KILL POVERTY DEAD or (Who Needs Debt Relief?)

I am still searching for the author of the article below. I will post as soon as possible. Please read on..more ideas and diverse ideas ..all in the interest of understanding the problems of Africa and Africans.

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One of the major problems of Africa has always been the sad fact that too many foreigners consider themselves the best doctors for its ills. Back in history, the colonialists came in force with the declared mission of civilizing us as they said we were savages, uncultured, uncivilized and hardened cannibals. We all know now that colonialism wrecked our continent, the colons introduced the culture of savage violence that some of us are still imitating and our malady got complicated and grave. The Belgian colonialists not only murdered more than ten million Congolese but they did so in a savage and brutal way chopping off hands, organs and heads--a practice that Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, Sierra Leone's rebels of the late Fode Sankoh and government soldiers copied with seriousness. The British colonial crimes in Kenya and other places, the brutality of French colonialism in Algeria, the massacres and decapitations and mass hangings done by colonial Italy in Libya and Ethiopia are examples. Surely, the same and more can be said of colonial Spain, Portugal and even of neo colonial America. They all said they came with lofty intentions but they all killed us dead in a savage way.

The whole operation of Live Aid was, in 1984, an openly patronizing operation that did give some relief to the starving and notoriety to fading Rock stars (who would have heard of Bob Geldof of Boomtown Rats otherwise?) while giving some inadvertent aid to tyrants. One is not being ungrateful but the good intentions of a clumsy kisser may not be pleasant. Compassion is one thing, knowing the medicine to the problem another. Both the Mengistu regime and the unsavory Tigrean front of Meles Zenawi benefited from the aid effort back in 1984. Since then, Bob Geldof has been knighted by the Queen, set up his own lucrative company, has shifted to calling for debt relief, has mobilized Tony Blair and through him none other than the likes of Meles Zenawi to set up an African Commission (as irrelevant as the African Union), is allied to another pop star called Bono in harassing the leaders of the G8 countries to cancel the debt of the poor countries. In the process, he has also declared openly and recently that Africa bores him tremendously and deeply which is a strange thing to say as Africans suffered to give him notoriety and Africa could be never boring to anyone.

As usual, our foreign self declared saviors have failed to consult us the patients on what ails us. Like quack doctors, they are prescribing one potion after another without bothering to check from us on where we hurt really. Take the Live 8 world wide concerts which excluded Africa had not the South Africans tried to save face by organizing their own concert in haste. (African singers were kept away from Hyde Park and relegated to Cornwall). Geldof and Bono have come up with a slogan that says Make Poverty History--yet another example of their failure to consult with us Africans. "Make Poverty History" is soft and vague. Had they asked any ordinary African desiring a definitive solution and proud of his or her alleged penchant for violence and cruelty they could have had a better slogan. Like Kill Poverty Dead! Why procrastinate? Why should poverty be part of History as if it is worthy? Why should we even remember it? The main aim should have been to kill and bury it for ever to be dead and forgotten. The other mistake is the assumption that we want debt relief or debt cancellation. Let alone nominating Geldof and Bono, who is the ordinary and impoverished African who has publicly asked for this debt relief potion? My modest research has come up with no result. Those asking for debt relief or cancellation are the same tyrants who had been borrowing and want to be able to borrow more. We all know the politics of aid and the reality of debt, how so called developing countries were ensnared, how they have already paid up their original debt but are continuing to be strapped by the interests, etc...The donors were and are con artists, the tyrants their accomplices and the so called poor countries (poor countries who supply the rich country with all the precious metals and minerals!) the victims.

Most Africans are opposed to the cancellation of the debt not because they want to suffer but because they know that if our tyrants have no debt burden they will be wilder than could be imagined. No chains, no restraints. To talk in figures Tony Blair can understand, that is to say in British sterling pounds and in billions, Nigeria owes 19.2 , Sudan 9.6. , South Africa 15.26, Angola 5.33, Zimbabwe 2.44, Cameroun 5.04, Ethiopia 3.93 and even Somalia owes 1.56 billion. In most of these countries, there are troubled and troublesome regimes. If Nigeria has no debt burden it would wreak more havoc in West Africa as would South Africa down there and the Sudan and Ethiopia in their region. Mugabe could declare war not only in the Congo but against the homos of the world. They are war mongering regimes already and bereft of debt they would borrow more, buy more arms and bring down the Armageddon on our black heads. Actually, the whole hue and cry over the debt is a parody on the part of the likes of Tony Blair. Take his Africa Commission. The main man in it is none other than the bloody and corrupt Meles Zenawi. Tony Bliar made a lot of noise about 54 Britons being killed by bombers in London while receiving with pomp at Gleneagles the very Meles who had a month earlier ordered the slaughter of more than 60 Ethiopians in Addis Abeba alone. Much as we are used to the hypocrisy and the double standard, we cannot lose sight of the fact that Britain has refused up to now to give back the 1.3 billion pounds that former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha had stashed in British banks. In 2003, Britain sold arms to 10 out of 14 ongoing armed conflicts in Africa, Ghana's tomato industry, for example, was decimated by tariff cuts adopted by the EU following British prompting, etc. EU and American subsidies to their farmers and the inability of African goods to get access to the western markets are still there and untouched. The tariffs and trade barriers are intact. So, who cares for debt relief or why chop a finger to treat a headache?

Without being cynical, we have been forced to admit also that the Live 8 fiesta has been profitable for many. The very company that has been accused of malpractices towards its workers was advertised on the white bands sold and worn by the concert goers. And why was the wrist band white? Is white hope and black despair? How come Rupert Murdoch, the man who could sink Africa into the ocean if he is allowed, was behind the Live 8 campaign? It is, of course, a confirmed fact that a day after Live 8 concerts, British record stores registered an increase in the number of Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd disks bought by the public. The concert helped. Even Microsoft boss Bill Gates could play at being philanthropist and Madonna, who refused to drink or endorse the Live 8 fund raising bottled water, was photographed holding hands with an Ethiopian woman who was a child in 1984 and had survived the famine. Great photo Op as they say in the business but where is the beef? Two billion people tuned in to see the Live 8 concerts but the majority of Africans were not included in this as they have no electricity or TV. In any case, had they watched the show they would not have been elated in any way. America and Europe spend billions per day to subsidize their farmers, they dump their powdered milk and other artificially cheap products to ruin local business in Africa, they set low prices for Africa's main export commodities (cocoa, coffee, cotton, copper, etc..).... so much so that "for every dollar received by Africa, farmers of the continent pay two dollars to trade with the West". Will Britain and France agree to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy? Will America stop aggressively calling for the opening up of African markets to American companies? Will bread rain down from the sky?

The African disinterest in the debt relief hullabaloo is justified. There is no proof that the tyrants will spend the money saved in debt and interest payments in improving the livelihood of the people. As we say, God saw the evil in the heart of the serpent and refused to give it legs-- debt free, our tyrants will be out of control. Rwanda spends more money in paying interest on its debt than it does on its health budget but who can say for sure that if the debt gets cancelled Paul Kagame will not buy more arms to hunt down his enemies, to invade his neighbors and impose a more harsh regime over the people? The same can be asked of the tyrants in Ethiopia, Eritrea, the DRC, Liberia or of Guinea and Togo. It is evident hat the whole idea of first class or faded rock stars acting as saviors of Africa grates on our self respect. They are of course free to come over, visit our camps and orphan centers, adopt a child or two, make sympathetic noises, catch meningitis and get world wide press coverage without ever grasping that the chains that bind Africa to the West are more abhorrent than that of slavery. The whole notion of a Tony Blair weeping for Africa would have been treated as a comedy had it not been a cruel joke on our continent. In other words, there is an apparent lack of proper slogans. Naive and good intentioned people are climbing the wrong tree. To kill poverty dead it is primarily necessary to END THE RULE OF TYRANNY. The best allies and friends of Blair and Bush and of the West are despots in Africa. European and American companies plunder the raw material wealthy and rich continent. END NECOLONIAL PLUNDER is the other apt slogan. Barring this, canceling the debt will not alleviate the suffering of the African people. On the contrary, it will give a new lease of life to the tyrants.

We are living in a strange time when people bomb other people they never met or quarreled with and thus it could be more proper if we adopt as slogans "Bomb Poverty Dead, Bomb Tyranny to Smithereens, Bomb unto Dust Neocolonial Plunder". Very militant and violent slogans? Apparently. Aren't we dealing with Africa and its predators? And could those claiming to worry about us, please, wear black wrist bands!