigative Department of Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party), 2000-2004
3) Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, sole legal party, 1979-1991 (overthrown)
4) Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, 1976-1979
5) Socialist military dictatorship established by Army Commander Mohamed Siad Barre, 1969-1976
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Communist Party of Somalia (status undetermined), Somali National Front/Allied Somali Forces/Juba Valley Alliance (Barre loyalists), Somali Patriotic Movement (founded by Barre’s defense minister Aden Abdullahi Nur Gabyow), Somali Salvation Democratic Front (consisting of Somali Salvation Front, Somali Workers’ Party, and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Somalia (a front for Communist Party of Somalia); anti-Barre), United Somali Congress (founded by General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, former chief of intelligence under Barre)
Communist insurgency: Armed forces of Somali TFG, Ethiopia, and USA versus Islamic Courts Union and allegedly Eritrea and Al Qaeda
Political status of Somalia’s regions:
1) De facto control of northern Somalia resides in the regional authorities. Of these, Puntland, Northland State, Maakhir, Galmudug acknowledge the authority of the TFG and maintain their autonomy within a federated Somalia.
2) By contrast, central and southern Somalia, and Kismayo the third largest city in Somalia, are under the control of the Islamic Courts Union and Al-Shabab.
3) The Somaliland region in the north, with its capital in Hargeisa, has declared independence and does not recognize the TFG as a governing authority.
4) Baidoa is currently the seat of the TFG, and Somalia’s commercial center.
Important notes:
1) Mohamed Farrah Aidid, former chief of Somali intelligence under the Barre regime, instigated the coup d’etat that removed the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party from power in Somalia in 1991. Aidid, leader of the United Somali Congress, was one of the principal targets of the United Nations’ Operation Restore Hope military campaign. Aidid died in factional fighting in 1996.
2) Between 1982 and 1988, the “formerly” pro-Soviet, now pro-West, communist Somalia was at war with the pro-Soviet communist Ethiopia, in which the latter claimed territory from the former.
3) During that period Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) guerrillas attacked the Barre regime until they assumed control over the western districts of Mudug region and the southern areas of the Nugaal and Bari regions. After the fall of the Barre regime, the SSDF divided into two factions, one directed by General Mohamed Abshir Musa (chairman), while the other is directed by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed (deputy chairman).
4) Dahir Riyale Kahin, “president” of Somaliland, was a Soviet-trained intelligence officer in communist Somalia’s National Security Services. Kahin’s political enemies in Somaliland contend that he actively suppressed opposition forces in the region in the 1980s.
5) On March 3, 2008 a US Navy submarine fired at least two cruise missiles at the southern Somali town of Dobley, where Kenyan terrorist Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was presumed to be hiding. Nabhan allegedly played a major role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

State of Eritrea (1993)
Type of state: Neo-communist single-party dictatorship
President of Eritrea: Isaias Afewerki (Eritrean Liberation Front/Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, People’s Front for Democracy and Justice; received military training at PRC’s Nanjing Army Command College): May 24, 1993-present
Communist government:
1) People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, sole legal party, 1993-present
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: People’s Front for Democracy and Justice
Important notes:
1) The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) is a former insurgent army called the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), which split from the Eritrean Liberation Front. In 1991, in conjunction with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which opposed the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, the EPLF defeated the Ethiopian military, securing Eritrean independence. The TPLF is currently part of Ethiopia’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. All of these parties are Marxist in orientation. The State of Eritrea seceded from Ethopia in 1993, after a thirty-year guerrilla war between 1960 and 1991.
3) Banned parties in Eritrea include the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, Eritrean Islamic Salvation, Eritrean National Alliance, Eritrean Public Forum, and Eritrean Liberation Front.

Togolese Republic (1960)
Type of state: Single-party dominant system
Prime Minister of Togo: Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo (supported by Rally of the Togolese People): September 8, 2008-present
President of Togo: Faure Gnassingbé (Rally of the Togolese People): May 4, 2005-present
Socialist International presence: Democratic Convention of African Peoples
Communist parties: Communist Party of Togo, Socialist Party for Renewal, Workers’ Party
Important notes:
1) The Union of Forces for Change is an opposition party directed by Gilchrist Olympio, son of the first president of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, who was assassinated in 1963. The recently deceased, long-time dictator of Togo, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, boasted that he fired the shot that killed Sylvanus.
2) The Communist Party of Togo (PCT) was founded in 1980 and followed the political line of the ruling communist Albanian Party of Labor. The PCT was presumably legalized with other parties in Togo in 1993.

Tunisian Republic (1956)
Type of state: Socialist (Bourguibist) dictatorship with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Tunisia: Mohamed Ghannouchi (Democratic Constitutional Rally): November 17, 1999-present
President of Tunisia: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Socialist Constitution Party, Democratic Constitutional Rally; pictured here): November 7, 1987-present
Communist government:
1) Democratic Constitutional Rally (formerly Socialist Constitution Party), 1988-present
2) Socialist Constitution Party (formerly New Constitution Party), sole legal party, 1964-1988
3) New Constitution Party, 1957-1964
Socialist International presence: Democratic Constitutional Rally, Democratic Forum for Labour and Freedoms (consultative)
Communist parties: Communist Party of Tunisian Workers, Democratic Constitutional Rally, Marxist-Leninist Communist Organization of Tunisia, Movement for Renewal (formerly Tunisian Communist Party prior to 1993), Popular Unity Movement, Popular Unity Party, Progressive Democratic Party, Revolutionary Communist Organization (Trotskyist), Tunisian Perspectives (Maoist), Unionist Democratic Union (Arab socialist)
Important notes:
1) Tunisia’s first post-independence president Habib Bourguiba founded the New Constitution (“Neo-Destour”) Party in 1934, as a split from the Constitution (“Destour”) Party, founded in 1920, referring to the short-lived Tunisian Constitution of 1861.
2) Between 1982 and 1985 the communist-dominated Palestine Liberation Organization made the capital of Tunisia, Tunis, its operational headquarters. The Israeli Air Force bombed the PLO’s Tunis HQ in Operation Wooden Leg in 1985.
2) In 1986 the Socialist Constitution (“Destourian”) Party sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany. The Tunisian Communist Party, which was banned between 1964 and 1981, also sent a delegation.
3) The Tunisian Republic’s second president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali announced the introduction of what is essentially a spurious political pluralism in 1992. In 2003 the Japanese Communist Party sent a congratulatory message to the Democratic Constitutional Rally congress, noting Tunisia’s involvement in the communist-controlled Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, Organization of the Islamic Conference, and African Union

Union of the Comoros (1975)
(formerly Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros until 2003)
Type of state: Multiparty state with history of military dictatorships
President of Comoros: Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi (independent; educated in Islamic studies in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan): May 26, 2006-present
Communist government:
1) Democratic Assembly of the Comorian People (President Ali Soilih self-avowed Maoist), 1975-1978
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Answer of the Comoros, Citizens’ Movement, Comorian Labour and Progress Party, Democratic Front of the Comoros, Renovated Communist party of Mayotte, Revolutionary Left of the Comoros, Socialist Party of the Comoros
Important notes:
1) The politically unstable Comoros has endured 20 coups d’etat since independence and French military intervention in 1995. The last coup occurred in 1999, when Colonel Azali Assoumani, a senior officer in the Comorian Defence Force, seized power.
2) During the 1970s South Africa maintained a secret electronic listening station in the Comoros to monitor the insurgent African National Congress’ bases in Zambia and Tanzania, as well as to monitor the war in Mozambique, in which South Africa participated against the communist insurgents who now rule that country.

United Republic of Tanzania (Tanganyika, 1961; Zanzibar, 1964; united 1964)
Type of state: Paleo-communist state with potemkin multiparty system
Prime Minister of Tanzania: Mizengo Pinda (Revolutionary State Party): February 9, 2008-present
President of Tanzania: Jakaya Kikwete (Revolutionary State Party): December 21, 2005-present
Communist government:
1) Revolutionary State Party, 1992-present
2) Revolutionary State Party (merger of Tanganyika African National Union (Tanganyika) and Afro-Shirazi Party (Zanzibar)), sole legal party, 1977-1992
3) Tanganyika African National Union, sole legal party, 1964-1977
3) Tanganyika African National Union, 1961-1964
Socialist International presence: none
Communist parties: Revolutionary State Party, Tanzania Labour Party (possibly)
Important notes:
1) In 1977 the Revolutionary State Party (“Chama Cha Mapinduzi,” CCM) was created by merging the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), the long-time ruling party in Tanganyka, and the Afro-Shirazi Party, the then-ruling party in Zanzibar.
2) Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the founder of TANU in 1954 and chair of the CCM between its creation and 1990, was an advocate of African socialism. Nyerere was instrumental in forming the political union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Along with Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia, Nyerere was prominent in the establishment of the “Front Line States,” black majority-ruled states in southern Africa committed to the overthrow of the white minority-ruled South Africa. Nyerere was also instrumental in supporting the 1977 coup that propelled socialist France-Albert René to power in the Seychelles.
3) In 1986 the CCM sent a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of East Germany.
4) In 1992 the government of Tanzania sanctioned political pluralism and two years later the first ever multiparty election was held in that country. The Revolutionary State Party, however, remains firmly in control of the government.
5) At its inception the CCM was committed to advancing African socialism and Ujamaa, or collectivized agriculture. However, like many “born again” communist parties worldwide, the Revolutionary State Party disguises its Marxist dogma with pragmatic capitalist concessions to attract foreign investment and technology.

>USSR2 File: Belarus dictator Lukashenko maintains power in third fraudulent election; EU threatens sanctions

>Belarus: “Democratic” Russia’s neo-communist “post-communist” communist foil. Belarus: Where the KGB is still called the KGB and warns the political opposition not to commit acts of terrorism that the security service itself is prepared to employ to preserve Comrade Lukashenko’s dictatorship.

Lukashenko’s third electoral “victory” condemned by the New European Soviet (EU) and the USA, lauded by Comrade Czar Vladimir “There’s No Such Thing as a Former KGB Man” Putin and his lackeys in the Not-So-Former Soviet republics.

Protesters defy Belarus authorities for rallies denouncing election
By Maria Danilova ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:59 p.m. March 20, 2006
MINSK, Belarus

Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the center of the Belarus’ capital Monday for a second night, hoping their protest would help overturn a presidential election that the U.S. said was flawed by a “climate of fear.”

The United States and the European Union called for new elections and threatened sanctions on Belarus, where the numbers of demonstrators was smaller than on election night and prospects for a Ukraine-style “Orange Revolution” seemed remote.

With overnight temperatures at 28 degrees, protesters set up a dozen small tents and vowed to turn the demonstration into a round-the-clock presence. Most of the tents were draped with historic national flags favored by critics of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has scrapped them for a Soviet-style version.

“This is our last chance,” said Vladimir Fivsky, a 20-year-old student who had wrapped one of the red-striped white flags around his shoulders and wore a pin in the same colors saying: “For Freedom!” He said came to the square to protest because he “had enough” after 12 years of Lukashenko’s repressive rule.

The small but assertive move could rally others to the cause. But it could also prove unacceptable to authorities. Officials put on a show of force, with busloads of riot police fanning out into nearby streets and courtyards and preventing people from approaching the main square.

Police had only a small and unobtrusive presence at the protest the previous night, when an estimated 10,000 people braved the freezing cold and snow to register their outrage after Lukashenko was declared the overwhelming winner of Sunday’s elections.

Lukashenko asserted Monday that his foes had failed to topple him in a foreign-backed “revolution.”

International observers said the vote fell short of democratic standards. Europe’s main human rights organization said it was a “farce,” and the United States called for a new election. Lukashenko’s main opponent refused to accept the outcome, calling the longtime leader an “illegal, illegitimate president.”

However, the leverage of the international community seemed limited, and even many of the protesters appeared to have little appetite for a prolonged vigil and a possibly violent confrontation.

The election result, if it stands, would entrench the status of Belarus as one of the least independent of the former Soviet republics.

Some 5,000 gathered in Oktyabrskaya Square in the capital, about half the number that came out Sunday night for a protest whose size was extraordinary in a tightly controlled country where police have cracked down swiftly on unsanctioned opposition gatherings.

The diminished crowd suggested to many that the opposition was losing momentum.

“There aren’t enough people” a young man hollered into a cell phone amid the din of the rally.

But Alexander Milinkevich, the main opposition presidential candidate and symbolic heart of the protests, called on the demonstrators to gird for a lengthy campaign. He is demanding an election rerun.

“Our protest will be long and strong,” he vowed. “We will never recognize this election. It’s not an election but an anti-constitutional seizure of power.”

The crowd thinned as hours passed, but many shared a determination to go to the bitter end.

“We plan to stay here overnight and to stay until the moment when the vote is pronounced falsified, when the authorities admit this and a new election is announced,” said a 21-year-old student who gave his name only as Alexander, one of a dozen people sitting among the tents.

A few tents “may not change much, but if people lose their fear they will join us,” he said.

Milinkevich visited the growing makeshift tent camp, taking sips of tea from a cup he was offered and saying: “We’re together.”

As the rally was about to begin, busloads of riot police streamed into Karl Marx Street near the square. Security forces in helmets and camouflage uniforms disembarked from the buses, jogged into neighborhood courtyards and prevented pedestrians from walking toward the square.

On the square, a 45-year-old woman who gave her name only as Irina said she was scared about the prospect of bloody police action, but “if Lukashenko stays in power, it will be even worse.”

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the election was flawed by a “climate of fear,” and hinted that penalties such as travel restrictions “are things we will look at.”

“We support the call for a new election,” McClellan said. “The United States will continue to stand with the people of Belarus.”

A cheer went up from the crowd in the square when a speaker reported the U.S. statement.

By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Lukashenko in a telegram and said the results would help strengthen the alliance of the two former Soviet nations.

The chief electoral official said Monday that Lukashenko, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1994, won a “convincing victory” with 82.6 percent of the votes – a number Milinkevich called “monstrously inflated.”

Lukashenko scorned the opposition, saying voters had shown “who’s the boss” in Belarus. “The revolution that was talked about so much … has failed,” he told a nationally televised news conference.

He asserted that Sunday’s protest leaders were in the pay of Western ambassadors and claimed there was no crackdown because the opposition is weak.

“Who was there to fight with? Nobody, understand? That’s why we gave them the opportunity to show themselves, even though it was illegal.”

But the observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Monday that the election did not meet standards for a free and fair vote.

“Arbitrary use of state power and widespread detentions showed a disregard for the basic rights of freedom of assembly, association and expression,” it said.

The EU threatened diplomatic and financial sanctions against Belarus’ leaders, notably a wider travel ban.

Lukashenko said Monday he was “not afraid of further isolation.” He added: “If the EU wants problems here, it will have them.”

Link: SignOnSanDiego.com

>Grey Terror File: CPRF leader accuses USA of manufacturing bird flu

>Comrade Zyuganov is a key player in Moscow’s perestroika deception and the openly restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His comments below can probably be classified as a case of “projection,” that is, the communist leadership of the Not-So-Former Soviet Union is accusing the USA of something for which the USSR2 may be the real perpetrator. Not surprisingly, the faux rightist Propaganda Matrix website uncritically ran this story. Paul Joseph Watson’s anti-capitalist New World Order conspiracymongering site is the British counterpart to Alex Jones’ Prison Planet. CPRF organ Pravda has published at least one article by Watson. See earlier blog on the bird flu as biological warfare/warfear.

Russian Communist leader sees U.S. behind bird flu outbreak
Mar 14 2006 7:06PM

MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) – Russian Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov has blamed the United States for the spread of avian influenza, or bird flu, in a number of European countries, including Russia.

“The forms of warfare are changing. It’s strange that not a single duck has yet died in America – they are all dying in Russia and European countries. This makes one seriously wonder why,” Zyuganov said at a press conference at the Interfax main office on Tuesday.

Zyuganov said that he has good knowledge of war gases as he dealt with them during his army service.
“I tested all kinds of war gases at a range myself,” he said.

Asked to be more precise as to whether he believes the bird flu outbreak could be a deliberate attack by the U.S., Zyuganov answered positively.

“I not only suggest this, I know very well how this can be arranged. There is nothing strange here,” he said.

Link: Interfax

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: Top-level Chinese military delegation visits Cuba

>One wonders if Peng will visit China’s electronic spy bases in Cuba?

Shortly after the 911 terror attacks on the USA, Comrade Czar Putin made a big deal about closing down the Soviet electronic spy base in Lourdes (pictured above), which monitored all civilian and military air traffic over North America and which was set up after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Was Putin covering his tracks? The 911 skyjackers were in need of some pretty serious coordinated electronic support in order to bypass NORAD’s airspace surveillance system. Alexandr Nemets and Thomas Torda write in “Cuba’s Lourdes Radar Base, Terrorist Mohamed Atta and the Kremlin” (NewsMax.com, December 20, 2001):

The following conclusions are clear: Information needed to carry out the 9-11 attacks went from the Lourdes center, via Cuban secret agents in Miami, to Atta and other members of his suicide squad. This became the decisive factor in the successful realization of the 9-11 strikes. The Kremlin knew in advance of this horrific plot and blessed the operation. Tehran also knew everything in advance – from its agents in al-Qaeda and from Castro himself.

Be assured, the USSR’s intelligence gathering capabilities in North America were in no way reduced by pulling out of Lourdes since their strategic partner, the People’s Republic of China, maintains their listening posts too at Bejucal and Santiago de Cuba.

Chinese Military Reps in Cuba
Havana, Mar 8 (Prensa Latina)

A top-level Chinese military delegation, led by Lieutenant General Peng Xiaofeng, political commissary of the People´s Liberation Army, has been visiting Cuba since March 4, Granma newspaper reports Wednesday.

Peng and his accompanying group held talks with Cuban officials in an atmosphere of fraternity and cooperation, and expressed satisfaction with visiting the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry and the island’s people, the daily adds.

The Chinese military delegation’s agenda includes visiting military schools and units and meeting with chiefs, officials and teaching staffs. Their aim is to learn more on the political-ideological work of Cuban combatants.

The Chinese People´s Liberation Army delegation has already visited the Jose Marti Memorial and other Cuban sites of historic and cultural interest.

mh/iff/abm/mf

Link: Prensa Latina

>Blast from the Past File: Italian commission confirms KGB’s role in pope shooting

>Several revelations have emerged in the last three years confirming assertions made shortly after the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, namely, that the death plot was masterminded by the KGB, contrary to the howls of protest that rose from leftist journalists at the time.

Regarding JP2’s anti-communist credentials I have mixed feelings. While I have not unearthed any hard information that would implicate Karol Wojtyla as a communist agent, the pope’s support for the communist-controlled Solidarity labor union actually facilitated the perestroika deception in Poland, in which communists abandoned the public monopoly of power in that country.

Intriguingly, KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn in New Lies for Old (1984) questions the contention that the KGB orchestrated the assassination attempt on JP2 (pages 351-254). He affirms that the KGB would not have contracted the death plot to the Bulgarian secret service but, rather, undertaken the task with its own reliable agents or Polish ones. On the first point, I diverge from Golitsyn who, in response to new revelations, might reverse his position. On the second point, I might be inclined to agree.

In his second book, The Perestroika Deception (1995, 1998), Golitsyn urges readers to consider the possibility that the KGB was behind the assassination of John Paul II’s predecessor, John Paul I, who occupied that office for barely a month in 1978. “In the present phase,” he writes, “secret agents in the Catholic and other churches are being used to implement Communist strategy. When they achieve their Communist world victory, they will use mass withdrawal of their agents to disrupt and destroy the churches” (pages 116-117).

Following this line of thinking, one could develop a thesis in which the KGB rubbed out JP1 in order to install their candidate, a controlled dissident, a figure that is the subject of much analysis in both New Lies for Old and The Perestroika Deception. This thesis would also entail fixing the electoral process of the College of Cardinals that selects the pope. The subsequent assassination attempt on JP2 in 1981, then, could be viewed as a failed attempt to murder the controlled dissident who, for various reasons, is no longer fulfilling Kremlin objectives.

One can only speculate at this time. Some traditionalist Roman Catholics, it should be noted, affirm that the Vatican was infiltrated by communists decades ago.

While John Paul II publicly expressed in 2002 his disbelief in the “Bulgarian connection,” in his last book the pope acknowledged that the gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, now released from his Turkish prison, was a pawn and intimated that some other entity masterminded the death plot. (See earlier blogs on this subject.)

Soviet Union ordered Pope shooting: Italy commission
Thu Mar 2, 2006 8:50 AM ET
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters)

Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report.

A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti.

“This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul,” the report said.

“They relayed this decision to the military secret services for them to take on all necessary operations to commit a crime of unique gravity, without parallel in modern times,” it said.

The report also says “some elements” of the Bulgarian secret services were involved but that this was an attempt to divert attention away from the Soviet Union’s alleged key role.

A 36-page chapter on the assassination attempt was included in a wider report by parliament’s Mitrokhin Commission, which probed the revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior Soviet archivist during the Cold War who defected to Britain in 1992.

The Pope was shot in St Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who was arrested minutes later and convicted of attempted murder.

At the time of the shooting, events in the Pope’s Polish homeland were starting a domino effect which was eventually to lead to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.

The Pope was a staunch supporter of Poland’s Solidarity union and most historians agree he played a vital role in events that led to the formation of the East Bloc’s first freely elected government and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

LACK OF EVIDENCE

At a trial in 1986, Italian prosecutors failed to prove charges that Bulgarian secret services had hired Agca to kill the Pope on behalf of the Soviet Union.

The report said “Bulgarian authorities at the time lied as did the witnesses they sent” and added that “responsibility of some elements” of Bulgarian secret services “certainly exists”.

In Sofia, the government rejected the report’s assertions.

For Bulgaria, this case closed with the court decision in Rome in March 1986,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said. He also referred to comments made by the late Pope who said during a visit to Bulgaria in May 2002 that he never believed in the Bulgarian connection.

Guzzanti, a senator in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, said the commission decided to re-open the report’s chapter on the assassination attempt in 2005 after the Pope wrote about it in his last book before dying.

In that book, the Pope said he was convinced the shooting was not Agca’s initiative and that “someone else masterminded it and someone else commissioned it”.

Guzzanti said his commission heard from investigators in Italy and elsewhere who had probed both the assassination attempt as well as other Cold War-era crimes.

He said the commission had photographic evidence that Sergei Antonov, a Bulgarian cleared of conspiracy at the 1986 trial, was in St Peter’s Square with Agca when the Pope was shot.

“We gave the pictures to two independent experts who analyzed them with computers and both concluded that the man was Antonov who had claimed to be in his office at the time,” he said.

The photos first emerged in the 1980s but lawyers for Antonov, who worked in the Rome office of Bulgaria’s state airline, said the man was a tourist who resembled him.

(Additional reporting by Michael Winfrey in Sofia)

Link: Reuters

>Communist Bloc Military Updates: General: Russia may pull out of intermediate range missile treaty

>The USSR2 deployed intermediate range missiles in the Kaliningrad Oblast in 2001. (See earlier blog and second article below.) This announcement is merely a Kremlin feint to obscure a fait accompli. The entrance of “ex”-Warsaw Pact countries Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO, by the way, is part of Moscow’s long-range strategic deception as it provides the USSR2 with a pretext for a preemptive strike against the West.

The Russian road-mobile Iskander/SS-X-26 intermediate-range missile is pictured above.

General: Russia considers pulling out of missile treaty
(03.01.06, 19:33)

A Russian general warned that Russia might consider opting out of a U.S.-Soviet arms treaty that scrapped intermediate range missiles, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted Gen. Vladimir Vasilenko, the head of the Defense Ministry’s research institute, as saying that Russia could consider the redeployment of intermediate range missiles, which were scrapped under a landmark treaty signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. (AP)

Link: Ynetnews.com

Nordic media claim confirmation of Russian missiles in Kalingrad
AP WorldStream
Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:07:00 AM
By DOUG MELLGREN Associated Press Writer

OSLO, Norway (AP) — U.S. intelligence has comprehensive evidence that Russia moved nuclear weapons into its Kaliningrad province closer to Western Europe, a leading Norwegian newspaper claimed Wednesday.

The news media in neighboring Sweden made similar claims. For months, Russia has denied reports that it secretly moved atomic weapons into Kaliningrad. The enclave is a Baltic Sea port between Poland and Lithuania on a sliver of territory not connected to the rest of Russia.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in January, said there were strong indications of such a deployment, but Washington has offered no public confirmation.

The respected Oslo newspaper Aftenposten said top military officers in Norway — a NATO member — confirmed the existence of U.S. intelligence reports on the deployment and said the reports cover a Russian nuclear weapons buildup in the Baltic Sea area.

Moscow opposed the 1999 expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and it fears that a possible expansion to include the former Soviet Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia could be a potential military threat.

Aftenposten said the weapons were transported to the Russian port of St. Petersburg on a special train, then shipped to Kaliningrad on Russian navy ships. The newspaper said all top Norwegian officers it talked to confirmed the report, but they refused to go on the record.

The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet said Tuesday that U.S. satellites tracked the weapons on that route to a Kaliningrad airfield.

“There are nuclear weapons there,” a U.S. government representative was quoted as telling Svenska Dagbladet on condition of anonymity.

“If Russia has deployed tactical nuclear arms in Kaliningrad and at the same time denies this, it is very serious,” Stefan Noreen of the Swedish government’s European Union unit said.

The Norwegian Supreme Defense Command and the Ministry of Defense both declined comment. Ministry spokesman Kirsti Skjerven said weapons referred to by the news media are short range tactical weapons that — if deployed — would be stockpiled rather than armed and ready on launch pads.

Link: Latvian Mailer