Accra, June20, GNA – The African Chamber of Content Producers (ACCP) has issued a critical follow up press release raising urgent questions about whether foreign business interests, uncomfortable with South Africa’s growing continental leadership, may be fueling xenophobic violence to isolate the nation from its African neighbours.
Members of the Chamber across the continent are witnessing the economic fallout of the recent attacks and are asking legitimate, hard questions.
“Is someone trying to grind down South Africa’s influence precisely because of its prominent role in BRICS, its leadership in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), where a South African national serves as head of the Secretariat in Ghana, and its outspoken stance against Western backed policies in Palestine and elsewhere”?
The ACCP in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra noted that the current wave of xenophobia appears to be achieving exactly what such a destabilisation would intend.
The whole of Africa recently rallied behind Mexico in a FIFA tournament match against South Africa, a symbolic but telling shift in continental solidarity.
Online calls to close South African businesses in other countries are mounting, a direct attack on the very intra African trade that the AfCFTA was designed to promote.
“The BRICS angle cannot be ignored,” said Phil Efe Benard, a member of the ACCP based in Nigeria. “South Africa is the flagship entry point of BRICS into Africa. It controls the Cape of Good Hope. Who profits from a disunited and fragmented Africa?
The word the West fears most is Pan Africanism. Every leader and country that sits at the forefront of Pan Africanism is attacked with ferocity, politically and covertly.”
The ACCP pointed to a long history of foreign interference against African leaders who championed continental integration.
Perhaps the most instructive example for Ghanaians is the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966.
For decades, many believed the demonstrations and agitation were purely home grown. But recent declassified CIA documents have confirmed that the Agency played a major role in orchestrating Nkrumah’s downfall, a fact President John Dramani Mahama himself has acknowledged.
Similar patterns have repeated across Africa and beyond. The first president of Togo, leaders from Congo, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Libya were all removed or destabilised with covert foreign help.
The statement said in April 1990, the underground rescue network “Operation Yellowbird” extracted pro democracy activists from mainland China, spiriting Chai Ling out in a wooden cargo crate.
“ In Libya, NATO orchestrated demonstrations led to the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. In each case, local populations genuinely believed they were acting on their own grievances, only later learning that unseen hands had been pulling the strings.
“South Africa is the first country to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and openly term Israel’s actions in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen as genocide,” Phil Benard added. “No Western nation has dared to say it openly, let alone take action. South Africa is also the highest promoter of the AfCFTA. Yet now Africans are calling for the closure of South African businesses in their countries, a direct attack on AfCFTA.”
The ACCP in the statement warned that it was not a conspiracy theory but a sober examination of historic antecedents.
“ When a nation stands up for international justice and continental trade integration, it becomes a target for those who profit from a divided Africa”.
“Other members of the Chamber recalled how the campaign against South Africa appeared to evolve. First came alleged attacks on the white community. When that did not achieve the intended results, black on black attacks began. To many, the xenophobic violence feels like a profound betrayal, a country that received love and support from across Africa during its struggle against apartheid now turning against the very brothers and sisters who stood with it.
“One of the highest betrayals in Africa is ingratitude,” the ACCP statement reads. “South Africa was embraced by a continent that sacrificed for its freedom. To now see fellow Africans attacked in the streets of Johannesburg and Pretoria is a wound that will take generations to heal if it ever does, and that is something anyone pulling the strings will use to isolate South Africa from the rest of Africa.”
The ACCP in the statement urged immediate and long term actions.
“First, calmer heads must prevail; Africans should not punish the entire South African population but hold accountable only those directly responsible for the attacks. Second, the South African government must investigate the forces behind the tarnishing of the nation’s image and take decisive action against them. Third, South Africa should empower its citizens through economic opportunities and strengthen state institutions to handle immigration lawfully, so that no vigilante violence can be excused. Fourth, the African Union must launch an independent investigation into the recent xenophobic wave, and similar incidents across the continent, in light of clear historic precedents of foreign meddling. Finally, all Africans should consider a path of reconciliation: to forgive, not forget, and to carve a way forward that denies the dividers their victory”.
The ACCP also addressed ordinary citizens in Western countries who do not support such manipulation. “If you believe in justice and in the right of Africans to determine their own future, now is the time to speak up,” the statement reads. “Silence from the decent people in powerful nations only emboldens the few who pull the strings. Your voice matters.”
The Chamber called on all Africans to look beyond the immediate anger. “The world can be peaceful, and all races, cultures, and classes can live together, but not if hidden hands keep pulling strings to ensure Africa remains the raw material producer and the dumping ground for finished products,” the statement warned.
“The ACCP believes that Africans have matured enough to see through the veil of manipulation. “We are not the same continent that watched helplessly as its leaders were picked off one by one,” the statement concluded.
“We can see the pattern. We can choose a different path, one of internal reparation, of building our own institutions, and of proving that no external force will succeed in making us hate one another.”
The Chamber reaffirmed its commitment to Pan African unity, the AfCFTA, and the vision of an Africa that trades with itself, travels within itself, and tells its own stories without ever becoming the pawn of those who fear a united continent.
The ACCP is a pan African institution dedicated to promoting local content sovereignty across twelve sectors, including media, technology, education, and industrial content.
Through its Africa Image Ambassador Programme, it certifies professionals across the continent as ambassadors sworn to protect and project Africa’s authentic image.
GNA
Edited by George-Ramsey Benamba
June 20, 2026