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MEND’s ceasefire and the question of armed struggle

March 3, 2010
Image removed.On January 30, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta called off the unilateral ceasefire, which it had declared on October 25, last year. Its reason was that: “the government of Nigeria has no intentions of considering the demands made by this group for the control of the resources and land of the Niger Delta to be reverted to the rightful owners, the people of the Niger Delta." Similarly, in September 2008, MEND had declared a ceasefire sequel to appeals by Ijaw elders, only for it to call it off on January 30, 2009, basically for the same reasons.
Some key issues arise for activists interested in justice for the working people rendered destitute, hopeless and hapless in the Niger Delta by the multinational corporations and the Federal Government which MEND is fighting against. For a number of youths, MEND’s daredevilry is a welcome test of strength and hope for emancipation. But these salient issues call for consideration.

First, is the undefined “people of the Niger Delta” as one broad body all having the same interest and thus desirous collectively for emancipation in the Niger Delta. The effect of this on the MEND strategy is revealed by the influence of the so-called Niger Delta elders on some of its actions and its strong demand for the release of the ex-Bayelsa state thieving governor, DSP “Alams”, who had been sentenced for corruption to the tune of billions of naira that could have been used to better the lives of millions of Bayelsans, simply because he is one of “the rightful owners, the people of the Niger Delta”! The fact of the matter as the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, came to realize in the course of mass struggle is that, even within a nation’s struggle for self-determination, there are actually two nations. These are the nations of the rich, wealthy, elite “vultures” that are part of the problem and that of the poor, exploited working people, which is “the nation” requiring emancipation. 

These “two nations” exist not only within the Niger Delta. These two nations are to be found in all the nationalities and geo-political zones in Nigeria. The right strategy for any social force that is committed to emancipation of the oppressed and exploited to do is to build the widest and deepest forms of solidarity of the “nation” or more properly put class, of poor and dispossessed, cutting across ethnic, nationality and regional ties and locales. It is instructive to point out that that was a major strength of MOSOP which built such circles of solidarity even well beyond the shores of this country.
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Second, is the question: “can armed struggle waged by a select movement for ‘emancipation’ actually result in the emancipation of the working people?” Once again, the example of MOSOP in contrast to that of MEND leads us to the answer that it is only the mass movement of the oppressed peoples themselves that can lead to their emancipation. Any genuine and lasting emancipation of the working people must emerge only through a process of self-emancipation.  Why is this so?

The emancipation of a people or class involves their being set free of the material, political and ideological shackles that hold them in chains. Where and when an armed force, over and above the people claims to emancipate them, such force wields the powers to, and often, replace one form of enslavement with yet another. Examples include America after the Emancipation Act by Abraham Lincoln, in which only the form of Blacks’ slavery changed, and Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge.

It is only where and when the mass of the working people are the driving force of the struggle and consider their emancipation, as their agenda and with the power of their collective action break their chains that lasting emancipation can be secured.

Beyond these primary deficits of the armed struggle pathway to emancipation, the question of its efficacy is as well very vexatious. The seeming success stories of “armed struggles” are often celebrated, though more often than not, they lack roots in reality.

The struggles of the Vietnamese, with the Vietcong’s success of Diem Bien Phu against the French and subsequently the disgrace of the United State of North America in a sixteen year war, undoubtedly must be counted as “success stories” of armed struggle. Many however fail to remember or never realize that it was much more than just an armed struggle.  It was rooted in –started as and continued as- a mass mobilization, of the people and was never just an armed “movement” for emancipation. Indeed, armed confrontation was forced on a people and not a detached guerrilla army

Similarly, the Rebel Army of Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara rested on the work of the July 26 Movement (M 26-7) after the adventurist 1953 Moncada barracks attack. The full guerrilla warfare that commenced on December 2, 1956 resulted in the overthrow of the hated dictator, Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, because of the mass political movement, that the M 26-7, was.

The case in South Africa is especially instructive. Angry members of the ANC Youths League, took up arms, forming the Umkhonto we Sizwe, (meaning Spear of the Nation, simply addressed as MK), when the apartheid regime blocked all other possible means of political agitations. MK commenced operations in 1961 and was not disbanded until after the liberation of South Africa. Interestingly though, it was not the underground armed work of MK that won freedom. It was the mass movement of the people, which took on a new fillip after the Soweto uprising of July 16, 1976.

The armed struggles of the Portuguese colonies in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde) are often romanticized as well. The armed struggles in these colonies, which were forced on the peoples, were led not by organizations that were primarily, armed “movements”. On the contrary, they were mass parties/fronts/movements, which were forced to establish armed wings, to combat a foreign colonial master, within the dynamics of the politics of the cold war.

Probably the soundest condemnation of the armed pathway to revolution was that made by Hugo Chavez, when on January 13, 2008, he declared that: "I don't agree with kidnapping and I don't agree with armed struggle". This was with the aim of convincing the oldest guerrilla movement in Latin America, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC, formed in 1964), to leave the bushes for a political mobilization that would rather involve the mass. He went on further to stress that: "The guerrilla war is history...At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place".

If the moment of armed guerrilla struggle is deemed over in the Latin America of the “great revolutionary” (Che Guevara), it is not any less so in Nigeria. No one can deny the injustice of the circumstances of the immense majority of the peoples in the Niger Delta. It is not surprising that it has been a hotbed of armed struggles, starting with the heroic “12 day revolution” led by Isaac “Jasper” Adaka Boro and his Niger Delta Volunteer Force, in February 1966. The balance sheet of armed struggle is the past forty six years is however one that shows its gross limitations.

In summing up, this is a call to the aggrieved youths of the Niger Delta, who still live under the illusions of armed vanguardism to wake up to its debilitating consequences, and possible backlashes.
The way forward is for the working people and youths in the Niger Delta and across the length and breadth of Nigeria to forge platforms and a united front of mass struggle, against the capitalist system that is at the root of the crisis of the Niger Delta and indeed of Nigeria as a whole. Such platform/s should be based on a revolutionary platform for economic and socio-political restructuring that would place power squarely in the hands of the people and not some self-acclaimed “elders” or rulers. It is not only the government of Nigeria that is not interested in using the wealth of the Niger Delta for the development of the lives of its rightful owners, the people. The “elders” and other rulers despite all their rhetoric are no keener about enthroning a system that would kick out poverty and inequality. They at best propose national “restructurings” that would strengthen their own access as elites, to our collective wealth. A people’s restructuring would be deeper and more thorough going.

Such restructuring would enthrone participatory-democracy, in the creeks and savannahs, rain forests and cities. The commanding heights of the economy and the processes of social policy and law formulation would start from below in the communities and wards. The judiciary and executives would as well be subject to the dictates of the masses organized as the determinant authority in society.

This vision of another Nigeria that is very possible, indeed imperative, can be brought about only through the self-emancipatory activities of the masses, led by the workers and youths. The issues at stake go beyond the lacklustre “amnesty” programme. MEND and similar forces in the Niger Delta and beyond can be on the right side of history by being a part of building such a mass force for change and not through the illusory route of armed struggle.

Baba Aye is General Secretary of the Socialist Workers’ Movement.

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