Does Anybody Know Where Lesotho Is?

View of the outskirts of Maseru, Lesotho. 

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

Geography quiz time. Hearing 47 say to Congress, Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of, made me cringe at his colonial arrogance and bombast. It also made me wonder if I could find the African nation on a map.

This quiz has maps of 16 countries in the general Lesotho region, in alphabetical order. Scroll down for a labeled map of the whole continent of Africa plus the quiz answer key.

Map A - “…The latest imperialist scheme against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the Lobito Corridor also known as the Lobito Atlantic Railway. This railway was originally built between 1902 and 1929 by the colonial governments of Belgium and Portugal to transport copper and cobalt stolen from the DRC and Zambia towards Europe. In September 2023, at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, the U.S. government and the European Union signed an agreement to revive this old colonial railway linking the DRC to Zambia and the port of Lobito in ___________, to export critical minerals to Europe via the Atlantic Ocean.”

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map B - "while AFRICOM and Western military forces are being pushed out of the Sahel by people's movements, we see a much different relationship elsewhere on the continent taking note, in particular, of the ongoing close coordination between the US and ____________ Defense Forces as well as the US and Kenya Defense forces even as they are illegitimately deployed against their own civil society." 

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map C - "In 1996, Rwanda, Uganda, __________ and Angola set up a rebel group called the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL in French). With the blessings and backing of the United States, these nations set out to overthrow the U.S. installed dictatorial regime in Zaire headed by Joseph Desire Mobutu. The U.S. had maintained Mobutu in power for over three decades (1965–1997). Mobutu was in failing health and his demise was inevitable."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map D - "2024 marked the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide left an indelible mark on the region and the African continent at large. As the world stood witness to the systematic slaughter of over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus, the reverberations of this tragedy continue to shape the destiny of an entire region, most notably, the neighboring ____________. Rwanda’s involvement in _____________ today can be traced back to the aftermath of the Genocide in 1994. Rwanda’s government has been accused of providing support to various rebel groups operating in the eastern ___________."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map E - "August 1, 2023, the United States stated it would 'put forward a U.N. Security Council resolution that will authorize __________ to lead a multinational police force to help combat gangs in Haiti.' While ___________ has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to 'restore order' in the Caribbean republic, their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name. An occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map F - "Musk’s Starlink internet satellite service, a subsidiary of SpaceX, has applied for a license to operate in _____________. It’s one of several African countries where it is bidding to win contracts. The _____________ Communications Authority said last month it recently received Starlink’s bid for a 10-year license."

Source: PBS News

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Map G  - "On February 25, 2025 hundreds of informal traders blockaded the entrance to the _________ parliament to protest the rising cost of living.. Consumer inflation in __________, one of the world’s poorest nations, has been above 20% since July 2022."

Source: Bloomberg

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Map H - "AFRICOM’s growing presence in ________________ under the guise of 'counterterrorism' coincides with the entrenchment of foreign military influence and neoliberal policies that strip the people of their sovereignty.. beyond military training, there is a visible increase in the presence of U.S. government agencies here, including USAID, Peace Corps, etc. that serve to advance U.S. interests, through ostensibly humanitarian means in the country. After the IMF’s austerity measures weakened the economy, and even more visibly so after the discovery of huge natural gas reserves in Cabo Delgado, western NGOs flocked in."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map J  - "_______________ will issue visas on arrival from April 1, 2025 for international investors and tourists, as part of a strategy to attract foreign capital. The initiative seeks to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and position the southern African nation as a regional hub for business and leisure travellers, ___________ Investment Promotion Development Board CEO Nangula Uaandja said.. The policy 'represents a strategic shift in our approach to global engagement and economic development.' It is anticipated to boost key sectors including renewable energy, oil and gas."

Source: Economic Times/India Times

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Map K - "____________, backed by Western powers such as the United States, the EU, Canada, Israel, etc, has consistently acted as a destabilizing force in the region, providing material support to proxy militias like the M23 to undermine Congolese sovereignty and facilitate the extraction of resources. Much like the sub-imperialist relationship between the United Arab Emirates and Sudan, ____________ has no significant mineral reserves of its own yet has become one of the world’s leading exporters of critical minerals like coltan."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace U.S. Out of Africa Network

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Map L - ____________ gained independence in 1968.. there are four regions: Hhohho, Manzini, Shiselweni and Lubombo. The number of formalised tinkhundla centres has increased over time to ensure fair representation, growing from 22 to 59 to accommodate geographical and demographic factors. Each inkhundla consists of multiple chiefdoms and serves as an administrative hub."

Source: Times of ___________

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Map M - "Saudi Arabia is a top investor in agriculture and in its effort to maintain food security purchased 500,000 hectares of land in ___________ in 2009.. Investment is one thing, but when this comes in exchange for military cooperation in a criminal war on Yemen and acceptance of Saudi and UAE military bases on African soil, it really demonstrates the weakness of neocolonial Africa that result in unhealthy relationships and outcomes for the people characteristic of the new scramble for Africa."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map N - "The perpetrators of the mass crimes and beneficiaries of the plunder of Congo's riches are either in alignment with the West and the US empire or represent the political, economic and military arms of the empire, therefore the media is less likely to shine a light or focus on the atrocities being committed in the Congo by western allies. In short, the enemy of the Congolese people is the West itself and those carrying out the crimes such as Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of _____________ are major African agents or proxies of the west."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map O - "The IMF and World Bank are making moves in Africa against states like Kenya and __________, both of which are even more vulnerable as a result of the global economic crisis stemming from the capitalist reaction to the pandemic and the ongoing war in Europe. We must confront this important aspect of the new context of neo-colonial domination in Africa."

Source: The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin

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Map P - “A diplomatic spat between ___________and the US began [in 2020] after a senior US official accused the southern African country of fomenting unrest across America in the wake of the killing of an unarmed African American man, George Floyd... [The first] Trump administration’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien described _____________ as a 'foreign adversary.'

'with the ending of Apartheid, ______________ in its land nationalizations presented itself as a ‘black/white’ issue, an Apartheid in reverse. So it became an easy country to criticize because what were complex issues could be presented so starkly and simply,' Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies."

Source: The Africa Report

ANSWER KEY:

Map A - Angola

Map B - Botswana

Map C - Burundi

Map D - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Map E - Kenya

Map F - Lesotho

Map G - Malawi

Map H - Mozambique

Map J - Namibia

Map K - Rwanda

Map L - Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)

Map M - Tanzania

Map N - Uganda

Map O - Zambia

Map P - Zimbabwe

Are you interested in getting more directly involved in the fight to liberate Africa? Consider joining the U.S. Out of Africa Network. 

Provocations In The East, False Flags In The West

A roundup of war news, spreading rapidly as the U.S. empire thrashes about in its death throes. History suggests that 800+ military bases around the planet might look like they offer a solution to losing the consent of the governed: the president currently has 31% approval (Quinnipiac) and 75% of registered voters in his own party don't want him to run again in 2024 (CNN).

House Speaker Pelosi in Taiwan

Despite being warned that her visit to Taiwan violates previous U.S. agreements to respect China's sovereignty, she persists.

Meanwhile on the streets of Taipei pic.twitter.com/j2eTCqOETK

— Meiguolao Watcher ☭ (@Dragondescendan) August 2, 2022

In a likely too little, too late move, the Biden administration announces a feeble competitor for infrastructure projects where China's Belt and Road Initiative is already well underway in Africa.

Drone bombing Afghanistan 

Despite "withdrawing" from Afghanistan and stealing their funds abroad to prevent the Taliban government from feeding the hungry, plus funding Al Qaeda in Syria for years as "moderate rebels", the U.S. announced it had assassinated a top Al Qaeda leader in Kabul. 

"Justice has been delivered," claimed the U.S. president despite the fact that extrajudicial murder is about as far from justice as you can get. The president claimed that assassinating Ayman al-Zawahiri is a sign of America's resolve. (To do the bidding of Israel's government, I think he forgot to add.)

U.S. troops in Yemen

The long humanitarian disaster of Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen has only been possible with logistical support from its U.S. ally. Now the president of the U.S. has confimed to Congress -- you know, the legislative branch of government that used to have the sole authority to wage war -- that the U.S. has troops in Yemen as well. (Proxy war with Iran in Yemen is an element of the U.S. close alliance with colonial occupier Israel in Palestine, and despite Biden campaigning on a promise to end U.S. support for the Saudi's war there.)

Neither Twitter nor Facebook would permit me to share a link to this article.

Spreading the false flag news that Russian, not Ukrainian, forces bombed a Russian POW camp filled with captured fighters of the Azov battalion. Why would Ukraine do that? Because dead men tell no tales of forced conscription and botched operations.

Source: SanctionsKill.org

Sanctions on Venezuela and numerous other non-compliant nations. The U.S. president recently called the regions south of the U.S. border "America's front yard" perhaps indicating we are no longer a bad neighbor but now think we own the continent.

Ben Norton, "The End of U.S. Hegemony and the Rise of BRICS", Mintpress News:

In the past two decades, the U.S. grip on global power has been slipping, and new nations and organizations have begun to emerge that challenge American dominance. One of these is the BRICS, an economic and increasingly political bloc of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Argentina, Iran and others have expressed an interest in joining this alliance, which has now laid out plans for its own bank and international currency, two moves strike at the heart of American economic hegemony.

“Now that the U.S. has sanctioned one-quarter of the global population, and especially now with the economic war on Russia, BRICS has emerged as this new economic infrastructure bringing countries together that want to get around Western sanctions,”

 

War at home: Russiaphobia used as pretext for violent attacks on Black organization, the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP).

From August 1, 2022 Black Alliance for Peace press release:

On Friday, July 29, 2022, the FBI executed multiple raids against APSP’s Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida and their Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis, Missouri and the private residence of APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela also in St. Louis. The FBI employed flashbang grenades and handcuffed Yeshitela and his wife while their house was raided.  

The FBI claims that the raids are connected to the federal indictment of a Russian national, Aleksandr Ionov, alleging that he has been working to spread "Russian propaganda" in the United States.

Source: Trzmiel/Shutterstock

 

Nuclear war looming?

From In-Depth News "Caring About Nuclear Sharing: A Setback for Nuclear Arms Control": 

It is estimated that between 100 and 150 American B61 nuclear weapons are stationed in five countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. NATO has now announced its desire to modernise its nuclear deterrence..

NATO officials were enthusiastic about the widely shared willingness to modernise the nuclear sharing concept. Jessica Cox, Chief of NATO’s nuclear policy directorate said: “We’re moving fast and furiously towards F-35 modernization and incorporating those into our planning and exercising…” And she added that “the aircraft’s advanced features also will boost the capabilities of alliance members and F-35 customers like Poland, Denmark or Norway who might be tasked with supporting actual nuclear sharing missions.”

Cox is the bland bureaucratic face of discussions preparing for total annihilation. But don't let her tone fool you. 

Educate yourself, and speak out against the WW3 madness.

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Calling For A Radical Break With The Status Quo Of Incrementalism -- Cheri Honkala

While Democrats march around in Washington DC pretending they care about quality of life for poor people, it's important to remember who actually walks the walk as opposed to just talking the talk.

A joint press conference held by the Philadelphia-based Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign with the Black Alliance for Peace, shared these words of wisdom via zoom on June 16, 2022. Note that the PPEHRC operates as the Poor People's Army, a well-established organization that has struggled and won housing for single mothers and their children. Details about attending their August boot camp to learn how it's done are at the end of this post.

Poor People's Army, Philadelphia (Source: PPEHRC Facebook)

PPEHRC and BAP Joint Press Conference June 16, 2022 

Statement from Cheri Honkala 

Today is our day to break silence regardless of the fear of the consequences. We are honored to take this step along with the Black Alliance for Peace & dear Pastor Keith Collins from Church of the Overcomer. We have no choice but to be here today – not because we want to be here, but because we have a responsibility to our ancestors & brothers & sisters struggling for survival at home and abroad. We come here today on the days before the weekend where many children, like my son, will grieve their father on Father's Day because this system and the reform path took his life and never gave him a chance. It is because of this ongoing war at home, literally not symbolically, that we can no longer afford incrementalism. We must make a radical break with a system that is killing our family members. 

The drug war has taken more lives than have been lost during Vietnam. My son doesn't weep alone this Father's Day. He weeps with children in Palestine, Yemen, Africa, Venezuela, and all over the world because we continue to stand silent as our violent government continues to deny the basic necessities of life and fails to prevent human rights violations at home and abroad. There is no reason for gun deaths in our country. There is no reason for hunger or homelessness – this is the land of plenty. If we wanted to, we could address all of these issues but we live in a country that continues to kill the dreams of children all over the world. 

From the poor in Kensington, Philadelphia to the poor all over the world, we stand with you today. We see you. We hear you. These wars of sanctions and allocating billions for war need to stop, and they need to stop now.

How dare we stand by as billions are spent on war when children all over the world, and here in Kensington, go without water, health care, food or a place to lay their heads tonight. 

We understand we are on the precipice of an economic revolution. Robots and computers are replacing human labor faster and faster. The potential exists for a society where everyone has the basic necessities of life and where war and famine are prevented and where problems are collectively solved. We are calling for a radical break with the status quo of incrementalism and doing business as usual. We are moving forward in the tradition of other forward thinking pioneers and ancestors. We are building a Poor People’s Army. Today we reconfirm our commitment to building this Poor People’s Army and ask you for your support in doing that. Join with us and the Black Alliance for Peace. We will be holding a Boot Camp in Philadelphia August 12-14 and we encourage you to join us in this endeavor. We intend to map out our plans to take back the basic necessities of life by taking land, taking housing, taking food and ensuring that everyone gets educated around a People’s Centered Human Rights model. The ruling class has betrayed us thousands of times – what makes us think this will be any different. We want to move away from the US exceptionalism that keeps us from uniting from the rest of the world. Now is the time in our lives for all walks of life – artist, faith people, and musicians to get off the treadmill that is taking us nowhere. Everyone has lost someone to preventable causes. It’s time we put an end to a system that is killing us and create the kind of cooperative society that we can all flourish in.

 

Statement from Ajamu Baraka

Black Alliance for Peace 

Thank you all for attending this morning. And thank you PPEHRC that has been at the forefront of the domestic struggle human rights in this country, and especially we want to acknowledge the visionary leadership of our dear sister and comrade Cheri Honkela. 

It is indeed an honor to for BAP to be a part of this gathering to lean our voice to call for a shift in priorities away from the cult of death and oppression represented by the policies of this administration from the streets of Philly to the completely avoided, and we say in BAP, the manufactured war in Ukraine. 

We say this morning as groups are gathering this weekend to supposedly to challenge this state’s continued avoidance of the issue of poverty, that poverty and its eradication can not occur without the acknowledgement that it will take fundamental structural change by popular forces that are independently organized and prepared to challenge the entrenched power of capital operating through the duopoly and currently through the Neoliberal Biden administration. 

Dr. King reminded us of the connection between racism, materialism (capitalism) and militarism – he referred to these as the giant triplets. In remind the movement of these fundamental relationships and declaring his opposition to the war in Vietnam he earned the wrath of the entire liberal establishment and had his life taken from him one year to the date of his declaration to break the silence on war. 

This ultimate sacrifice is the model that must be assumed if one if serious about human rights. One can not have one foot in the establishment, echoing its most backward positions on issues like the war in Ukraine, and the other foot with the people declaring solidarity with the people suffering from the rapacious greed and violence of a ruling class operating through the two capitalist parties.

One has to make a choice – you are either with the people all the way – or with the enemies of human rights, democracy, and global social justice. 

Today PPEHRC and BAP declare our firm commitment to the life-affirming values of equality, social justice, cooperation, participatory democracy, self-determination, and non-oppression represented by the PCHR framework. 

However, we recognize that we are not going to realize PCHRs by just criticizing the rulers or begging for them to recognize HRS. We understand that the realization of HRs must come about as the result of struggle. 

That is why BAP is joining hands with PPEHRC in their efforts to build a Poor Peoples Army, a non-violent army dedicated to ground working class and poor people in the PCHR framework and collectively through our own agency creating the conditions where we can experience the full range of HRs. 

People-Centered Human Rights (PCHR) are those non-oppressive rights that reflect the highest commitment to universal human dignity and social justice that individuals and collectives define and secure for themselves through social struggle. 

The people-centered framework proceeds from the assumption that the genesis of the assaults on human dignity that are at the core of human rights violations is located in the relationships of oppression. The PCHR framework does not pretend to be non-political. It is a political project in the service of the oppressed. It names the enemies of freedom: the Western white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy. 

The demands for clean water; safe and accessible food; free quality education; healthcare and healthiness for all; housing; public transportation; wages and a socially productive job that allow for a dignified life; ending of mass incarceration; universal free child care; opposition to war and the control and eventual elimination of the police; self-determination; and respect for democracy in all aspects of life are some of the people-centered human rights that can only be realized through a bottom-up mass movement for building popular power. 

That is the historical task we face, and the historic responsibility that we have assumed for ourselves and call on everyone to recognize this task and come off the fence. 

Neither party represents the needs and interests of the people and that understanding must be front and center in our analysis and our politics. 

That is and will be the message of the Poor Peoples Army that will guide us to victory!

 

Press conference recording (Direct link if embedded video does not work for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm0-sc3CvLg)

Statement from Pastor Keith Collins

Minister with the Inner City

Faith Congress & Lancaster Mennonite Conference

Excerpt:

And someone once said, Why is it that we reject the charity model? Shouldn't the Church support charity? 

Well. the reason we reject the charity model is very simple.

Charity is vertical charity is from the top down, and in charity the people that are on the top remain on the top and the people that are on the bottom usually remain on the bottom or very close to the bottom.

We believe in a faith-based model, that that celebrates solidarity.

Solidarity is always horizontal. It respects all those around you, and respects each other person as our equal. It is not a condescending agenda, but it's an agenda that empowers everyone.  

##  

The Biden administration and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress are called the trifecta because presumably a party in control of those branches can get shit done. Although they ran on empty promises like Medicare for All, forgiving student loan debt, and extensive claims that they would serve actual people's actual needs far better than their Republican rivals, what Democrats have actually delivered is mostly a horrifically expensive proxy war with Russia. The $54 billion or so sent to Ukraine has enriched U.S. weapons manufacturers as working class and low-income people here struggle with soaring housing costs, soaring fuel costs, soaring food costs, and medical bankruptcy. 

A glitzy march on Washington with free sandwiches on the bus does nothing to address the fundamental problems facing poor people in the U.S., and may or may not have served as a get out the vote boost for the midterms. 

How much hungrier will poor people be come November? Will they organize on their own behalf rather than following Democrats down the road to perdition?

If you want to help organize on behalf of housing and other human needs in your area, consider attending the PPEHRC boot camp outside Philadelphia this summer. Learn from the best! And don't forget who your real friends are.

Black Activists Question Reports Claiming Biden Pulling Afghanistan Troops September 11

Reaper and Predator Drone Imagery on Blue Abrash Ground, 2016. Wool rug. Collection of Kevin Sudeith. Courtesy of the Gund Gallery. https://www.uvm.edu/fleming/warp-war-rugs-afghanistan

Reposting this press release with insightful analysis of the Biden Administration's statements on allegedly withdrawing from Afghanistan. If you value the work of the Black Alliance for Peace, as I do, consider supporting them financially. As a white ally who appreciates their labor, I make a monthly donation here.

For Immediate Release Media Contact: communications@blackallianceforpeace.com (202) 643-1136 APRIL 13, 2021—Press reports were circulating April 13 that the Biden-Harris administration will not abide by the Doha agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, violating a key component of the peace agreement negotiated by the previous administration. It appears the Biden-Harris administration is floating September 11—the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack—as a likely date to end the second longest U.S. war. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has consistently demanded U.S. adherence to the Doha peace agreement. BAP even organized an International Day of Action on Afghanistan on April 8 to help raise the public's awareness on the issue. While BAP continues to gather information on this reported proposal, we are concerned that what is being floated by the corporate media will result in increased hostilities between the Taliban and U.S. forces, providing a pretext for increased U.S. military involvement. BAP has detailed how powerful forces within the administration and among the foreign policy elite are trying to find ways to keep a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to support broader geostrategic objectives, primarily countering Chinese influence. Some of these issues were laid out during the April 13 episode of "Voices With Vision" on WPFW (89.3 FM in Washington, D.C.). As an internationalist organization, BAP wonders if U.S. private contractors and NATO coalition forces from other countries—both of which outnumber U.S. military personnel—will remain in Afghanistan. What role would the United States play once troops are removed? We also ask where else U.S. troops will be sent as the cold war on China is ramped up, Russia continues to be agitated and Africa remains a hotbed for U.S. military activity. We question if devastating sanctions would be slapped on the people of Afghanistan after a U.S. pullout, as in the case of 1970s Vietnam and Iraq after the 1990s bombing campaign. For all of these reasons and as we gather information on what appears to be an attempt to test the U.S. public's reaction, BAP continues to demand the United States and NATO pull all troops and contractors, and end all involvement. And we insist the United States respect the human rights of the Afghan people and colonized people the world over, including inside its borders.   U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!   Share Tweet Forward

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