Live8 - What's the REAL deal here?

POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Thursday, July 7, 2005 04:51
VIEWED: 3712
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SIMONWHO

Sunday, July 3, 2005 11:09 AM

You say option 3 "Ignore Africa and let it die" was never an option. Well, it's what we've been doing for the past 20 years. They're dying. Slowly, horribly, across the entire continent. HIV infection rates are through the roof. Basic immunisation is missing for vast chunks of the population. Countries that aren't able to pay for basic medical, educational and emergency services are forced to pay back debts to us that we knew they couldn't afford.

The Live 8 demands aren't about giving Africa a helping hand. It's about us taking our foot off their throats. To complain about their leaders when we put a lot of them in office and support a whole load more (if they buy our country's military equipment) is pointless at best. We might lose a lot of the donations to corrupt officials. Would you not give water to a man dying of thirst because you knew he was going to spill most of it?

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 3, 2005 5:23 PM

The real deal is- "We" (the upper political strata, the banks and large multinationals) support the current leaders BECAUSE they are corrupt.

Quote:
The UK bank Standard Chartered has decided to turn its back on the mass market in Cameroon, with its new policy of serving only the wealthy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3148624.stm

Quote:
Bribery And Disruption - British Companies Fuel Corruption In Africa
...In Equatorial Guinea, BG plc (formerly the British Gas state company) has closed a deal with the regime of President Teodoro Obiang to buy up the country's production of liquefied natural gas for the next 17 years. Britain's HSBC bank has been accused by a US Senate committee of helping Mr Obiang move cash from the country's oil revenues into financial "black holes" in Luxembourg and Cyprus. The country is threatened with repeated coups by outsiders keen to get their hands on the oil wealth....In Liberia, which has been beset by civil war, LIB, a private London bank, was behind attempts to monopolise alluvial diamond production and the country's telecommunications...And in Angola, the victim of an even more destructive internal war, one of the UK's leading development banks, Standard Chartered, has been accused of damaging the country's economy by providing record multibillion dollar loans which give a stranglehold over future oil production.

www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1496561,00.html

Banks and big corporations LOVE corrupt dictators because it is far easier to make big profits there. The regimes keep labor and commodity prices low, and their cut of the action takes out far less than increasing living standard of an entire population.

Some people on this board claim that we have "given" many of these nations an infrastructure. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has been USA policy, through its dominance of World Bank and IMF and with the cooperation of the US Treasury to overload corrupt, resource-rich, undeveloped nations with debt. Once these nations take on the debt, the money is used to build large structures using USA contractors, so the money comes right back to us instead of boosting the local economy. And the infrastructure is used to make money for the elite in the debtor nation. Once the debtor nation is so deeply in the hole that they can't climb out, their resources are forfeit to whoever holds the loan. And this isn't just an African problem. This is all detailed in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" John Perkins. You will find example after example of stories similar to the quotes above relating to nations all over the world. Please read it.

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 3, 2005 6:18 PM

Oh, BTW, Do you wonder who this debt forgiveness benefits and who pays for it? the debt forgiveness only applies to the World Bank, IMF and the African Developmetn Bank (ADB) all of which are government-funded.

Quote:
Under the deal, the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Fund will immediately write off all of the money owed to them by 18 countries—some $40 billion.

http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4054539

For details on ADB financing go to
www.afdb.org/portal/page?_pageid=313,165668&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

However, it does not apply to the numerous commercial loans that fuel much of the poverty and corruption. Until large nations (including China) multinationals and banks stop supporting corrupt (but profitable!) regimes and stop gang-raping Africa, this is merely a bandage of YOUR TAX DOLLARS on the gaping wounds.

GINOBIFFARONI

Sunday, July 3, 2005 7:04 PM

You do have excellent points about trade imbalances and practices...

The problem I have is people like Mandela, calling for a increase of handouts, which I would argue what the present aid programs are.

When I donate money, I would like to see it used to eliminate the need for such handouts, increasing irrigation in drought areas, drilling of water wells, the setting up of industrial infrastructure that would put the region to work ( to their own benefit, not ours )

Even assistance to obtain medicines, or produce their own ( when the US isn't bombing the factory )

But, that is not what has happened all these years... Some of it has yes, but not near enough.

Perhaps instead of combining the worlds aid and spreading about so haphazardly, maybe each donor country should pick just one country to help... and the value of that assistance can be measured by the result, rather that the forever aid that we seem to face.

When my eloquence escapes you
My logic ties you up and rapes you

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_police/de_do_do_do_de_da_da_da.h
tml

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 3, 2005 7:28 PM

Altho the loans fall under the heading "onerous debt", I don't believe in bailing out the current regimes either. The biggest impediment of Africa getting on its feet is corruption, and corruption starts at the top. Africa needs "regime change" more than any other continent. What we should do is only to forgive the debts of leaders who practice transparency and democracy. That would give them something to work towards. Of course, the multinationals and banks may not like doing business in an open environment. Tough.

SIGMANUNKI

Monday, July 4, 2005 8:23 PM

@SimonWho:
You seem to be missing my point.

As I have stated many times over, I agree that we should help the African people. Please note that I've stated African people. Please note that this does not include there corrupt government regimes.

I have explicitly mentioned doctors without borders as something that more money should be dumped into. I would also support money being dumped into like programs. This would help the African people directly. This would also bypass much of the corruption. All good things.

I have also explicitly stated, that trade should be made equal. But, I also mention that this would currently not have any benificial effects to the African people.

What I am for is things that will have immediate (or near immediate) effect, positive effect, for the African people, not there corrupt government.

After all, this is for the people in Africa, not the governments, right? You do realize that there is a very large difference between the two, right?

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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

SIMONWHO

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:11 PM

Obviously. But governments are what everything goes through: the Red Cross, Medicin sans Frontiers, every programme you can name is allowed into countries at the whim of the government involved. If suddenly any one organisation was cash rich, suddenly they'd be hit by charges, taxes, etc, etc. (Even the moderately respectable Sri Lankan government couldn't resist charging import duties for equipment purely donated by charity to help with the Tsunami relief.)

The corrupt will be wherever the money is. There's no magic bullet for that. The question we've got to ask ourselves is that even if the corrupt take most of the money, does that mean we shouldn't donate?

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 2:21 PM

Oddly enough, Sigma actually makes sense.

I think that much of the attitude for “helping” Africa often spawns from one of two sources, either it is an opportunity to criticize rich western nations or it is out a sense of conscience.

Noble as the later may be sometimes, it is pie-in-the-sky bologna. If the governments are so corrupt that little to no aid actually gets to the people when channeled through normal measures then it serves nothing put to prop up corrupt regimes and alleviate the conscience of rich western people who like to sit in their coffeeshops and pat themselves on the back for being so “anti-war” and “pro-Africa.” Most people who whine about the African situation know this, yet still insist, beyond reason, that we continue to channel money to these African regimes. Maybe people are expecting some kind of quantum tunneling effect.

Now I’m not saying I know what the answer is, but the G8 is not the problem, the corrupt African regimes are the problem, and the sooner rich westerners come to terms with this, the sooner we might actually find a real solution to help the African problem. Forgiving debt is one possible tool, but in the absence of some other more effective methods it is useless, because the corrupt African regimes will simply recur the debt, which is wonderful for everyone except the African people. By constantly insisting that we forgive African debt we may be simply turning African regimes into a huge welfare state at the expense of Western countries.

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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

SIGMANUNKI

Thursday, July 7, 2005 4:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:

does that mean we shouldn't donate?

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00
.html

----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

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