Four More Years: Into Africa
By <
http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/conn-hallinan> Conn Hallinan
Global Research, November 28, 2012
118412
Africa is probably the single most complex region of the world and arguably
its most troubled. While the world concerns itself with the Syrian civil war
and the dangers it poses for the Middle East, little notice is taken of the
war in the Congo, a tragedy that has taken five million lives and next to
which the crisis in Syria pales.
<
http://www.ambassadorjohnprice.com/africa-needs-new-approach/2832/> Africa
represents 15 percent of the world’s population, yet only 2.7 percent of its
GDP, which is largely concentrated in only five of 49 sub-Saharan countries.
Just two countries—South Africa and Nigeria—account for over 33 percent of
the continent’s economic output. Life expectancy is 50 years, and
considerably less in those countries ravaged by AIDS. Hunger and
malnutrition are worse than they were a decade ago.
At the same time, Africa is wealthy in oil, gas, iron, aluminum and rare
metals. By 2015, countries in the Gulf of Guinea will provide the US with 25
percent of its energy needs, and Africa has at least 10 percent of the
world’s known oil reserves. South Africa alone has 40 percent of the earth’s
gold supply. The continent contains over one-third of the earth’s cobalt
and supplies China—the world’s second largest economy—with 50 percent of
that country’s copper, aluminum and iron ore.
But history has stacked the deck against Africa. The slave trade and
colonialism inflicted deep and lasting wounds on the region, wounds that
continue to bleed out in today’s world. France, Britain, Germany, Italy,
Spain and Portugal sliced up the continent without the slightest regard for
its past or its people. Most of the wars that have—and are—ravaging Africa
today are a direct outcome of maps drawn up in European foreign offices to
delineate where and what to plunder.
But over the past decade, the world has turned upside down. Formerly the
captive of the European colonial powers, China is now Africa’s largest
economic partner, followed closely by India and Brazil. Consumer spending is
up, and the
<
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2ab8b334-817c-11e0-9c83-00144feabdc0.html#ax
zz2CnN7xUBQ> World Bank predicts that by 2015 the number of new African
consumers will match Brazil’s.
In short, the continent is filled with vibrant economies and enormous
potential that is not going unnoticed in capitols throughout the world. “The
question for executives at consumer packaged goods companies is no longer
whether their firms should enter the region, but where and how” says a
report by the management consultant agency A.T. Kearney. How Africa
negotiates its new status in the world will not only have a profound impact
on its people, but on the global community as well. For investors it is the
last frontier.
The U.S. track record in Africa is a shameful one. Washington was a
long-time supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa and backed the
most corrupt and reactionary leaders on the continent, including the
despicable Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo. As part its Cold War strategy, the
U.S. aided and abetted civil wars in Mozambique, Angola, and Namibia.
Americans have much to answer for in the region.
Militarization
If there is a single characterization of US policy vis-à-vis Africa, it is
the increasingly militarization of American diplomacy on the continent. For
the first time since WW II, Washington has significant military forces in
Africa, overseen by a freshly minted organization, Africom.
The US has anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 Marines and Special Forces in
Djibouti, a former French colony bordering the Red Sea. It has 100 Special
Forces soldiers deployed in
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/africa/barack-obama-sending-100-arm
ed-advisers-to-africa-to-help-fight-lords-resistance-army.html?_r=0> Uganda,
supposedly tracking down the Lord’s Resistance Army. It actively aided
<
http://www.thediplomatictimes-review.com/2007/01/usa-today-us-su.htm>
Ethiopia’s 2007 invasion of Somalia, including using its navy to shell a
town in the country’s south. It is currently
<
http://www.realclearworld.com/2012/07/29/us_the_driving_force_behind_somali
a_fighting_138542.html> recruiting and training African forces to fight the
extremist Islamic organization, the Shabab, in Somalia, and conducting
<
http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_new_scramble_for_africa>
“counter-terrorism” training in Mali, Chad, Niger, Benin, Cameroon, the
Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Gabon, Zambia, Malawi, Burkina Faso, and
Mauretania.
Since much of the US military activities involves Special Forces and the
CIA, it is difficult to track how widespread the involvement is. “I think it
is far larger than anyone imagines,” says
<
http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.htm> John Pike of
GlobalSecurity.org.
As a whole, US military adventures in Africa have turned out badly. The
Ethiopian invasion overthrew the moderate Islamic Courts Union, elevating
the Shabab from a minor player to a major headache. NATO’s war on
Libya—Africom’s coming out party—is directly responsible for the current
crisis in Mali, where Local Tuaregs and Islamic groups have seized the
northern part of the country, armed with the plundered weapons’ caches of
Muammar el-Qaddafi. Africom’s support of Uganda’s attack on the Lord’s
Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in the
death of thousands of civilians.
While the Obama administration has put soldiers and weapons into Africa, it
has largely dropped the ball on reducing poverty. In spite of the
<
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/20/world/la-fg-africa-millennium-goals
-20100920> UN’s Millennium Development plan adopted in 2000, sub-Saharan
Africa will not reach the program’s goals for reducing poverty and hunger,
and improving child and maternal healthcare. Rather than increasing aid, as
the plan requires, the US has either cut aid or used debt relief as a way of
fulfilling its obligations.
At the same time, Washington has increased
<
http://www.fpif.org/blog/africa_no_butter_but_lots_of_guns> military aid,
including arms sales. One thing Africa does not need is any more guns and
soldiers.
There are a number of initiatives that the Obama administration could take
that would make a material difference in the lives of hundreds of millions
of Africans.
First, it could fulfill the UN’s Millennium goals by increasing its aid to
0.7 percent of its GDP, and not using debt forgiveness as part of that
formula. Canceling debt is a very good idea, and allows countries to
re-deploy the money they would use for debt payment to improve health and
infrastructure, but as part of an overall aid package it is mixing apples
and oranges.
Second, it must de-militarize its diplomacy in the region. Indeed, as
Somalia and Libya illustrate, military solutions many times make bad
situations worse. Behind the rubric of the “war on terror,” the US is
training soldiers throughout the continent. History shows, however, that
those soldiers are just as likely to overthrow their civilian governments as
they are to battle “terrorists.” Amadou Sanogo, the captain who overthrew
the Mali government this past March and initiated the current crisis, was
trained in the U.S.
There is also the problem of who are the” terrorists.” Virtually all of the
groups so designated are focused on local issues. Nigeria’s Boko Haram is
certainly a lethal organization, but it is the brutality of the
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/world/africa/in-northern-nigeria-boko-har
am-stirs-fear-and-sympathy.html?pagewanted=all> Nigerian Army and police
that fuel its rage, not al-Qaeda. The continent’s bug-a-boo, al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Meghreb, is small and scattered, and represents more a point of view
than an organization. Getting involved in chasing “terrorists” in Africa
could end up pitting the US against local insurgents in the Niger Delta,
Berbers in the Western Sahara, and Tuaregs in Niger and Mali.
What Africa needs is aid and trade directed at creating infrastructure and
jobs. Selling oil, cobalt, and gold brings in money, but not permanent jobs.
That requires creating a consumption economy with an export dimension. But
the US’s adherence to
<
http://www.fpif.org/articles/globalization_in_retreat> “free trade”
torpedoes countries from constructing such modern economies.
Africans cannot currently compete with the huge—and many times subsidized
industries—of the First World. Nor can they build up an agricultural
infrastructure when their local farmers cannot match the subsidized prices
of American corn and wheat. Because of those subsidies, US wheat sells for
40 percent below production cost, and corn for 20 percent below. In short,
African needs to “protect” their industries—much as the US did in its early
industrial stage—until they can establish themselves. This was the
successful formula followed by Japan and South Korea.
The Carnegie Endowment and the European Commission found that “free trade”
would end up destroying small scale agriculture in Africa, much as it did
for corn farmers in Mexico. Since 50 percent of Africa’s GNP is in
agriculture, the impact would be disastrous, driving small farmers off the
land and into overcrowded cities where social services are already
inadequate.
The Obama administration should also not make Africa a battleground in its
competition with China. Last year US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
described China’s trading practices with Africa as a
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/opinion/beijing-a-boon-for-africa.html>
“new colonialism,” a sentiment that is not widely shared on the continent. A
Pew Research Center study found that Africans were consistently more
positive about China’s involvement in the region than they were about the
US’s.
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/world/asia/china-pledges-20-billion-in-lo
ans-to-african-nations.html> Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa, recently
praised the continent’s “relationship with China,” but also said that the
“current trade pattern” is unsustainable because it was not building up
Africa’s industrial base. China recently pledged $20 billion in aid for
infrastructure and agriculture.
One disturbing development is a “land rush” by countries ranging from the US
to Saudi Arabia to acquire agricultural land in Africa. With climate change
and population growth, food, as
<
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-new-colonialism-foreign-inves
tors-snap-up-african-farmland-a-639224.html> Der Spiegel puts it, “is the
new oil.” Land is plentiful in Africa, and at about one-tenth the cost in
the US. Most production by foreign investors would be on an industrial
scale, with its consequent depletion of the soil and degradation of the
environment from pesticides and fertilizers. The Obama administration should
adopt the successful “contract farming” model, where investors supply
capital and technology to small farmers, who keep ownership of their land
and are guaranteed a set price for their products. This would not only
elevate the efficiency of agriculture, it would provide employment for local
people.
The Obama administration should also strengthen, not undermine, regional
organizations. The African Union tried to find a peaceful resolution to the
Libyan crisis because its members were worried that a war would spill over
and destabilize countries surrounding the Sahara. The Obama administration
and NATO pointedly ignored the AU’s efforts, and the organization’s
predictions have proved prescient.
Lastly, the Obama administration should join with India and Brazil and lobby
for permanent membership for an African country—either South Africa or
Nigeria, or both— in the UN Security Council. India and Brazil should also
be given permanent seats. Currently the permanent members of the Security
Council are the victors of WW II: the US, Russia, China, France and Great
Britain.
In 1619, a Dutch ship dropped anchor in Virginia and exchanged its cargo of
Africans for food, thus initiating a trade that would rip the heart out of a
continent. No one really knows how many Africans were forcibly transported
to the New World, but it was certainly in the 10s of millions. To this day
Africa mirrors the horror of the slave trade and the brutal colonial
exploitation that followed in its wake. It is time to make amends.
Received on Wed Nov 28 2012 - 13:10:47 EST
