Western propaganda has failed to turn ordinary people of the continent against Moscow, Roland Lumumba said
Despite the best efforts of the Western media, Africans respect and sympathize with Russia because the Soviet Union helped multiple nations of the continent cast off the shackles of colonialism, Roland Lumumba, director of the Patrice Emery Lumumba Foundation, told RT.
Speaking with RT France on Friday, Roland Lumumba explained that relations between Africa and the West are still tainted by colonialism. “We cooperate,” he said, “but not as equals.”
“With Russia, everything that happened was on an equal footing,” he continued. “And we do not forget that [the USSR] contributed to our freedom, helped some African countries to free themselves from the status of colonies, which they then had.”
Lumumba’s father, Patrice Lumumba, was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a tumultuous three months in 1960. With the fledgling state threatened by Belgian-backed separatists, Lumumba appealed to the US and UN for aid, who turned down his request. The USSR, however, supplied his government with weapons and military advisers, and when Lumumba was ousted and arrested in a coup, the Soviets pushed the UN to secure his release.
Patrice Lumumba was executed by Belgian-backed forces in 1961. He remains an icon of pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism, and his son believes that his outreach to the USSR forged a permanent link between Russia and the Congo that persists to this day, as it does in other African countries – like Mozambique and Angola – that the Soviet Union backed during the Cold War.
“If we talk about the French-speaking part of Africa, about the media that have a lot of influence, that are listened to, then they are at least 90% Western media,” Roland Lumumba stated. “Their attitude towards cooperation [with Russia] is, of course, hostile, but the common man does not experience this hostility.”
“Despite the propaganda that is being carried out in Africa against the Russians, it is noticeable that it does not affect people as it was intended,” he said.
Lumumba spoke with RT on the sidelines of the second Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, which wrapped up on Friday. Prior to the event, Russian and African officials claimed that the US and other Western powers had pressured African leaders not to attend. Nevertheless, 17 heads of state traveled to St. Petersburg and another 32 sent diplomats and officials.
The summit concluded with the adoption of a 74-point document outlining the key areas of cooperation with Moscow, from trade and security to nuclear energy and climate change. Additionally, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 1.2 billion ruble (around $13 million) investment in African healthcare systems, and pledged between 25,000 and 50,000 tons of grain each for Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea.
