Laverton, in Melbourne’s industrial outer west, is an endless sprawl of grey warehouses and industrial plants. Billions of dollars’ worth of products are made or handled in an array of workplaces. Yet occasionally, one (or a few) of these places stop. A strike is on—a reminder that this industrial parkland relies on its workers to run. Lineage, the world’s largest cold storage operator and cold and frozen product supplier for Woolworths, was one of the latest to get the rude awakening. 
A picket line in good spirits, with homemade chop suey, children’s face painting and a small degree of boredom (largely thanks to the success of shutting the place down) made it an easy place to become acquainted with people. The warmth of the picket stood in stark contrast to its corporate, concrete surrounds—and the sub-zero temperatures the workers labour in. While many on the picket line were full-timers (only 20 percent of the team), all were quick to point out that the struggle was also about solidarity with their casual workmates. 
Three of the people responsible for this familial atmosphere are the delegates: Peter “the troublemaker”, Lyndon “the health and safety general” and Bruce “the litigation expert and people person”. Red Flag sat down with them while the strike continued to discuss how they built a union against the world’s largest cold storage operator.
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What are some of the challenges of working here day-to-day? 
Lyndon: There’s a lot. To start off, the place is divided into two main sections: one chilled and one frozen section. The chilled section is between one and three degrees, with the frozen section at negative 23. Working at these temperatures every day can take a real toll on your body. Safety here is a constant problem.
Bruce: The work is physically taxing, many of the boxes you carry can be around 20kg. Add that into the cold temperatures, and it wears you down. 
Peter: We have had ambulances called three times in one week, twice on the same shift. One of the cases looked to be pneumonia. Management said it was just dehydration, but one of the initial signs of pneumonia is severe dehydration. One guy was found literally collapsed over his manual handling equipment in the freezer. 
The high-reach work, which means picking pallets up to ten meters in the air, can be very dangerous. Management makes it so by the constant pressure to speed up, causing corner cutting, and increasing the likelihood of injuries, or even deaths. 
Lyndon: To give you an idea of how the company views safety, the company’s health and safety advisor has said to us on more than one occasion that “the law is not prescriptive, it’s more of a guide”. So in his words, literally, he’s only going to do the bare minimum that is required by law. They more or less refuse to communicate safety issues with us on site. We have had pickers almost killed by falling pallets and not been notified properly.
On another note, this place messes with your life a lot. It is running 24/7, and people need to work a lot. Don’t even worry about having a social life and going out and enjoying yourself, just the basic things of life. A basic work-life balance is out the window. 
Another major issue is favouritism. Management chooses who they pull up for KPIs and other disciplinary issues. People can almost kill others and not be seriously penalised, because management likes them, while people can get targeted and sacked for uttering the word union.
Bruce: Yeah, like we have a guy who has been in this shed over sixteen years, trained many of the managers but never been promoted. What is that? It is simple favouritism. 
Peter: Usually, management is linked via bloodline or chromosomes. Literally, you could nearly put a couple of family names up on this building and that would cover the management team. Management seriously monster people. They target, intimidate and bully people here. 
Bruce: The casuals cop it the worst and that is why so much of our fight is for them. Doing eleven-hour shifts almost every day. I’ve heard of people who work over twenty days straight. They have to accept shifts. You lose future shifts if you call in sick. So heaps of the casuals work sick.
Management does not follow any proper procedures for discipline. They handed a guy a written warning in the middle of his shift, in front of his workmates, accusing him of 50-60 absences. Only seven of those ended up unapproved.
When we pressed them on why it was handled in this way, and why so much of the evidence was illegitimate, they said: “We were gonna give him a warning anyway”. It was deliberate targeting. The warning ended up getting turfed. 
Peter: When Lineage took over in 2020, management went berserk with intimidation and sackings, leading to a serious turnover problem. They went through 1,200 employees in about eighteen months. Often, HR would hire a temp to do the sacking. This place was seriously out of control. 
One of their sadistic discipline strategies is when they start people at seven. It could start with disagreement with a manager, getting sick or carrying an ache or a strain. You ask for less hours, or ask to start at five. They refuse you, so you take it off sick; now you are on a seven. Every morning, they have a toolbox at five o’clock, where everybody greets each other. You are ostracised from your team. 
This is how management bleeds you out. You are starting when everyone else is on their first break. So they miss out on both of those interactions. Finally, they might get sent home at eleven o’clock when everybody else is going to break at twelve. So they’re completely segregated from the rest of the community here. Management says that they don’t know what’s going on. That is a lie. It is deliberate.
Peter mentioned that the union dropped to about 40 or so members when Lineage took over. You now report close to 300 only a few years later. How did you get into the union side of things here, and what were the initial challenges you faced trying to establish it?
Peter: Our strength was really low at the start. At our lowest, coverage dropped to below 20 percent. The workplace ballooned in size from 80 something to over 420 people, and a number of the delegates got promoted and other people left. It was impossible to get a union organiser on the site. 
So it was a slog. For the first nine months, I would stay here for extra hours, doing ten hours a day, six days a week. I would use the shift changeover to interact with all the different shifts. In the first nine months, we moved to about 70-80 members. 
Management were like hawks when it came to discussing the union on the floor. If casuals mentioned union during their first weeks, they would get blacklisted. One manager recently said to me, “I don’t know why you go around and sign up casuals when we can just get rid of them whenever we want” and smiled at me with this massive grin on his face, like he was the Joker or something. This is the mentality management has. So I just had to persist. 
Along the way, I had been promising all these people that when they sign up we’d be getting mass meetings soon. After eleven months, we still did not have mass meetings, and I was getting pressured by the members. I ran a petition to get the mass meeting. I came in early to get the guys on their changeovers. I would just say, “Support your fellow workers, sign the petition”, we union bashed the whole shed and got like 270 signatures. Then we pushed to have our non-paid mass meeting. This was all over two years back.
It ran across the three shifts. We introduced another eight union delegates on the site and with our membership numbers pushing closer to 150, management began to accommodate. In our clause, it states that all employees can be invited to mass meetings, so that was our window to just invite everyone, and we shut down the whole shed. Virtually anyone that wasn’t a manager or an admin was invited—we now try to include the admin staff in the union. The message was “everyone please come learn about union”. It was a huge success.
So after the union was allowed to come down for the mass meetings, organisers were granted right-of-entry more frequently, which helped us build. Then it became my mission to find a strong delegate team. 
Being more established, management would still target delegates. Our leading arvo shift delegate was stood down in the lead-up to the strike. They targeted him because he is one of the most present and vocal on the afternoon shift. Being a delegate, you get the target on you—you certainly make sacrifices here to make this place better.
Lyndon: The reason why we have all these people out here strong and together is entirely down to Peter and the work he’s put in ... it is just phenomenal. He’s been escorted out of toolbox meetings because management don’t want him to talk and he has been told he can’t come into things, but he keeps going back. He has inspired me to go and become a delegate and do the same things he does because he can’t fight it alone—he is exhausting himself. So the rest of us are following his footsteps to continue the fight. [Lyndon was not the first delegate to recount that Peter had been decisive in them becoming a delegate or had trained them to be a strong one—ML.]
Peter: In terms of sacrifices, management took away my overtime in July this year to deter me from union bashing the place. I said, “I don’t care if I lose overtime, I’m still going to show up and do the hours”. Matter of fact, my wife didn’t even know that I was not getting paid OT until I got on the picket because I didn’t tell her. So my sacrifice is everyone else’s reward.
Reflecting on all the work and building you have done, what do you think were some of the factors that helped?
Bruce: Our delegate team. Our strength is we all add something into the mix. For example, Lyndon is the General of Health and Safety and Peter is the “problem child” to management. I love litigation, I love making sure things are fair, and the rest of our team adds something too. It makes us a strong, united force.
Lyndon: I think the main thing that helped us build the union was management’s behaviour. It made it easy to say to people, “This is why we need to stand together”, when they are treating everyone so unfairly. 
The conversations were really important too. You see how big the warehouse is, so there are lots of people. Peter is always walking back and forth, during breaks going around talking to different groups in the different lunch rooms in different areas of the warehouse.
Bruce: When we win a case, word spreads. We’ve got a few people who can’t really understand English properly but then we get a win, word spreads and suddenly we have them joining the union. I know for me I had to win at least two to three cases for people to believe in me to represent them. Now every time there is anything to do with litigation, they say, “Go see Bruce”. Every time we go to the office there’s that fear right away in management. They often say, “Oh Bruce, what are you doing here?”
Peter: The wins are so important. Safety is often the issue we fight around. The issues could be really small, but winning was what helped. Nearly one-third of the delegates are HSRs as well, so we can push back through the safety angle and that really gets them on the back foot. 
Sticking at it is important. They try to scare me, but I do not care. I’ve been in this game too long. I just keep pushing on. My persistence will beat them because I show up every day. 
Building a union team was crucial though. I could not do this alone. I would continue to go around every day to the morning toolboxes and spread union. I was always talking union with as many people as possible, always planting the seed. Amidst that, I was also keeping an eye out for potential delegates. I eventually got Lyndon to come on board. Lyndon would toolbox on his toolbox, Bruce would toolbox on his toolbox—and then I would be toolboxing as well. The three of us work different days, so we have coverage seven days a week. I started taking the afternoon shift delegates with me on tour to toolbox the teams. 
We would use these toolboxes to announce mass meetings, too. So whenever management made an offer during the past couple of months of bargaining, I would announce a mass meeting to discuss it in the toolbox. Meanwhile, I am showing the newer delegates, do not be shy, be brave, be bold and stand up there. At first, they were like, “Can I even make an announcement?” and I told them, “Don’t ask them, tell them. Tell them you’re there today to make an announcement”. 
The three of you have done something that cuts against the grain of the modern union movement, which is to rebuild its strength. It took a lot of time, work and bravery. What have been some of the highlights and lowlights of your times organising the union here?
Lyndon: The toughest part is just the managers either ignoring you or doing nothing at all. The highlight for me is when they call you into the office and tell you to stop doing what you’re doing because you are scaring them. 
Bruce: We now have all these union ambassadors out there, guys who aren’t delegates but who are spreading union around the place too. I hear them talking to people, trying to convince people to join the union or take a stand. My highlight definitely, though, is one of the guys in the freezer who has become a real leader. When he first started here, he always kept to himself, kept his head down. But now he’s totally different. I’ve seen him arguing with management when they’re trying to get out of the gate. I see him in the freezer aisles telling people to join the union. I love seeing how he has transformed. What changed for him was seeing how management actually behaved—how they treated him, his friends and his workmates. Now, people look up to that guy, see him as a leader. 
Peter: For me, it has been a little bit of a different journey. At times, I was very isolated. One of my delegates openly said he did not want to challenge management because he hoped to get promoted. At one point, I was the only delegate on the day shift. I just kept pushing, and my nickname here is “the troublemaker”.
Lyndon: I have actually heard management call him that. If he is coming to a toolbox, as he walks in management will say, “Here comes the troublemaker”. Literally.
Peter: I walk into the office and they say, “Oh, the troublemaker is here”, “Oh, the troublemaker, what do you want?” My reputation surpasses me. They have tried to pull me into meetings with managers on my own—but after ten years in the saddle, I am prepared for that shit. I always have a wingman. I simply cannot afford to drop my guard because I’ve got too many members that rely on me. 
A highlight for me was getting permission from the then-operations manager to have our fortnightly meetings. They’ve been happening for three years now, and helped build the union. 
Do you have anything else to add about what you are doing here on strike? 
Lyndon: The picket is an amazing experience—just seeing people coming together to fight for a common cause and all the bonding. We are doing more than just saying no to Lineage; we are building our community, too. My hope, which I keep trying to remind people, is we need to keep the attitude and whatever we’ve got built out here when we go back. That’s how we make things better.
Bruce: This strike must be hurting them. On the picket line, we find it very funny that management now comes up to us, offers us water, asks how our day is. We never get that inside. It’s always bossing us around, KPIs and discipline. Suddenly, they have a heart. 
Management did not see this strike coming. And then, when they realised it was, they just went, “Oh no, they’re gonna break”. Are we breaking? No we are not—we’re having parties out here. Someone brought a PlayStation. People have been bringing their kids. I’m laughing because we have such a great culture here. It’s so positive. We’re one big family. 
We never knew we were going to be out here. But us coming together now kind of really strengthened our team. I love this team, they become your second family basically. We can create that if we work as a team. We stick up for each other. That’s what it’s all about. Make the stand. Have your voice heard.
Peter: Persistence, persistence, persistence makes you win. I have had, at times, five managers trying to bully me out of attending a toolbox. But I just push through. You can just never give up.
Being a delegate is challenging. You have to tell people that you can make this place better—and make them believe it. You start with some small wins and people start believing. Eventually you can demand change, and that’s what we’re out here doing now: demanding change.

Matt Laidlaw

Building a union against a warehouse giant

An explosive youth rebellion organised under the slogans #RejectFinanceBill and “leaderless, partyless and tribeless” has forced Kenyan President William Ruto to scrap a planned finance bill that would have introduced tax increases on many basic services and consumer goods. Red Flag recently spoke with Ezra, a central committee member of the Revolutionary Socialist League in Kenya, to understand how one of the most politically stable countries in Africa ignited so spectacularly.
Could you explain the background to these protests? What has made young people in Kenya so angry? 
Every year a budget is announced in preparation for the new financial year, which begins in July. This year the finance bill was released to the public a month ago, and its content really angered people. Taxes were to be raised across the board, including on basic commodities like bread and rent. People with motor vehicles were to pay taxes; very ridiculous things were to be increased. The cost of education was to be increased, after increasing last year. They were placing taxes on medical treatments for some diseases like cancer. This is just to mention a few. Basically, life was set to become very expensive for the common folk. That’s why everyone came out to the streets to protest.
However, this bill was not the cause of the protest, but the trigger. The cause really is what the regime has been doing since it came to power in 2022. There have been widespread cases of corruption and misappropriation of funds. For example, earlier this year fake fertilisers were distributed to farmers by the government. They were given basically sand, yet the agricultural minister escaped justice. The president is telling people to tighten their belts, yet they live opulent lives with the latest cars, wearing million-dollar watches and $10,000 belts. It is ridiculous for them to tell poor people that life is going to be more expensive in order to service debt. The finance bill aimed to raise 345 billion Kenyan shillings, which is about US$2.5 billion, while every year Kenya loses around US$10 billion to corruption. Politicians benefit from the corruption, and then make ordinary people pay the burden.
So last Tuesday [18 June] was the first of these protests, then this Tuesday was much larger. We have 47 counties in Kenya—35 of the 47 counties participated in the protest, truly one of a kind. So the government panicked. They deployed the military, which the courts declined to green-light, but to our surprise this morning [27 June] the military is all over the streets. 
The military have not brutalised us; that has been the police. The military were escorting people without doing anything. Just right now, as I’ve been speaking to you, we’ve had deaths today in Rongai. Estimates are several people have been killed, and the media are trying to hide it, just like they did on Tuesday evening with the massacre in Githurai. After the demonstration, they sent a contingent of police into the city of Githurai. While it is unofficial, potentially hundreds of people were murdered, which has been suppressed in the media. 
Despite this brutality, today the movement marched to the statehouse in Nairobi. Other towns still had protests, like Mombasa, Migori and Kericho. They are smaller, though, than Tuesday because of the violent repression. 
Most of the discussion on social media from participants describes the movement as leaderless. Is this the case? 
Largely it’s true that the movement is leaderless, partyless and tribeless. But mainly because of how it has been organised through social media agitation, where people have come up to voice their concerns. Random people started Twitter spaces, and hundreds of thousands of people joined to listen to the grievances. Yesterday there was a Twitter space that hosted around 140,000 people to talk about the events of the following day. 
Are the protests all organised on social media?
I think it started on social media, Twitter to be specific, because in Kenya, it’s just the urban areas mainly where people can access the internet. But it’s spread out to the masses every day now. It’s all over the news, it is the only thing being talked about. Now it has spread out even to the people who do not have internet. There are towns, small towns far, far away from the capital that have never had demonstrations. And when the masses hear that a large group of people are in town, they join. On Tuesday, students were joining from many campuses and polytechnics. People were even closing their businesses, people were leaving their jobs and joining in the streets. We had over a million people in the city. That is why the police were overwhelmed and some people managed to breach the parliament buildings. 
Those scenes were incredible to witness. People online were comparing them to the protests in Sri Lanka two years ago that brought down the Rajapaksa government. The protests have forced Ruto to decline signing the bill, so what has been going on since that announcement? 
What people need to know about our current president is that he tends to lie a lot. Ruto’s press conference on Tuesday evening was very threatening. He called the protests an act of treason. However, he appeared far kinder when announcing the withdrawal of the bill, because he was really addressing the world, not us. Despite that, the following day he again deployed the military on the streets. That was the real Ruto. 
An issue now is that Ruto does not have the power to withdraw the bill; only the mover of the bill can. If a bill is refused by the president, but not withdrawn, then it automatically passes in fourteen days—and the next date for MPs sitting is 21 July, far longer than the fourteen days. That is why people continue to take to the streets. So, I think not signing the bill was to calm people down and to get them off the street. But in two weeks, whether he signs it or not, the bill will become law. So, there are plenty of tricks being played by Ruto. That’s why people are still saying that we need to agitate. Ruto has done a lot worse, so he needs to go. The focus has gone beyond the finance bill to anger at the general incompetence of the government. 
Just reading through social media posts from the popular influencers in the movement, it seems the question of what to do next is causing some debate. What are people arguing about where to go from here and how to ensure the bill does not get pushed through? 
After the press conference yesterday, differences started coming out. The people who have been seen to be on the front line, the big Twitter influencers crowdfunding for injured victims, some of them yesterday were telling people now that we’ve won this, let’s just go home. Others argued this needs to continue. The majority of people are with the guys who are for pushing this further. 
So, there is now debate over whether these people have been paid by the government to end the protests. This relates to how other protest movements in Kenya have played out.
Previously, smaller protests led by the opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, like last year’s finance bill protests, did not bear fruit because they had a leader. All the government had to do was bring him in and have a conversation with him, bribe him, so that the protests die, and the movement dies. This year, the slogan “partyless, leaderless, tribeless” has caused major issues for them. That is why they are abducting people trying to see if they are leaders. They are trying to call people to see if you are the leader. That is their biggest headache. Who is the leader of this? So that they can bring him into the fold to pacify the other people. But anyone who’s been seen to be around them is immediately banished from the movement. 
I think this is a good tactic not to have leaders emerging for now, because the government is actively looking for leaders. However, as this struggle continues, I think people will start imagining and considering politics. I think this is how organisations will be able to intervene, actively organise and give an ideological aspect to it. 
What role has the Revolutionary Socialist League been able to play? 
As the RSL, we go there with a purpose, because we must be in solidarity with the masses—we fully agree with what they say. So we go to the streets, we try to organise our people. When joining in, we do not carry banners as people just go without anything, to move around. But we also go as a group. Every member of our organisation was there. That is why the authorities thought some of us maybe might be leaders. They’ve taken then leaders of many organisations, that’s why we’ve received threats. You will get random calls asking about where you get your funding from. They knock on your door when you are home. 
Joining the protests is an opportunity to get our message out there because things like this rarely happen. When people take to the streets our members are there arguing that these issues are political. Even when we get a chance to speak in those online platforms and spaces, we talk about the importance of giving it a political and ideological angle. Since the withdrawal of the finance bill, the movement has focused on Ruto Must Go. We have had interest from some people. We hope we will recruit to our group; tens, or maybe hundreds if we are lucky. 
To take a step back for those who are unfamiliar with the politics and history of Kenya, how significant is this youth rebellion?
I think this is very significant. This is one of the most significant things that has happened since independence in 1963, because the stumbling block to unity of the young people in Kenya has been tribalism. People have been organising according to tribal lines. I think that barrier is now broken because youth from all walks of life and every part of the country are united against this regime. There’s a saying that if Ruto leaves, his biggest achievement is that he will have united the youth of Kenya against him, which is a very significant thing. 
And from now on, the politics of the country will be issue based and not tribal based, which will make it easier for organisations like ours to penetrate the people because they’ll be looking for ideas rather than where you come from. This is a very significant moment for us. Whether we win or lose, the politics of the country will change from now on. Of course, there will be small groups of people who will remain with their tribal kingdom, but it will die down in the next election. It will be largely issue-based politics rather than tribal-based politics. 
That sounds like an enormous political shift. Is there anything else you think observers should know that will help us better understand the rebellion? 
Most things are out there in the social media, but there are some things that are being suppressed, like the killings I mentioned earlier. Also, that the struggle will continue, this will not end here. So, stay tuned, because everything is changing. For example, even with the articles that we are writing, we are having to write every day to keep people updated with what’s going on as it changes so quickly. 
I want to finish by saying that this is a very significant moment for us Kenyans because people are struggling in solidarity with each other and trying to overturn a very corrupt and inept regime. Whether we win or lose, this has made a seismic shift in politics across Kenya.

Youth rebellion scores victory: interview with Kenyan activist

“Children who work in the mines are often drugged, in order to suppress hunger.” It sounds like Victorian-era Britain, but the scene is a cobalt mining operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reported in the New Yorker two years ago. This is a violent reminder that, despite decades of political independence, Africa once again finds itself the target of a big-power scramble for its wealth.
The continent possesses a vast supply of resources: 30 percent of the world’s mineral supplies and roughly 10 percent of its gas and oil. That 320 embassies were built between 2010 and 2016 is an indication of the new scramble for what Belgian King Leopold II in the nineteenth century described as “a slice of this magnificent African cake”. 
Yet this time the Europeans aren’t at the forefront—China is now the preeminent foreign economic power on the continent, responsible for almost a third of all infrastructure projects. Between 2000 and 2019, China invested US$153 billion in large-scale port, railway, dam, airport and even light manufacturing projects. 
The Chinese government has three main aims. The first is to secure resources. The second is to displace Western powers as part of its broader project to undermine US dominance in global trade. The third is the desire to build a network of political allies.
One of the largest projects was the $4.5 billion Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, to encourage more efficient trade with the countries of the eastern peninsula known as the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has received more Chinese financing than any African state other than Angola. Investments have included the new African Union headquarters, the light-rail system in the capital Addis Ababa, a swathe of industrial parks attracting Chinese textile companies and manufacturers, and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The Port of Doraleh, in neighbouring Djibouti, hosts China’s only international military base. Author Lee Wengraf argues in her book Extracting Profit that the naval base is more about securing assets in Ethiopia than an attempt to rival the US military presence in the region. The port is key to accessing East African markets and maintaining shipping lanes through to the Suez Canal.
In response to the increased Chinese presence, the US has denounced Beijing for preying on impoverished countries and has increased diplomatic efforts across the continent. At the end of last year, President Joe Biden hosted the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, promising US$55 billion in development assistance and talked about bringing the African Union into the G20. Vice President Kamala Harris is the latest high-ranking official to visit African leaders. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and First Lady Jill Biden have also visited.
The previous Democratic administration of Barack Obama had been positive towards China’s move into Africa. “I want everyone playing in Africa. The more the merrier ... A lot of people are pleased that China is involved in Africa”, the former president said in 2013. But Biden has departed from Obama’s approach. This reorientation is part of a broader US shift to containing China across the world. 
Western commentary now repeats US claims of Chinese “debt-trap diplomacy”. Treasury Secretary Yellen, during her recent trip, called China a “barrier” to debt restructuring on the continent. The implication is that China is playing a nefarious role, much like the colonial powers of old, while the US and its Western allies have more benign, or even generous, intentions. They can spare us the sanctimony. If China is trapping nations through debt, it certainly would have learned how to do so from the Western playbook.
While Africa’s economic underdevelopment can be attributed to European colonialism, in the post-colonial period the United States, with the help of its European allies, ensured that most African states remained economically backward and dependent on foreign aid. Following waves of national revolutions in Africa, post-colonial governments inherited structurally weak economies, and relied on state-led development. For a period, the continent’s economies grew in line with much of the rest of the world.
The US, concerned about the influence of the Soviet Union and access to key commodities, undermined and helped to overthrow governments, such as those of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Patrice Lumumba in the Congo because they were deemed unaccommodating to US interests. Washington then ensured that pro-Western autocrats remained in power for decades to come. 
The US also mobilised its enormous economic power, through financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, to dominate the continent. As the world economy went into crisis in the 1970s, African states turned to Western financiers for money. Wengraf argues that these institutions used this as an opportunity to “transform economies of the Global South into ones based on ‘export-led’ strategies—those set up to best serve the market needs of global capital. 
To secure loans, African states “were required to implement institutional reforms, such as cuts in welfare expenditures, more flexible labor market laws, and privatization”, Marxist economist David Harvey noted in his 2005 book A Brief History of Neoliberalism. “Thus was ‘structural adjustment’ invented.” 
The structural adjustments were catastrophic. Debts increased along with poverty and maternal mortality rates at the same time as the IMF was pushing for cuts to social spending on healthcare and education. In 1970, 48 percent of sub-Saharan Africans lived on one dollar a day; by 1995 this had increased to 60 percent. The World Bank estimates that by 2030, 90 percent of the world’s poor will be African. That’s a Western legacy, not a Chinese one.
For those acquainted with the results of Western intervention in the Global South, China’s activities might initially seem to be cause for less concern, or even be welcomed. For example, Fred M’membe, presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of Zambia, argues in the Zambian Monthly Socialist: “This Chinese new approach to modernisation offers us a chance to truly free ourselves from centuries of exploitation, domination and humiliation”. 
China’s approach to debt does appear to be more flexible. Campaign body Debt Justice reports that China has been the largest suspender of debt repayments in recent years. China is also lauded for accepting futures on key exports as payments for current infrastructure projects, an approach that appears to benefit cash-strapped countries such as Angola and Ghana. Yet the payments still have to be made, resulting in revenue declines for Angola and Ghana and forcing them to implement austerity to gain debt restructuring. Additionally, China has not suspended debts that incur interest, only zero-interest loans.
Take for example the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway network, a project to connect Kenya to Tanzania via Uganda. Billions had been invested, but the Chinese government ultimately pulled out, leaving the project half constructed and Kenya in serious debt. Or take Ethiopia. Weiwei Chen, a researcher at the University of London, argues, in a recent piece for the Conversation, that China’s manufacturing investment in the country was motivated by the “low water, electricity and wage costs, a large and young labour force and favourable access to the US and EU markets”. 
The sheer scale of the infrastructure projects is one thing that seems to make China different. It is giving some people hope that the investments will finally provide the boost Africa needs to become more economically self-sufficient; to escape the immiseration of centuries of ruthless capitalist exploitation. 
But strategically built infrastructure to support Chinese trade and resource control will not solve Africa’s woes. As an example, the World Bank estimates US$100 billion is needed just to ensure universal internet access across the continent. At the end of the day, the Chinese government is in Africa to produce profits, secure resources and build alliances, not out of some general concern for underdeveloped nations. 
A new imperial race is heating up across the world, and in many regions we can see examples of it. We need to be clear about what is driving the new scramble for Africa and find ways to show solidarity with those who oppose imperialist aggression, whether Chinese or Western.

A new scramble for Africa 

A violent conflict has broken out between two rival armed forces in Sudan. This confrontation has been in the making since 2019, when millions of Sudanese overthrew their dictator in a popular revolution, yet the military established itself as the new ruler shortly after. The emerging civil war is a clash of two sections of the ruling class vying for supreme power. If Omar al-Bashir, the ousted former dictator, was Frankenstein, this would be a showdown between his heir and Frankenstein’s monster. 
In just a few short weeks of fighting, more than 500 civilians have been killed and thousands injured. Khartoum, the capital, is at the centre of the conflict. Air strikes and raids on civilian homes have left bodies lying in the streets for days and forced 60,000 residents to flee the city, turning whole neighbourhoods into ghost towns. Port Sudan, in the country’s east, has become a de facto displacement camp as thousands converge there in hope of escaping to Saudi Arabia. An existing displacement camp at el-Gineina in the long-embattled Darfur region has been attacked and almost razed.
The two forces tearing up the country are the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, and General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan of the official Sudanese armed forces. 
The conflict is the product of a breakdown in negotiations over how the RSF would be integrated into the armed forces once what’s described as a “transition to democracy” takes place (the army has been in power since 2021). The negotiations were facilitated by major global powers, including the United Kingdom, United States, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, as well as the United Nations, European Union and African Union. Burhan was unhappy with their proposal for an extended grace period for the RSF before integration and turned to Egypt, which proposed a rival agreement that gave the RSF only two years to integrate. While the mediation teams were hopeful that a final agreement would be signed in mid-April, followed by an official handover to civilian power, this was never going to happen. 
The RSF is estimated to be 100,000 strong. It grew out of the Janjaweed, a blood-soaked militia that gained favour with Bashar’s regime for carrying out horrific genocide in Darfur. Hemedti’s empire extends beyond the RSF—he and his family have amassed a fortune through Al Gunade, a trading company with extensive reach into gold mining and construction. These exploits financed the RSF’s expansion into Africa’s largest private military force, which Hemedti has in turn hired out as foreign mercenary fighters. He is a monster created by Sudan’s rulers, the Gulf States and the West (his forces helped the EU stop migrants fleeing from the Sahel).
Burhan was a high-ranking military official under Bashir, who groomed him for power. He sat at the head of the Transitional Military Council—the body that ruled in coalition with civilians from 2019 to 2021—and became the official head of state in October 2021, when he launched a coup with Hemedti’s support. He is an ally of the Islamist ruling class, which he has kept in power by handing them bureaucratic positions and securing their control of the finance industry. 
 This crisis can be traced back to the betrayals that followed the Sudanese revolution of 2018-19. In 2019, Bashir was ousted after 30 years of rule by a popular uprising that culminated in a weeks-long sit-in outside the military command in Khartoum, demanding democracy. 
The civilian opposition forces, led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella group of more than a dozen white-collar and professional unions, ultimately quelled the revolutionary potential of Sudanese workers. In June 2019, the military carried out a massacre against the ongoing sit-in, provoking a march of millions and calls for a general strike. This was called off at the last minute by the SPA after they signed a power-sharing agreement between civilians and the military in July. The movement was wound up, providing breathing room for the military and cutting off the revolution at its height.
Then, in October 2021, the military launched a coup to snatch power for themselves alone. Sudanese activists were ready to fight; they knew that the military had no real interest in democracy and had been planning this moment for some time. Resistance hit the streets within hours, and a nationwide strike shut down every major industry. Millions marched across Sudan. This time, neighbourhood resistance committees led the movement on the ground. The committees are geographically based, democratic organisations composed largely of youth, and have organised basic service provision and the bulk of the resistance since 2019. British Marxist Anne Alexander estimates that around 5,000 committees now exist across Sudan.
The resistance committees faced severe repression and were unable to stop the coup, but the military also struggled to crush the resistance completely. Instead, there was a stalemate between the streets and the military, and the resumption of doomed negotiations.
Sudan has tragically gone from the revolutionary optimism and determination of 2019 to now being strangled by two warlords. Much of the blame for this rests on the shoulders of the elite civilian forces and international actors: the SPA, the broad civilian coalition Forces for Freedom and Change and the United Nations, European and African mediators. They have sought compromise through negotiations with the most brutal wing of the old regime, the armed forces, while the revolution demanded true democracy, justice for Darfur and wealth returned to the people. 
The first round of negotiations produced the failed civilian-military partnership of 2019-21, and the most recent round intended to make the military step down from dictatorial power by proposing another civilian-military power-sharing arrangement. What the people of Sudan have received is not democracy, but a brutal conflict that risks descending into total civil war. 
When a deal was signed in December 2022, the resistance committees protested for true civilian rule and described the settlement as merely “ink on paper”. Raga Makawi, author of Sudan’s Unfinished Democracy, described the agreement as one “which checks off the most popular points in the international community’s agenda but with no roadmap to implementation”. The military had an interest in signing off on a new internationally sponsored agreement so they could regain the international aid and investment that was largely cut off after the coup. The international negotiators primarily sought stability in the country, which borders Egypt and is a vital player in maintaining trade through the Suez Canal, rather than realising the demands of the Sudanese people. If negotiations carried out at the height of the revolution did not bring about democracy in Sudan, why would they now? 
Military dictators do not willingly relinquish power, let alone two who command large armies and control swathes of industry. The negotiations are a strategy counterposed to the revolutionary overthrow of the regime, to enable elite diplomats, politicians and the military heads to determine the outcome of the crisis by sidelining the revolution. Ironically, the only reason the military was prepared to negotiate at all was because of their fear of the revolution on the ground.
The revolution has only ever gotten its power from two sources: the power of the streets, with marches and sit-ins of millions, and, most importantly, the power of the Sudanese workers to cripple an already ailing economy. It was not a lack of revolutionary desire from the people in 2019 that halted the path to democracy, but the compromise with the military pushed by the SPA. 
The resistance committees have been the only consistent force opposing the military; they embody all the militancy, heroism and selflessness of the Sudanese revolution. Their main slogan is: “No negotiation, no legitimacy, no agreement with the Military Council”. The have argued for the military to go “back to the barracks” and for the RSF to be dissolved. 
They have continued to organise since 2021. In October 2022, after months of debate, the committees signed the “Revolutionary Charter for People’s Power”, a thorough outline of the kind of democratic society the revolution demands. 
And now, amidst the war on the streets, the committees have again swung into action. They are helping to coordinate staffing in hospitals and maintenance of downed water and power infrastructure so that basic services can keep functioning. They also provide updates about the location of the fighting, honouring those slain and organising safe passages of escape, all while publishing statements with political demands and arguments not to support either side in the war. 
Despite the current horrors across Sudan, the Sudanese masses continue to display their undying solidarity and strength. Videos have emerged on social media of the reception those fleeing have received in regional towns like Dongola, a northern city on the route to Egypt, where locals flooded the streets, offering food and water to those passing through. 
The military refuse to accept that Sudan will be ruled by the masses, but their efforts to quell the revolution time and again have been thwarted by an indomitable spirit. As these warlords continue to choke life in Sudan, the revolution finds a way to keep alive what small flames it can for the next battles.

How negotiations led to Sudan’s emerging civil war

“A sense of relief” is how Sudanese political activist Muzan Alneel, speaking via Zoom from the capital, Khartoum, describes the mood on the streets of Sudan in the first hours of the coup on 25 October. “I remember seeing people come into the street singing, like they’re singing against the coup and they’re singing against [coup leader General] Burhan, but they’re singing”, she says.
Relief is not an emotion usually associated with military coups. But in Sudan, people believed the coup to be inevitable. There was a failed coup attempt in September; the coup on 25 October clarified the terms of battle and threw the fight into the open. Relief came from confirming what the revolutionaries had been steeling themselves for.
Resistance was immediate. Bank workers announce a strike at 7am, two hours after the coup began. For weeks they had made it known that they would shut down the country’s financial industry as soon as the military deposed the government. People began building barricades. Neighbourhood committees and social and political organisations called for civil disobedience. By the end of the day, the country was paralysed by a general strike. 
In Khartoum, the military erected their own barricades to stop people marching towards the Military Command, but these were quickly overrun by protesters. Tyres burned across every street and barricades were made more elaborate by the hour: tens of thousands had responded immediately to the military’s move. “Let’s have it. Let’s have this fight. Let’s be done with it”, is how people saw the coup, Alneel says. It was a battle that had “been delayed for way too long”.
<div class="column_width_image article_inline_image"><img alt="A protester holds a placard that reads &quot;My friend, death is living fearfully under their boot&quot;." src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/250276879_4446425405464354_2176961365989619682_n.jpg" /></div>
<div class="article_inline_caption">A protester holds a placard that reads "My friend, death is living fearfully under their boot"</div>
The crisis has its roots in the revolution that swept the country from December 2018 to mid-2019. That movement began when the ruling National Congress Party’s headquarters in Atbara was burned down by students protesting the five-fold increase in the price of bread. The protests spread, with people initially outraged by the cuts to fuel and bread subsidies, and eventually climaxed with a months-long sit-in outside the Military Command in Khartoum. Omar al-Bashir, the despised dictator of 30 years, was deposed by the military in April. His replacement, Lieutenant General Ahmed Aban Ibn Auf, lasted just 24 hours before the pressure of the movement forced him to step down.
The leadership of the revolution, a political coalition led by the Forces of Freedom and Change, entered negotiations over a transition to democracy. The result was a civilian-military coalition, called the Sovereignty Council, that has ruled the country for the past <a href="https://longreads.tni.org/why-it-hasnt-fallen-yet-lessons-from-the-sudanese-revolution">two years</a>. 
Protesters did not accept the compromise with enthusiasm. On 3 June 2019, prior to establishment of the Sovereignty Council, security forces had attacked the sit-in outside the Military Command, killing, raping and injuring hundreds of people. Strikes erupted in response but were <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/6848">quickly called off</a> by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of more than a dozen white-collar and professional unions. 
The Professionals Association led the movement on the ground and was the key force in the Forces of Freedom and Change coalition. Its influence was instrumental in demobilising the revolution and selling the military-civilian compromise. The Professionals Association’s closeness to the protesters, and its reputation for organising resistance to the regime, gave it a credibility that the other political forces lacked.
Calling off the mass movement and instead negotiating with the criminals in the military was a betrayal of the revolution. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who became chairman of the Sovereignty Council and now leads the country, was a political ally and army commander under al-Bashir. He was a key protagonist of the genocidal campaign in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Despite the civilian section of the Sovereignty Council having more weight—six votes to five— Forces of Freedom and Change coalition’s strategy was total compromise with the military. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok implemented austerity measures, such as cutting fuel subsidies, which contributed to crippling inflation on basic goods. The popularity of the civilian section allowed it to sell the agenda of the Sudanese ruling class, despite it being the same austerity that had led to the revolution in 2019. 
The military was momentarily forced to concede to civilian rule, but it was never content with sharing power. The Professionals Association helped to create the conditions for the latest coup by channelling the revolution into an asymmetric power-sharing deal. But the hope for democracy in Sudan never lay in the Sovereignty Council, or any deal with the military. Instead, it lies with the strikes and protests that brought down Bashir and Ibn Auf.
Neighbourhood resistance committees have emerged as an alternative leadership in the renewed movement. They played an important role in 2019 but have become the leading force on the ground today, immediately responding to the coup and organising a “Millions March” on 30 October. 
 
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The membership of the committees varies. Because they are geographically based, they can be composed of the unemployed in Khartoum districts such as El-Haj Yousif in the north and al-Kalakla in the south, or wealthier sections of the population in affluent suburbs such as Al Riyadh. Their more grassroots and activist nature, however, makes the committees the most responsive and democratic bodies in Sudan. Many committees have elected leaderships.
An initial challenge they faced was a continuing countrywide internet blackout. They organised mass leafleting and night marches to promote upcoming actions, including the Millions March. They also organise the distribution of food and other necessities, garbage collection, medical supplies and maintenance of the barricades, which are key to stopping the “thatchers”—the security forces vehicles, which are used to arrest activists in their neighbourhoods.
The committees also play an important political role. They released statements popularising the demands of the revolution, which include “no negotiations, no partnership and no bargaining” with the military and the call for full civilian rule. While they are not explicitly political organisations, young revolutionaries are drawn to them as the most effective organisations to fight the coup. In Sudan, political parties are mostly middle class with a legacy of sell-outs and association with the old regime. 
Alneel argues that the committees “seem to be the main factor that stopped the coup many times up until now” and “they’re the only [force] creating a threat to the system”. They are the only defence against another compromise. For example, the committees in Greater Omdurman, the country’s largest city, rejected the offer of a closed-door meeting with Hamdok and demanded a public address. A press release, shared on social media, read: “Our position is unequivocal: no negotiations, no compromise, and no power over that of the people”. 
The country from 25 October has been engulfed in a general political strike. According to a report on one resistance committee’s Facebook page, in the first week strike participation rates were 91 percent, 96 percent and 100 percent in the oil, banking and education sectors respectively. Similarly high rates have been reported across all industries. Doctors and nurses are refusing to work in military hospitals and treat only emergency cases at civilian hospitals. Committees representing workers in the oil, banking and aviation sectors have put out a coordinated plan for civil disobedience. 
The workers’ movement suffered under the Bashir era, and many unions were controlled by the state. With the old dictator’s fall, space began to open for union organising. While the leadership of the Professionals Association preferred the negotiating table, labour activists in the oil, communications and university sectors established democratic leadership bodies that have been organising the strikes, circulating demands and sometimes coordinating with neighbourhood committees.
The success of the revolution depends on these democratic organisations, particularly the independent unions and elected workers’ committees. They have demonstrated that they can bring the Sudanese economy to its knees in a matter of hours, giving the mass movement a power it does not have simply through the resistance committees. But it is too early to know whether they will use this power to provide a political alternative to more compromises. 
The situation is in flux. In the past week, Hamdok, under house arrest, has met with Volker Perthes, the UN special representative to Sudan, to find acceptable negotiating terms with the military. International pressure for a compromise, particularly from US and Western diplomats, has been intense. 
Another limitation is the lack of any revolutionary organisation that could lead the movement clearly against the compromising forces and argue clearly for the working class to lead the revolution.
Despite the challenges, and the repression that has killed at least fourteen in Khartoum, Sudanese protesters have shown courage and resilience. As Alneel remarked about the Millions March on 30 October: “[It] was huge. I haven’t seen anything this big ... We couldn’t even march because the whole street was full”. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">MY PEOPLE ARE POWERFUL <a href="https://t.co/1BkzKBLocl">pic.twitter.com/1BkzKBLocl</a>
— Bashy (@ElbashirIdris_) <a href="https://twitter.com/ElbashirIdris_/status/1454442902415884297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2021</a></blockquote>
<div class="column_width_image article_inline_image"><img alt="A map showing locations of protests on 30 October" src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/251929454_1631971390487878_3306921073448289764_n.jpg" /></div>
Videos have shown young women proudly leading chants and making public addresses. The elderly are seen with tears in their eyes, hugging young protesters. References to poetry are common among chants and slogans. On the day of the coup, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/317737892213356/videos/833103764023793/">a video</a> appeared of a young man scrawling part of a famous Arabic poem on a billboard. “Whenever people decide to live, destiny will heed them, the darkness will come to an end, and chains will be broken”, he wrote, as many protesters cheered below.
The Sudanese people have decided to live, and they are intent on breaking the chains of military rule for good.
<img alt="A propaganda poster for the 30 October “Freedom parades” reading “To break the bonds of the military forever&quot;" src="https://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/inline-images/250063071_4438159169624311_22083465903143353_n.jpg" />
<div class="article_inline_caption">A propaganda poster for the 30 October “Freedom parades” reading “To break the bonds of the military forever"</div>

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