The G8 promises, again, to forgive
our debts and concentrate on the “root causes
of poverty”. Déjà
vu.
View from the Editor
NEW AFRICAN
Baffour Ankomah
So the G8 really cares? In my native Ghana, our elders say,
“Acra b does not b egeta bird”.
No, it hasn't happened before. And never will.
Here is why:
On 24 June — the first day of Zimbabwe’s recent two-day parliamentary
elections — the BBC broadcast a documentary on Zimbabwe by David Dimbleby.
One clip stood out in my mind. I can still see his face as I write: Charles
Powell (described only as: “Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1979").
Powell told Dimbleby, on camera, how he and his British colleagues handled the Zimbabwe land issue at Lancaster House in 1979. All those editors at The Economist who did that cover story on 22 April, headlined “The mess that one man makes” — putting all the blame for Zimbabwe’s current troubles on Mugabe — should better write down Powell’s words.
He told Dimbleby:
“We tackled it [the land issue] really from the point of view
of the Rhodesian regime, not the future of Zimbabwe. The real concern at
the beginning was to offer guarantees, assurances, protection to the white
farmers.”
At the time of the Lancaster talks, October 1979, Zimbabwe was like
a baby about to be born. Rhodesia was like a spent old man about to die.
And Britain felt it necessary to resolve the land issue "from the point
of view of the Rhodesian regime” — the old order about to die — “not the
future of Zimbabwe” — the new nation about to be born six months away (in
April 1980).
Twenty years on, the land issue blows up — and who gets the blame?
Mugabe. “The mess one man makes,” The Economist trumpeted, pretending not
to know that the “seeds” of the mess were sown nut by Mugabe but by Britain
at Lancaster House. “The future of Zimbabwe” — these are powerful words,
you know! But it mattered nought to Britain.
It is not fashionable these days to talk about the linkages between
Africa's current problems and the seeds of ruin deliberately planted by
its departing colonial masters. But Charles Powell’s confession is a classic
example of how the seeds germinated grew into trees and, today, we are
reaping the fruits. A prosperous “future” for us was not one of their priorities.
How else can one explain the following:
(And I am quoting from America’s National Security Study Memorandum 200, commissioned by Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, on 24 April 1974).
Kissinger wrote: “The President [Richard Nixon] has directed a study of the impact of world population growth on US security and overseas interests. The study should look forward at least until the year 2000, and use several alternative reasonable projections of population growth... The study should focus on the international political and economic implications of population growth rather than its logical, sociological or other aspects.”
The executive summary of the Study delivered to Kissinger on 31 December 1974, makes very interesting reading.
Paragraph 3 says in part: “If future numbers are to be kept within reasonable bounds, it is urgent that measures to reduce fertility be started and made effective in the 1970s and 1980s.”
At the time the world population was 4 billion. American “national security interests”, according to the Study, wanted world population stabilized at 6 billion by the year 2000. Like clockwork, the world population today is 6 billion. Magic? You bet!
Paragraph 15 says in part: “We cannot walt for overall modernization and development to produce lower fertility rates naturally since this will undoubtedly take many decades in most developing countries.
Paragraph 26: “There is no single approach which will ‘solve’ the population problem... At the same time actions and programmes must be tailored to specific countries and groups.”
Paragraph 30: “Support by all federal agencies for biomedical research in this field should he increased by $6Om annually... Much more research and experimentation need to be done to determine what cost effective programmes and policy will lead to lower birth rates.
Juxtaposed with the G8’s new debt cancellation promises, the most interesting bit of Kissinger’s 1974 Study should be Paragraph 8, headed “minerals and fuels”. It says in part:
“The world is increasingly dependent on mineral supplies from developing countries, and if rapid population frustrates their prospects for economic development and social progress, the resulting instability may undermine the conditions for expanded output and sustained flows of such resources... Imports for fuel and other materials will cause problems which could impinge on the US, both through the need to supply greater financial support and in LDC efforts to obtain better terms of trade through higher prices of exports.”
At last, the magic line: “LDC efforts to obtain better terms of trade
through higher prices of exports.”
So, why is America afraid that we will ask for better terms of trade?
Is it a bad thing to ask for better terms of trade — such that it warrants
the culling of our populations? It will be interesting to know which
were the “unnatural means” and “biomedical research/experimentations” used
to keep our populations down at 6 billion, instead of the “15 billion or
more” that America didn’t want by the year 2000.
You see, all this talk about “helping us” through “debt cancellation and poverty alleviation” means nothing in real terms if we cannot trade on better terms. Trade is what makes the world go round! Yes, the debt can he cancelled, but if we continue to trade on “poor terms , we will soon be rushing back for more loans, which means hack into debt. The C8 and its allies know that “better terms of trade” is key to economic survival in Africa. Why they don’t want to radically reform the current unjust terms of world trade shows how sincere they are about “helping” us.
This May, President Rawlings of Ghana told the International Herald Tribune. “We in Africa are told that globalization means open and freely competitive markets. The removal of any discriminatory trade tariffs — and other means of protecting our local industries — is made a condition for receiving assistance from the international lending agencies. Meanwhile the industrialized nations see nothing wrong in erecting barriers against our exports."
“[The lending agencies] ultimate goal should be to make themselves redundant
— in other words, to assist us in building sustainable economies that no
longer need their help. Ironically, they still work to oppose that goal.
Ghana’s current economic difficulties logically require that we drastically
reduce nonessential imports. Yet, this is seen as a deviation from the
‘golden rule of the open market.”
The IMF, World Bank, etc. are opposed to our “building sustainable
economies that no longer need their help”, says Rawlings. He should know.
He has been in bed with them for 17 years, during which, thanks to their
advice, he has sold the family silver. And today Ghana’s economy is back
in trouble.
Eat your heart out G8. Your new expression of concern is akin to a crocodile shedding tears for a gazelle it has just eaten. You don’t really want to see us out of poverty. We challenge you to prove us wrong.
September 2000, NEW AFRICAN, London.