The so-called “New Leaders” of Africa – Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Isaiah Afewerki of Eritrea and Laurent Kabila of Congo DR. What happened to them? Back in March 1998 when former US President Bill Clinton made a historic trip to Africa, he hailed them as the “new leaders” of Africa, taking charge of their own backyards. Back then, I slammed that characterization by the Clinton administration as a repetition of the same old Cold War blunders, when Western policies toward Africa were “leader-centered.” In its search for Cold War “allies,” the West was often seduced by the charisma and euphonious verbiage of African dictators. In fact, during the Cold War, any African tin-pot who professed himself to be anti-communist unlocked the floodgates of Western aid. Billions in aid (over $800 billion since 1960) was funneled to Cold War allies, such as the late President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, who skimmed 20 cents off the top of every dollar that came into his country to amass a personal fortune of $10 billion. After the Cold War, Western policies toward Africa were supposed to have been revamped. Much better Western policies toward Africa would have been those that were “institution-based,” rather than “leader-centered.” For example, no aid to an African country that has no free and independent media, no independent judiciary, no independent central bank, no independent electoral commission, etc. But old habits die hard. Old friends remained old friends; it was business as usual – not to mention the fact that foreign aid is a multi-billion industry, employing millions of people and replete with its own lobbyists. So fierce was the resistance from the aid industry that little has changed. Today, an African leader does not have to profess to be “anti-communist” to open the spigot of Western aid – just proclaim himself to be an ‘ally” in the fight against terrorism. Accordingly, Charles Taylor of Liberia claimed he was fighting “terrorists” and set up an “Anti-Terrorism Unit” ran by his son. Museveni of Uganda, Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mugabe of Zimbabwe all claimed they too were fighting terrorism. Even the warlords of Mogadishu, who had been terrorizing residents for decades, formed themselves into the “Coalition Against Terrorism” and secured CIA funding in 2006. And when the late Meles Zenawi could not find enough “terrorists” in Ethiopia, he pounced on journalists and political opponents. Anyone who said or wrote anything critical of his regime was labeled a “terrorist”! Ethiopia still receives some $3 billion in Western aid. WHAT ABOUT GHANA? hmmmmmm! I rest my case for now. God bless us!
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:58:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015