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Africa is poor and destined to remain poor for quite
some time because of bad governance, failure to develop natural
resources, corruption, inadequate or non-existent primary educational,
scientific and technical training. Western countries and Euro-America
are rich, because they have good governance, have developed their
natural resources, have credible legal systems that are able to
deal effectively with corruption, have educated their populations,
and have a wealth of scientific and technical skills. This script,
for some, adequately contrasts the poverty and the wealth of nations.
Ireland, a European country exploited by England, has raised itself
from a low income small farming agricultural country, to impressive
levels of GDP. If Ireland can develop from a mono crop de facto
plantation economy in Europe into the high income domain of advanced
technology, what is wrong with the Africans? Investment in Irish
education, and the European Union's structural support mechanisms
for research and development and direct investment facilitated
Irish economic development. Africa's absence of such supportive
regional and international mechanisms contrasts drastically with
the Irish experience.
Some additional distinguishing features of the Irish and African
experiences include:
Furthermore, a systemic supportive mechanism between
corrupt elites and vested interests of multinational corporations
says as much about lingering and protracted poverty in Africa, as
do historically derived structural disadvantages. These conditions
demand that any genuine humanitarian concern about Africa's poverty
requires a placement of Africa in its historical context. Only in
this way does it become possible to discern from the past, such
conditions that create the genesis of contemporary African impoverishment.
Colonial
Legacy
In 1884 certain Western European nations, Britain,
France, Germany, Belgium to mention some, convened the Berlin
Conference to colonize Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium, a smaller
and less important nation, extracted the Congo as his prize -
territory then deemed of little economic importance. The turn
of the century witnessed the invention of the automobile and a
consequential global demand for rubber. The Congo had a rich supply
of natural rubber. The Congolese were an available labor source
to harvest the vines from which the rubber was extracted. Leopold
II turned the Congo into his personal fiefdom - an actual slave
colony. In 1908 when he handed the colony to Belgium, there had
been some 10 million Congolese people slaughtered.
In 1956 the Congo had its first university graduate. Between 1908
and 1960, when the Congo became politically independent, there
were a mere 17 university graduates from the already decimated
Congolese population of some 13.5 million.
Patrice Lumumba was democratically elected the
Congo's first president. He was left to govern a country with
no administrative or infrastructural mechanisms for governance.
Further, Lumamba did not share the Belgian King Baudouin's view
of the wonderful civilizing gifts bestowed by Belgium on the Congo.
Lumumba's awareness of the extreme barbarity inflicted on the
Congolese and his determination to set things right, made him
unacceptable to Belgium and Western interests. Lumumba, in a coup
effected by Belgium was first tortured by Belgian agents and then
murdered. Belgium most recently has acknowledged its wrongdoing
and apologized to Lumumba's children.
Mobutu Sese Seko, as a leader acceptable to both Belgium and Western
multinational interests, was installed as President and dictator
in 1965. By the time of Mobutu's demise in 1997, like Leopold
II before him, he had plundered the entire Congolese state - renamed
Zaire by him - with billions of the country's earnings deposited
for his beneficial interest in Western banks.
Historical Realities
Mobutu's kleptocracy for all his years of rule,
did not inspire another Western led coup, nor resolute disapproval
of bad governance. Instead there was Western complicity in the
rape of the country having the world's richest stock of mineral
resources. It was uranium from the Belgian Congo that had supplied
raw material for the Manhattan Project that produced the world's
first atomic bomb. This kleptocratic form of governance under
Mobutu was expressly approved by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan,
astonishingly, described the dictator Mobutu: "A voice of
good sense and good will."
The historical picture that emerges is of Western complicity in
African ruin, genocide, militarization, under-development and
ultimately, marginalization of Africans. Professor Ali Mazrui,
describes the process
in these terms:
"The West stopped exporting Africa's sons
and daughters and colonized Africa itself. Imperialism and gunboat
diplomacy were part of the ugly side of globalization. Raw materials
for Western manufacturing industries became a major temptation."
Professor Mazuri further observed, "Each step
in Africa's contribution to the development of the West was itself
a stage in the history of globalization." Thus, a pretext
of African countries' unwitting, misguided, unfortunately corrupt
fall from the grace of wealth and prosperity is belied by the
concrete processes of capital accumulation and marginalization
promulgated upon Africa by the systems of Europe in their colonial
engagement with Africa.
"The slave ship helped to export millions
to the Americas to help in the agrarian revolution in the Americas
and the industrial revolution in Europe simultaneously,"
wrote Mazuri.
The processes of resource extraction - money, people and material
- has entered a new phase in a neo-liberal scheme designed for
Africa by G-8 interests. The cycle has led from colonialism to
failed IMF and World Bank polices ensnarement in a debt-trap and
in cases, to the failed states that oblige the West to recognize
that in their own self-interest, Africa's debt problem has to
be addressed. It was Lord Palmerston who is said to have commented
to the effect that: "Britain has no friends, only interests."
Britishp Prime Minister Tony Blair does not echo the words but
it surely is no leap of insight to notice that hardly anything
has changed.
Historically, French, Portuguese, German, British and other European
actions in Africa mirror the Belgian conduct. The world's first
concentration camp was established by Britain against the Boers
and Africans in South Africa. Germany under the Kaiser between
1904 and 1925 slaughtered some 80,000
Herero people in Namibia. Cecil Rhodes' conquest of Matabele land
established Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - and left a legacy of dislocation
of Africans from their lands. Later in the Lancaster House Agreement
in London, a resolute and un-principled Britain refused to deal
once and for all with settlement of the land question. In what
should have been a comprehensive context of independence negotiations,
the perhaps most divisive issue was fudged. Those issues haunt
Zimbabwe today. Prime Minister Thatcher and President Reagan knowingly
prolonged the life of the apartheid South African regime under
the guise of a policy of "constructive engagement."
The overall picture is one of deliberate efforts to stall and
indeed cripple Africa's advancement at every turn.
Africa's historical reality cannot neatly be severed from contemporary
experiences of wealth extraction by Western multinationals, terms
on which Africa borrows and the terms of trade with the former
colonial masters within the G-8. The word "aid" itself
masks an elaborate process of having consultants paid from the
aid given, "recommended" policies for implementation
and ultimate avoidance of any responsibility when poorly conceived
polices are declared to be failures of the recipient country.
The US and EU recommend free market policies for African countries,
set out to privatize sub-Saharan health care and water supplies,
demand social services expenditure cuts and other policy dictates.
Yet, EU and US agricultural subsidies are generously given to
their farmers, protectionism against African agricultural produce
is widely practiced and the world's largest debtor nation with
the largest deficit is the United States of America.
Macro-policies, that are oftentimes externally
dictated, impact Africa at the village level. What is seen at
the domestic African level is the ineptitude and/or corruption
of national or local leaders, but it is harder to discern the
greater and debilitating impact of corruption in aid structures,
foreign investors' business practices and the ineptitude in the
policy designs of Western nations that themselves cripple and
adversely affect African development.
The Role of Militarism
The statement that Prime Minister Blair made at
the G-8 Gleneagles conference that the state of the African continent
is a "scar on the conscience of the world" is not even
given satisfactory cosmetic surgery in the G-8's proposed debt
relief. It is an actual further blight on Africa to offer an increase
in development aid spread out to 2010. There is then a deceitful
announcement of a doubling of aid from 2004 levels. It has been
estimated that for the cost of two Stealth Bombers, the entire
sub-Saharan Africa can receive full primary education. However,
militarism is of far greater priority for the G-8 than is the
timely pursuit of polices for sustainable growth in Africa.
Militarism is a major contribution of the West to
African under-development. Militarism runs conjunctively with
western colonial engagement in Africa, as it does in contemporary
economic engagements between Africa and the West. The Kenyan Noble
Laureate, Wangari Maathi, has said, "There is a lot of poverty
in Africa, but Africa is not a poor continent." South Africa
and Zimbabwe having 98% of the world's chrome reserves; the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and Zambia having 50% of the world's cobalt
reserves; Central and Western African oil supplies will in the
immediate future account for one in four barrels coming unto the
global market; chrome, cobalt - indispensable for the production
of jet engines - industrial diamonds and other mineral reserves
abound in Africa. It is the structural arrangements for the extraction
of Africa's latent wealth, as it is the structures of so-called
"aid" that serve to ensnare Africa in processes that
indebt, impoverish and insult Africans in their efforts to advance
and develop African human potential. The processes that award
or deny properly structured support for African advancement arise
inside and significantly outside Africa.
The US has increased its expenditures on arms from
2004 by about 12%, amounting to about $455 billion. The UNDP target
for contribution to development aid from G-8 countries is a paltry
0.7% of national income. The US has steadfastly resisted this
target, while its current aid bill is about 4.1 % of its total
arms bill. Factor into these realities, the institutions that
guide Africa's balance of payments and developmental aid such
as the IMF and World Bank. Such institutions stipulate, direct,
approve, assess, monitor and govern the financing of projects
and the terms on which economies operate. Despite African compliance
with stipulations of devaluations and high interest rate policies
under IMF structural adjustment programs, there are a series of
abysmal failures arising from these policies within and outside
Africa. Minus 2% growth in Zambia and 0% growth in Nigeria, as
complemented by IMF failed policies across the globe, hardly explains
Africa's plight solely as attributable to home-grown African corruption.
With China and India growing in economic strength, there is an
increasing global demand for oil. Iraq's conflagration is in truth,
an "oil
war" for a scarce commodity. Africa's ability to supply
the world with increased amounts of oil will inevitably attract
Western attention for increased sales of arms in states that earn
significant amounts of oil revenue. In Southern and East Africa
there is an increase in military expenditures. China has sold
arms to Sudan, and it is unlikely that the same oil motivational
factor will not propel the West to do much as it has done with
arms sales in the Middle East, as Africa's economies grow.
Militarism serves a purpose for Western economies in transferring
revenues, while distorting the purchaser's economies. The Middle
East and North Africa represent about 33% of global arms sales.
Sub-Saharan Africa is roughly a mere 2.1 % of global sales. However,
diversion of funds to arms sales in a highly indebted poor country
(HIPC) impacts far more significantly the opportunity cost by
diversion of funds from health and education to arms sales, than
in wealthier countries. There are some 41 HIPC's around the world
and over 30 of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2001, President Bush withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty with the former Soviet Union. This move sparked
tensions within the club of nuclear nations. North Korea when
contrasted with Iraq, demonstrates that aggression by way of increased
armaments becomes desirable when the rule of international law
is abandoned for the rule of international force. Africa, as potential
buyer of Western arms from the G-8, will find its rationale for
arms purchases in the concept of "security" in an era
of terrorism. Not that the logic holds, but the sellers' motives
thrive in situations of conflict and strife.
Bush, Blair and Odious Debt
Debt, development and the arms trade are linked
in a cycle where the majority of the world's HIPC's are not exempt
from being a lucrative market for conventional arms sales from
G-8 sellers.
Militarism will be bequeathed Africa as it develops, unless Africa
itself devises ways of developing in peace for prosperity. Libya's
coercion from the US to abandon the pursuit of nuclear arms for
peace and prosperity, can find its equivalent in sub-Saharan Africa
adopting a comparable peace policy for conventional weapons. The
difficulty of Africa's pursuit of such a policy will be the loss
to the G-8 of a growing market for arms sales.
Prime Minister Blair and President Bush could not
have announced to their respective electorates in 2002 that they
had decided to invade Iraq for its oil. There had to be a plausible
humane excuse to present to the world. Both leaders knowingly
deceived
their electorates and the world about WMDs being the reason for
the invasion of Iraq. The human cost of the action of "war
criminals" in contravening Article 2 of the UN charter, has
its equivalent in the West's approach to Africa.
Musician Bob Geldorf and well-intentioned persons around the world
are emotionally moved to "save" Africa when they become
aware of the horrendous human tragedy which present-day Africa
represents. There is the horror of an HIV/Aids epidemic across
Africa. There are 45% of all child deaths in the world occurring
in Africa. Africa's child mortality rate is rising: 4.8 million
children in sub-Saharan Africa will die before they reach the
age 5. Yet, Bush resolutely resists the UN's millennium goal set
for 2015, and rejects the 0.7% international aid target of his
country's national income for necessary aid. Blair's monetary
contribution to Africa is wholly inadequate for the "scar"
he now openly recognizes exists on the world's conscience. Total
debt cancellation has to be the way forward. However, it seems
that as Geldorf has alerted the world by his musical performances
for Africa, Blair's response to Africa ultimately moves little
beyond "conspicuous concern" in service to his sinking
political image at home.
Africa itself will have to take its case for debt cancellation
forward with intensified global political action, assisted by
demands within international legal fora.
Justice for Africa
International law has a concept of "odious debt"
- an unjust debt accumulation under circumstances in which it
would be iniquitous for the debt to be repaid. In point of law,
invocation of this concept can relieve this international debt.
The apartheid era debt is such a case. An injustice does accrue
where a successor regime, as in the instance of the African National
Congress, is required to repay the debts accrued when the Apartheid
regime breached UN sanctions and unlawfully obtained loans to
perpetuate its racist and oppressive rule. The ANC had fought
as victims and the debts that were accumulated in the Apartheid
era opposition were odious and illegal debts.
Why should unlawful, immoral, and odious debts be repaid when
such repayments deny investments in needed education, health,
and other social services?
Likewise, in defending against apartheid's extra-territorial incursions,
the front line states of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, bore an
element of this "odious debt." These should be cancelled.
When the US decided that there was a practical need to either
cancel or re-schedule Iraqi debts, this as a matter of political
will was granted expeditiously. Is the substantial humanitarian
crisis in Africa a less worthy cause than the US cause in Iraq?
Several billions are in Western banks stolen and deposited there
either by direct theft of corrupt African leaders, or by collusion
in receipt of bribes from Western multinationals. International
efforts have been advanced by the West in anti-money-laundering
legislation. It is likewise feasible to rely on already existing
laws to trace and retrieve funds that have been stolen, or illicitly
obtained by bribes for subsequent return to the people of Africa
for assistance with their developmental needs.
Solutions for Resolving the West's Debt
to Africa
International law has as its handmaiden, the treaty.
As with money-laundering, it is possible to implement a range
of treaties that serves well, Africa's needs. An anti-arms proliferation
Treaty (cf. the Ottawa Treaty against land mines), an anti-corruption/bribery
Treaty, a pro-restoration of funds law in the G-8 countries -
are all feasible practical measures for the redress of African
poverty that the West in a timely and constructive manner can
assist in implementing. Such suggestions go well beyond the mere
symbolism of singing to "save" Africa at Gleneagles,
toward practical measures of ensuring that funds are retrieved,
and will be a resolute signal sent to leaders that further corruption
in Africa will be internationally condemned in an effective manner.
A major effort for a treaty for Africa, should
be a declaration in a legally effective form that Africa is an
"arms-free zone." The West itself is best suited to
do the humanitarian thing and curtail the sales of conventional
weapons to Africa. This indeed would then save African lives.
This would give operational viability to the concern professed
by the G-8 at Gleneagles.
All the above are measures that with political will can be advanced
and implemented for Africa's welfare.
Conclusion
The G-8 countries have yet to demonstrate in tangible
form their concern about Africa's suffering. There is insufficient
real evidence of use of available means by the West to assist
Africa. Africans themselves must become stake-holders and be involved
in the decision-making processes for Africa's future. It is racist
and an insult to pretend that the West's historical involvement
with Africa confers any right of moral or administrative superiority
over African developmental policies. For the vast majority of
failed polices were designed by the West.
It is necessary to strengthen systems of accountability in Africa.
It is likewise imperative that democratic processes are integrated
for Africans at the communal level via policies designed for Africa's
sustainable development. The alternative designs from the West
have been tried and have consistently failed. Valid argument can
be made for the people themselves being best suited to order priorities
in expenditures for their development and welfare through democratic
processes.
The West bears a substantial historical responsibility for Africa's
current crisis. The West also owes a debt, not merely for the
historical misdeeds of decimating a rich continent, but for more
recent policy failures that have increased dependency and expanded
poverty across the African continent.
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett is a lawyer who has argued
human rights and public interest cases. He lives and works in
the Caribbean and can be reached via email at [email protected]
or via his website at www.ar-africare.com.
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