www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS,
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2003
Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry
Bush's Africa tour masks real crisis
As we went to press, 2,000 U.S. Marines were poised to
intervene in Liberia, alongside West African peacekeepers. This belated and
limited action came after months of pleas from the Liberian masses that
something be done about their country’s rapacious warlords. Their desperate
cries received strong support from human rights groups and African-American
activists. Many pointed to the Bush administration’s utter hypocrisy in
claiming to have invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons, while Africans were
crying out in vain for a far more limited type of international assistance. In recent years, Liberian President Charles Taylor, a
warlord and indicted international war criminal, has fought rival factions for
control. Taylor has also backed murderous and predatory insurgencies in
neighboring countries, especially Sierra Leone. Each of these conflicts has been
marked by extreme brutality toward civilians--torture, rape, mutilation, and
mass murder. In repeated demonstrations, the Women in Peacebuilding
Network--which comprises Muslims as well as Christians--and other grassroots
groups have made clear that the problem is not only Taylor, but also his rival
warlords. In fact, the problem is the whole neo-colonial system of strongman
rule, built up across much of Africa with Western imperialist support in the
wake of the radical threat that emerged from the liberation movements of the
1960s. It is the collapse of that system into civil war in much of West and
Central Africa that lies at the heart of the present crisis. Nothing better demonstrates the shocking neglect of Africa
by the U.S. and global capital than George Bush’s recent five-day tour, which
was supposed to show the opposite. In Senegal, his first stop, Bush held a
photo-op at the Gorée Island slavery museum, but he was careful not to promise
anything concrete, whether on aid to impoverished Senegal or reparations. During
his visit, the 1,000 inhabitants of Gorée were put under virtual arrest for
“security” reasons. In South Africa, it was a similar story. Bush’s
bullet-proof and even sound-proof limousine insured that he could not hear the
numerous demonstrators denouncing his “imperial agenda.” In a dramatic snub,
Nelson Mandela refused to meet Bush, pointedly flying out of the country on the
very day he arrived. The stop in Uganda, however, was the most surreal, since
Bush did not even leave the airport. Nor did he mention the murderous conflicts
that continue to unfold in neighboring Congo, and in which the U.S.-supported
Ugandan government has played no small part. The hollowness of the economic “boom” of the 1990s, as
far as Africa is concerned, is shown by the annual United Nations development
report, released during Bush’s trip. It noted that 30 of the world’s 34
poorest countries are located in Africa, where externally-dictated “free
market” policies have created even deeper inequality. The richest 1% of the
world’s population receives as much income as the poorest 57% combined. The
disparity between Africa and the wealthy developed countries has continued to
widen in recent years, it also reported. And, as is well-known, Africa faces the world’s largest AIDS epidemic. AIDS researchers have predicted that the disease will create 20 million orphans in Africa by 2010, as against five million in the rest of the world combined. Meanwhile, the even more reactionary U.S. Congress is seeking to slash $1 billion out of Bush’s much-heralded but woefully inadequate pledge of $3 billion to combat AIDS in Africa next year. |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
