The US government’s secret drone activities in Africa are part of Washington’s scheme to recolonize the resourceful continent, says an American activist and political analyst.
Joe Iosbaker, a member of the United National Antiwar Committee, made the comments in reaction to reports that have exposed the expansion of an American drone base in Djibouti, a country located at the Horn of Africa.
“The information is nothing new to those of us, who have followed and studied US imperialism in the Obama years,” he told Press TV on Friday.
Satellite images available on the online mapping service, Google Earth, along with documents by the US Defense Department show that the Pentagon has turned the Chabelley Airfield in Djibouti into a hive of high-tech military equipment.
The airfield allows US drones to fly over Yemen, southwest Saudi Arabia, a large part of Somalia, and parts of Ethiopia and southern Egypt, according to experts in analyzing satellite imagery.
Iosbaker told Press TV that Africa is one of the fronts to Washington’s “drone war,” which has left behind a large number of civilian casualties.
“But it doesn’t matter to Washington, because the imperialists are trying to recolonize Africa,” the analyst added.
“Increasingly, the Western imperialist powers have directly intervened in Africa. In coming years, it is expected that a massive oil boom will arrive in many African countries. Africa has huge mineral reserves, including copper, bauxite and uranium,” he said.
Elsewhere in his comments, the analyst noted that Washington is moving to boost its control over key shipping and communication lines in the region, for example those that pass by the Horn of Africa.
“Exposure of this secret murderous drone war, it can only help us in the anti-war movement as we continue our work to try to end the US endless war,” he concluded.
In February 2013, the Pentagon asked Congress to quickly supply funds for “minimal facilities necessary to enable temporary operations” at Chabelley.
Official documents obtained by the Washington Post at the time noted that “the construction is not being carried out at a military installation where the United States is reasonably expected to have a long-term presence.”
Despite the alleged temporary nature of the site, however, Washington inked a “long-term implementing arrangement” with the African government to establish Chabelley as an “enduring” base, according to documents provided earlier this year by the Pentagon.
The new revelation comes shortly after a trove of leaked documents revealed a global assassination program that the US has been running using its drones.
The documents, which were leaked by a security whistleblower dubbed the “New Snowden”, described the how-to of targeting suspects slated for assassination and detailed measures taken by Washington to hide the extent of civilian casualties resulting from its drone strikes in countries like Yemen and Somalia.
