FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party
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On April 2, Al Shabaab jihadis on a suicide mission from Somalia killed nearly 150 students at a college in northern Kenya. In western Africa, Nigerians recently elected a new president.  His campaign promised to wipe out corruption and the local jihadis, Boko Haram, who kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls last year.
The appearance of both events is Muslim jihadist groups attacking African Christians, and the Kenyan and Nigerian government responses. The essence, however, is the increased destabilization of Africa created by the rivalry between US and Chinese capitalists. This created the conditions in which groups like Al Shabaab and Boko Haram recruit disaffected and marginalized youth and workers, and engage them in suicidal adventures.
Our job, as the International Communist Workers’ Party, is to mobilize these same youth and workers to struggle for a communist society.  Our comrades in South Africa have already taken up this task.
US-China rivalry throughout Africa is prompted by an increasing penetration of Chinese imperialism in oil, natural gas, and mines.  This accompanies Chinese diplomatic initiatives into what had previously been the turf of US and European imperialists. 
The long-term strategy of the US to confront China is its pivot to Asia.  But it cannot afford to ignore the resource-rich African continent.  It can’t ignore the strategic chokepoint of the Bab al Mandab strait between Africa and Yemen.  So the US has increased its African military presence via AFRICOM (United States Africa Command).
Somalia’s provisional government was imposed by the US client government in Ethiopia.  It is backed by troops from Kenya and Uganda, but armed by the US. However, Chinese investors are challenging the US for control of the resources of the region. 
China is building a railroad to transport oil from South Sudan and Kenya to the Indian Ocean port of Mombassa, Kenya. This allows Chinese companies to bypass the Bab al Mandab strait, patrolled by troops from Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the biggest US military base in Africa.
The ongoing war in East Africa has created a crisis for the increasingly marginalized Al Shabaab. Trying to recruit jihadis, Al Shabaab launched two major attacks on Kenyan civilians: one on a Nairobi shopping mall in September, 2013, and the recent attack on a school in Garissa in the north.

Nigeria:  US-China Tug of War
Nigeria, in West Africa, has emerged as the largest economy in Africa. It has Africa’s second-largest known oil reserves and is the world’s fourth leading exporter of national gas. 
Under the current government of lame-duck President Goodluck Jonathan, China emerged as a leading investor in Nigerian oil.  It also increased investments in banking, construction, and power generation and distribution.
Jonathan moved in late 2014 to cancel a US-sponsored program to train new Nigerian military units. US officials responded with public threats that Jonathan’s policies were damaging US-Nigerian relations.
The US followed through by supporting Mohammadu Buhari, a graduate of the US Army War College and former military dictator of Nigeria (1983 to 1985), in his successful campaign to replace Jonathan as president.
Buhari was the keynote speaker for a conference on Nigeria held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a ruling-class think tank close to the White House.  Obama’s former campaign manager David Axelrod advised his campaign. 
The US can count on Buhari to work hand-in-glove with AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez. In February, Rodriguez called for a huge counter-insurgency campaign throughout West Africa.  Buhari’s promise to get tough with Boko Haram means that he will be relying on the US military, instead of the South African mercenaries that Jonathan has been paying.
More importantly, the US will be in a position to counter growing Chinese influence in West Africa—its real worry.

African Comrades Mobilize for Communism
The capitalist media feature Islamist jihadis like Al Shabaab and Boko Haram.  But the real fight in Africa, and world-wide, is the inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and China. Neither imperialist has anything but exploitation and death to offer the African masses. 
Workers must unite to destroy the thoroughly corrupt capitalist system where both the small capitalists and the big imperialists cause chaos to divide and better exploit us.
Communism unites workers across the bosses’ borders, across oceans, and across religious divides.  Comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party in South Africa have expanded their work to build the Party in Nigeria.  Industrial workers and soldiers in both countries must take the lead in mobilizing the masses in Africa and everywhere for the communist world we need.

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