My Beauty Best Teacher

Mariamé Touré Ouattara writing in Open Democracy:

There is little common ground between the realities faced by the population of Burkina Faso and international requirements and the shortfall in grain production and worsening of hunger in the past years can largely be attributed to this fact. It is not that farmers are unable to produce a sufficient quantity of food, it is that they find themselves in a political system that will not allow them to fulfill their potential. Not consulted in policy debates and uninvited to discussions, they feel excluded from the system when in reality they are key actors. What is more, farmers do not always understand how policy demands play out in these domains. Yet these are the people who suffer the effects of policy choices. In my view, the problem really lies here at the level of policy.

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This Is Africa reports on tremors in Burkina Faso:

...a high school student, Justin Zongo, was taken into police custody in the city of Koudougou after an altercation with a female student who, as the story goes, comes from a family with close political ties. Days later, Zongo died while still in police custody – of meningitis, according to the official report, though Zongo’s family and friends believe that maltreatment from the police was to blame. The death sparked a series of student protests – in Koudougou and Fada N’Gourma, in Tougan and Sabou. Government offices were ransacked; police cars went up in flames. At least five people died during two days of protests just days before FESPACO was set to begin. When students at the University of Ouagadougou threatened to join in, the government took the drastic step of shutting down the entire school system. Student protests were bad enough; student protests during the country’s most high-profile event just couldn’t be tolerated.

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PART II (see part I)

Modern Grievances against the West

External Props of African Despots

Historically, every foreign entity that goes to Africa does so to pursue their own interest, not those of Africans. Witness the scramble for Africa in the 1880s. The Chinese do not go to Africa because they love black people soo much. They go there to pursue their interests. Exactly the same can be said of the Cubans. This competition for influence in Africa became pronounced during the Cold War, when super-power rivalry led to the establishment of client states across Africa. The West supported the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko, Samuel Doe, Hastings Banda, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, etc. etc. The East supported the likes of Mengistu, dos Santos, Mattieu
Kerekou, Sassou Nguesso, Samora Machel, etc. etc. Arab countries also backed their clients in Africa: Sudan, Mauratania, Chad, etc.

Cold War Intrigues and Machinations

Each side in the Cold War provided billions in aid to their clients to protect their security interests in Africa. Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique all received substantial amounts of Soviet military hardware. For example, Mengistu Haile-Mariam of Ethiopia received more than $11 billion in military weapons between 1975 and 1990. Angola received at least $2 billion annually
in military assistance from the Soviet Union in the 1980s (The Independent, London, Feb 19, 1992). In 1991, $4 billion of Angola's $8.7 billion foreign debt was owed to the former Soviet Union. On July 1, 1991, President Eduardo dos Santos said: "military debts were not usually honored," implying that Angola would not pay it (The New York Times, July 8, 1991). Soviet aid was stingy.
The economic aid the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) provided to sub-Saharan Africa in 1985 was $300 million. Of this, Ethiopia received by far the most (57.9 percent). Next were Mozambique (13.8 percent), Egypt (6.6 percent), Madagascar (4.2 percent), Angola (2.8 percent), and Tunisia (2.1 percent) (West Africa, Dec 12-28, 1988; p. 2320). Angola and Mozambique benefited more from arms supplies. The $300 million aid was only 5 percent of total Comecon bilateral disbursements and only 3 percent of the total aid flow to sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, the little Soviet economic aid that did flow to Africa had strings rigidly attached. Loans and trade credits supplied could only be spent in the Soviet Union and Comecon countries (100 percent tied aid). In addition, the Soviets supplied the technical personnel and the equipment for project construction. Repayments of loans were often by barter, but to the
decisive advantage of the Soviet Union. For example, in Guinea, Soviet help in building a bauxite plant at Kindia was to be repaid with deliveries of two million tons of bauxite ore a year for 30 years.

Barter arrangements also hurt Soviet clients in Africa in a different way. For example, repayments of loans Nkrumah of Ghana took from the Soviet Union were to be made in kind with exports such as cocoa. But the Soviet Union had little use for Ghana's cocoa. Re-export of cocoa by the Soviet Union helped depress the world market price of cocoa in the mid-1960s.

China, an active player in Africa, sought to win adherents to the Chinese brand of socialism. Zhao Ziyang, China's foreign minister in the early 1960s, reminded African leaders of the presence of Chinese coolies in Africa. China's perception was that Moscow, not Washington, was its principal enemy. Its strategy was therefore to weaken "social imperialism at the expense of monopolistic capitalism" (Snow, 1988). West Africa observed that "in Africa, China increased assistance to old friends such as Tanzania and Zambia. The 2000km Tan-Zam railroad was meant to overshadow the Soviet-built Aswan High Dam in Egypt. China also made friends with old enemies such as Mobutu, helping him during the Shaba uprising in 1978-79; in 1980 they helped him build a naval base at Kinkuzu in southern Zaire to threaten Angola" (Aug 15, 1988; p. 1473).

China's fortunes in Africa quickly turned into mirages, however. At first, China's anticolonial stance was welcomed by African liberation movements. But as independence was gained, China's emphasis on subversion and its intense enmity toward the Soviet Union became less and less appealing or relevant to Africans. In fact, as early as 1963 Julius Nyerere of Tanzania
complained of a new scramble for Africa between the Soviet Union and China. Because their actions were anti-Soviet rather than pro-African, the Chinese themselves did not achieve much by way of influence.

Furthermore, China was no less immune to blunders than the Soviets. Less wisely than the Soviets, China meddled in Burundi ethnic feuds. In 1963 China backed the Tutsi expedition by training a number of Tutsi in guerrilla warfare in China. The subsequent massacres in Burundi earned China much opprobium. China also supported the Biafran secessionists in Nigeria's civil
war (1967 to 1970) simply because Moscow backed the Federal Government of Nigeria. Similarly, in Angola, China supported the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) because Moscow was backing the ruling MPLA.

In Mali and Congo-Brazzaville, China made some headway. But a spate of military coups brought to power new rulers distrustful of China. Only in Tanzania did China achieve some diplomatic and ideological success. China agreed to fund and build the 1,200-mile Tan-Zam railway line at a cost of 166 million pounds sterling, free of interest. The railway was both an
engineering and a political achievement. It was completed two years ahead of schedule and was much touted as a model of what foreign aid could do for Africa. But it was one thing to build the railway and quite another to run it efficiently. Maintenance was poor, services degenerated, and the Dar es Salaam terminal became chronically clogged to the point of immobility. Although the Chinese had nothing to do with these shortcomings, their reputation suffered.

Zimbabwe received technical and military aid from North Korea and China. For its part, the West also poured billions into Zaire, Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, and other African countries.

Each side also sought to undermine African regimes that were hostile to it. Lumumba was assassinated by the CIA operatives and the 1966 coup against Nkrumah was orchestrated by the CIA. In this sphere, the French were the worst, intervening directly to remove African leaders they did not like in Francophone Africa. For the French, independence did not mean a retreat from Africa. France left hundreds of officials in Africa as advisers. Behind the doors of many key ministries in the Ivory Coast and Senegal or Gabon, discreet but powerful French officials kept a close eye on policy. The French also sent teachers to Africa and brought African students and civil servants to France for training. France secured the right to maintain a
heavy military presence in Africa. In 1989, for example, France had a significant number of military advisers in 16 African countries and permanent Forces d'Intervention in seven. Total strength of French troops in Africa exceeded 12,000 in 1990. In France itself, the Forces d'Action Rapide, numbering 47,000, could be mobilized in less than 48 hours for action anywhere in Francophone Africa. These forces played an economic policing role and backed up French diplomacy and paternalism. They supported "approved" Francophile governments such as those of Leopold Senghor of Senegal and Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d'Ivoire.

After 1960 the French intervened on many occasions to prop up unpopular African regimes against internal dissatisfaction and disorders. The most notorious such occasion was in Gabon in 1964, when French troops were used to reinstate President Mba after a coup. Noting that the French did not intervene to save President Youlou in Brazzaville in 1963, critics charged that intervention was predicated on mineral wealth. (Gabon is rich in oil.)

Now, each foreign entity operating in Africa pursues its own interests. It was ONLY the West which propped up hideous dictators in Africa. A foreign prop is a foreign prop is a foreign prop, regardless of its origin. An African leader is supposed to pursue the interests of his PEOPLE. If he doesn t, remove him from power but did we? Instead, we argued ad nauseam that, since the West put Mobutu, for example, in power, it was the responsibility of the West to remove him. This was ridiculous because if Mobutu was serving Western interests, why would the West remove him? And even if the West removed him, who do you think the West would have installed as a replacement? Another Mobutu !

It is clear that we have drawn no historical lessons from our dealing with the West and other foreign blocs. Here s a popular adage: If someone cheats you once, he is the fool but if he cheats you again, you are the fool. If you agree, then why are we talking about the Second Scramble for Africa ? And have we not learned that if you give an African problem to the Americans, Brits, French or the Chinese to solve it, each would solve it to their advantage? Does the mantra, African solutions for African problems, make sense to you?

Again, prop or no prop,

You cannot claim that it was the West which told Mobutu to loot the Zairean treasury. Nor claim that it was the North Koreans who told Mugabe to butcher over 20,000 Ndebele in 1980 (Matabeleland massacre). Neither can you claim that it was the Arabs who ordered Idi Amin to
butcher over 200,000 Ugandans. Nor can you claim that tell me it was the French who ordered Gnassingbe Eyadema to cling to power for 34 years and amass a personal fortune worth $3
billion.

True, the French and indeed the World Bank knew these African despots were stealing money and looked the other way. But who is an African leader accountable to? To the French, the World Bank or his PEOPLE? Prop or no prop, these leaders must be held accountable for their actions.

In fact, these days the charge of foreign meddling in African affairs and the specter of sinister and greedy multinational corporations lurking in the dark, waiting for a chance to pounce and exploit Africa confute reality. Foreign investors have fled Africa as the continent remains unattractive. Is it not African governments who have been drawing up elaborate and fancy
investment codes to ATTRACT them back? And is it not African governments themselves who take their budgets to foreign capitals for approval in order to get foreign aid? So who ALLOWS the meddling in African affairs?

Even then, the West has shown little interest in meddling in African affairs in the past few decades. If anything, the West has been in retreat from Africa! Recall the statement by presidential candidate, George Bush, that Africa was not of strategic importance to the U.S. And was it not the same African leaders who were complaining after the Cold War that Africa was
being marginalized ? So which is which: Is the West meddling in African affairs or the West marginalizing Africa?

In case you did not know, the West is thoroughly fed up with Africa, which it regards as a cry-baby, hopelessly incapable of solving any of its problems and is constantly crying out for help. What do you think the expression donor fatigue means? That is the diplomatic way of saying that the international community is fed up with incessant African appeals and begging. Today, there is famine in Ethiopia, tomorrow, there is a refugee crisis created by war in Liberia, or Somalia. Then there is genocide in Rwanda, starvation among refugees in eastern Congo, Ivory Coast, and on and on. Haba. Africa is now synonymous with war, destruction, famine, refugees, starvation, instability and chaos. Year after year since 1985, one African country after another has imploded, scattering refugees in all directions: Ethiopia (1985), Angola (1986), Mozambique (1987), Sudan (1991), Liberia (1992), Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Zaire (1996), Sierra Leone (1997), Congo DRC (1998), Ethiopia/Eritrea (1998), Angola (1999), Ivory Coast (2000), Togo (2005).

The implosion of these countries had nothing absolutely nothing to do with the slave trade, nothing to do with Western colonialism or imperialism, nothing to do with artificial colonial borders, nothing to do with an unjust international economic system; in short, nothing to do with so-called external factors. They all had to do with one thing: POWER the adamant refusal to relinquish or share political power. If GENERAL Siad Barre of Somalia, GENERAL Juvenal Habryimana of Rwana, GENERAL Pierre Buyoya of Burundi, GENERAL Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, GENERAL Samuel Doe of Liberia, GENERAL Joseph Momoh of Sierra Leone, GENERAL Robert Guie of Ivory Coast, GENERAL Gnassingbe Eyadema, etc. etc. had been willing to step down or put in place power-sharing arrangements, each of their countries would have been
saved. Note the frequency of the title, GENERAL.

The rule is this and you can call it Ayittey Law: "The adamant refusal of an African head of state to step down or share political power will ultimately lead to the destruction of his country." If Mubarak of Egypt, Museveni of Uganda, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Ghaddafi of Libya refuse to leave the political scene or share power, their countries will be destroyed. This is not rocket
science and it has nothing to do with the West. It is a personal or political failure that cannot be blamed on Americans, Chinese or Martians.

Back in 1986, President Museveni of Ugana said that no African leader should be in power for more than 10 years. What happened to him? He has been in power for more than 16 years and still counting. Finally in the late 1990s, African leaders wrote Constitutions in which they inserted the two-term limits. What happened? They are the very same ones who are now using their parliamentary majority and various devious maneuvers to override or repeal the two-term limits in Chad, Guinea, Namibia (Nujoma before he retired), Uganda, and even Nigeria.

Benin, Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome & Principe, South Africa and Zambia all saved themselves from implosion because their leaders agreed to power-sharing arrangements crafted out of sovereign national conferences. South Africa would have blown up if the whites had not sat down with the blacks in a Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) to craft a new
political dispensation for the country. Rwanda blew up because the Hutu-dominated government of GENERAL Juvenal Habryimana refused to share power with the Tutsi minority and, instead, decided to exterminate them. "No Tutsis, nobody to share power with" was the macabre and brutal logic. More than 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in a orgy of violence and brutal massacre. That, in itself, was an excellent example of "intellectual astigmatism".

We could see with eagle-eyed clarity all the repugnant and inhumane brutalities of the white apartheid system in South Africa but we were hopeless blind to the equally heinous tribal apartheid regime in Rwanda. If the racist apartheid regime in South Africa had butchered just 2,000 blacks, even Idi Amin, who himself slaughtered more than 200,000 Ugandans, would
have arisen from his grave to attack South Africa with 3 dilapidated helicopters! But we said nothing when 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered. Instead, we blamed the WEST for NOT intervening to stop the genocide. In fact, at its July 2000 Summit in Lome, Togo, the defunct OAU demanded a Marshall plan style compensation package for Rwanda. The demand for
compensation was part of the OAU inquiry into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which blamed Western powers for failing to intervene to stop the mass slaughter. Naturally.

The OAU inquiry singled out France and the United States for particular blame for failing to prevent the genocide in addition to the United Nations Security Council as a whole. France was culpable because, having high level contact within Rwanda s Hutu-led government, the OAU report argued, could have exerted pressure to prevent the death of 800,000 people. The OAU
enquiry also blamed the US for failing to use its influence in the Security Council to authorize a military intervention to prevent the killing. The report argued that the West failed Africa despite the availability of copious evidence that the mass killing had been about to begin. In
conclusion, the report noted, a simple apology as already made by the United Nations was not enough and called for compensation, alluding to the $13 billion Marshall Aid plan the U.S. launched for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. And what did these self-righteous leaders do to prevent the killings going on right under their very noses? And how can these
leaders complain about foreign meddling in African affairs and at the same time blame the West for NOT INTERVENING in an African problem to stop a massacre?

These days appeals by African leaders fall on deaf ears. OECD aid to Africa fell by 22 percent between 1990 and 1996, decreasing by 18 percent to sub-Saharan countries between 1994 and 1996 alone. (DeYoung, 2000a; p.A1). Even humanitarian aid to Africa has been shrinking. Contributors to United Nations aid and development programs have provided slightly more than half of the $800 million requested in 1999 for African countries suffering from "complex emergencies" -- the term is applied when war and failed institutions, often combined with a natural disaster, leave vast numbers of people homeless and starving. Specific programs for some particularly problematic areas, such as the Great Lakes region of Central Africa
including the two Congos, Rwanda and Burundi, have fared even less well (DeYoung, 2000b; p.A1).

In Sept 1999, the U.N.'s World Food Program announced it would curtail its feeding program for nearly 2 million refugees in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea after receiving less than 20 percent of requested funding. An emergency appeal during the summer to feed and shelter at least 600,000 Angolans who had been displaced in that country's long-standing civil war
brought minimal initial response and predictions of mass starvation. In Africa's Great Lakes region of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, where wars have produced nearly 4 million refugees, the United Nations estimated it would need $278 million to take care of them. By Oct 1999, only 45 percent of that amount had been donated. Nearly 80 percent of the United Nations humanitarian appeals in 2004 were to address African problems, but the response was disappointing as to be non-existent. "I remember sitting in this very room last summer (2004) asking for five helicopters to save thousands of lives in Darfur (Sudan). In the end we had to hire helicopters commercially as no Member States were willing to provide them," Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the chief of the UN humanitarian office told the Security Council meeting on humanitarian challenges in Africa in January 2005 (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?). Even Irish rock star, Bob Geldof, who organized Band Aid and Live Aid to provide famine relief to starving victims in Ethiopia in 1985 is now fed up with Africa. He said this on Jan 31, 2005, of his work in Africa: "I'd dearly love not to have to go there the day after tomorrow. More often than not, it bores me profoundly - the pace of change is far too slow, and Africans excuse their own complicity in exactly the same way as our politicians (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4222373.stm).

Private organizations are also having difficulty raising funds for African relief operations. According to Mario Ochoa, executive vice president of the Maryland-based Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), which operates relief projects out of its own donations and under contract with donor governments, If I were to go now and make an emergency appeal for, say, Rwanda, for $500,000 for food, I'd probably get about seventy or eighty
thousand" in contributions (The Washington Post, Nov 26, 1999; p.A1).

True, every now and then, a major effort is launched in the West to help Africa. Africa s plight follows a ten-year attention deficit cycle: 1985 (Live Aid to save famine victims in Ethiopia), 1996 (a Special U.N. Session to boost aid to Africa to $25 billion), and now (2005). It is so humiliating to have the salvation of Africa tied to the success of rock concerts. And 20
years later, Ethiopia still can t feed itself and is appealing for food aid. Who do you blame: The white kids who did not give enough charity at the rock concerts or the stupid policies of Ethiopia s leaders?

Unjust International Economic System

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, this argument had much validity: The international economic system, dominated by western multi-national corporations, was rigged in favor of the rich countries. Prices of cash crops were fixed at artificially low levels; markets were cornered by giant western corporations, paying low wages and raking huge profits. While prices Africa received for its exports remained low, the prices Africa paid for imported manufactures soared astronomically (declining terms of trade). But today, with the onset of globalization, this argument carries little validity.

First, there is much competition on the international market. Asian corporations are now some of the big players. Second, African governments have done next to nothing to add value to their exports. Ghana still exports much of its cocoa in raw beans form. Third, every market has its ups and downs. We complain when the markets are down but conspicuously silent when
the market booms. Did we complain about an unjust international economic system when copper prices reached record levels in the late 1970s? When gold prices soared in the 1980s, cocoa prices in the 1990s? May I mention oil prices? By the way, what did we do with the windfall we reaped from the high prices? We squandered it!

Fourth, Africa s share of world trade fell from more than 3 percent in the 1950s to less than 2 percent in the mid1990s and to only 1.2 percent, excluding South Africa (The World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21st Century;p.20). This erosion of Africa s world trade share in current prices between 1970 and 1993 represents a staggering annual income loss of $68 billion. This loss is not due to an unjust international economic system. Fact is, Africa has not been producing and you can t trade on the international market if you have nothing to sell. The physical volume of exports has been declining and therefore it is not a question of Africa not being able to earn enough because of low prices. Burundi s coffee exports, Ivory Coast's cocoa exports, and Sierra Leone s diamond exports have been devastated not because of low world market prices but by senseless civil wars. Even with food, we don t produce enough to feed ourselves and spend $19 billion a year on food imports. Nigeria spends $3 billion a year on food imports and has now brought white Zimbabwean farmers to teach it how to become self-sufficient in food production. What a disgrace!

Much of the decline in agricultural production in Africa is due to price controls, naked exploitation of Africa s peasant farmers, and senseless civil wars that have devastated the countryside and uprooted millions of people. Refugee camps are full of women and children, who produce the bulk of Africa s foodstuffs. State marketing boards fixed at ridiculously low
prices to milk the peasant farmers and they REBELLED. In Senegal, peanut (groundnut) farmers were receiving less than 20 percent of the world market price for their produce; in Ghana, cocoa farmers were receiving less than 30 percent for their produce in the 1980s. Those who complain about the Western conspiracy to fix prices for African exports at artificially low levels obviously do not see the ridiculously low levels their own State Marketing
Boards fix prices for peasant farmers.

Unfair Trade Practices, Trade Barriers and Subsidies

To be sure, unfair trade practices -- trade barriers and agricultural subsidies -- are legitimate issues of concern for the Third World. It is hypocritical for the West to preach free trade to the developing countries and yet put barriers in its place. But there is hypocrisy on both sides.
According to Columbia University economist, Jagdish Bhagwati, there is greater tariff protection on manufacturers in the poor countries . . . and autarkic trade barriers make domestic markets more lucrative than exports, leading therefore to an incentive bias against exports. So even when the rich country markets are opened further, one s own trade barriers can prevent the penetration of these markets (The Wall Street Journal, Jan 18, 2005; p.A16).

More importantly, the rich countries protect themselves against unfair trade practices, so why shouldn t African countries? A case in point is U.S. s anti-dumping law. Known as the Byrd Amendment for its chief author, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W. Virginia), the law passed by Congress in 2001 provides that when foreign manufacturers are found to be dumping goods in the U.S. market that is, selling at unfairly low prices any anti-dumping duties that are imposed can be handed over to the U.S. companies that brought the dumping case, rather than to the Treasury. It has benefited U.S. firms in industries including steel and pasta, with one of the largest beneficiaries being Timken Co., an Ohio maker of bearings, which collected about $40
million in 2004 (The Washington Post, April 1, 2005; p.A4). So, what have African governments done to protect their countries against dumping? NOTHING!

Even then, trade barriers are peripheral to the core issue of Africa's under development. Africa s exports consist mainly of cash crops (cocoa, cotton, coffee, bananas, sisal, etc.) and minerals (gold, diamonds, oil, titanium, cobalt, copper, etc.). Trade barriers and agricultural subsidies in the West affect only a few African exports, such as cotton (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan), peanuts or groundnuts (Gambia, Senegal, Sudan), sugar (Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa), tobacco (Malawi, Zimbabwe), and beef (from Botswana, Namibia). Only a few African countries such as Ivory Coast, Mauritius, and South Africa export manufactured goods, which can encounter
trade barriers in the West.

It is not Western agricultural subsidies, however, that have hurt African food agriculture. Food production per capita has been declining and Africa's food import amounts to some $19 billion annually. The recent civil war in Ivory Coast, for example, cut the country's cocoa exports by half and disrupted agricultural exports of neighboring countries that pass through Ivory Coast. In Burundi, coffee production has dropped by more than 50 percent because of civil war/strife that has engulfed that small country of 8 million people since 1993. In Malawi, crime has risen so sharply that some farmers have refused to grow crops. And while the U.S. maintains import
quotas against Zimbabwe's tobacco exports, the industry has virtually been destroyed by President Robert Mugabe's violent seizures of white commercial
farmland to remedy "colonial injustices .

Wailing over agricultural subsidies in rich countries amounts to shedding crocodile tears since it gives the false impression that African governments care much about agriculture. The erosion of Africa s share of world trade was caused not so much by trade barriers but rather a host of internal factors. Among them are the neglect of agriculture occasioned by the over-emphasis on industrialization, raging civil wars, crumbling infrastructure, and misguided socialist policies that exploited Africa's farmers through a system of marketing boards and price controls. For example, trade barriers do not block exports of oil, diamonds, gold, col-tan, and other minerals from Africa. Yet, paradoxically, countries that produce them -- Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Sudan, among others -- have been wracked by war, poverty and social destitution. In fact, Africa's diamonds have fueled such barbarous civil wars in Angola, Congo, and Sierra Leone that human rights activists in the West have called for a boycott of Africa's "conflict diamonds.

A key note speech by the new African Union (AU) secretary-general, Amara Essy, to mark the New Year on Jan 3, 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, did not provide Africans with hope or assurance. He "accused the international community of failing the continent; their refusal to alleviate Africa's huge
debt burden continues to compromise its development" (IRIN, Jan 03, 2002). Same old drivel. Rather, it is African leaders who have failed the continent. The externalist paradigm by which African leaders blame everyone else but themselves for Africa s woes, is now KAPUT. The African people no longer buy it. Why then does this paradigm still have avid adherents? Four
reasons.

First, it is naturally the credo of most African leaders since it exculpates them from any blame for the current mess. Some evil external force did it! But the people don t buy it. Witness the huge credibility gap between the rulers and the ruled. Second, advocacy or veneration of the externalist paradigm constitutes a passport to career advancement. Those African scholars and intellectuals who rail against the World Bank, IMF and other external enemies are often rewarded with ministerial posts and government appointments. Rail against British colonialists and President Robert Mugabe will reward you with a government post. Such was the case of Jonathan Moyo.

Outside Africa are the third and fourth groups. Black Americans, drawing upon their own horrific experience, unfortunately have a radically different perception and understanding of Africa s woes. Most black Americans do not distinguish between African leaders and the African people and see Africa as a victim of Western neo-colonialism and imperialism just as they see
themselves as victims of racism, white supremacy and the lingering effects of slavery. Given their history and experience, black Americans tend to see only white devils because their oppressors and exploiters in the past were all white. Black Americans have never lived under brutal tyrants such as Idi Amin, Samuel Doe or Sani Abacha and therefore cannot relate to black
tyranny. This partly explains why black American leaders led the campaign against the heinous apartheid system in South Africa but were conspicuously absent in the campaign against the equally heinous de facto apartheid regimes in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and elsewhere in Africa. It also explains the tendency of black American leaders to embrace those African leaders that spit venomous anti-West vitriol: Minister Louis Farrakhan and Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya. Thus, black American perspective on Africa often clashes with that of the people. In fact, when President Clinton appointed Rev. Jesse Jackson as special envoy to Nigeria in 1994 activists threatened to stone him if he ever stepped foot in Nigeria. Five years later, Sierra Leonians were outraged when Rev. Jackson compared Foday Sankoh to Nelson Mandela. Sankoh was the late leader of RUF (Revolutionary United Front), the murderous gang of savage rebels whose signature trademark was to chop off the limbs of those even children and breasts of women who stood in their way.

The final group of strict adherents to the externalist doctrine consists of some African scholars and intellectuals in the diaspora. They are mostly in academia and have made heavy emotional, personal and professional investment in the externalist paradigm. Their bible continues to be How Europe Under-developed Africa. Their careers have been advanced, promotions secured and books written, propagating the externalist doctrine. It would exceedingly difficult for them to admit that their books and scholarly works are no longer relevant to the immediate needs of Africa. Political correctness pervasive in academia and black American influence also make
it difficult and embarrassing for these African scholars to admit that African leaders have failed their people. They erroneously think such an admission would amount to washing Africa s dirty linen in public and provide ammunition to racists. But who is fooling who?

The African people know that the leadership and/or government are the primary obstacles that stand in the way of poverty reduction in Africa. Said a tribal chief in a rural farming community in Lesotho: "We have two problems: rats and the government" (International Health and Development, March/April 1989; p. 30). Amina Ramadou, a peasant housewife, came up with a
creative way of solving Zaire s economic crisis: "We send three sacks of angry bees to the governor and the president. And some ants which bite. Maybe they eat the government and solve our problems" (The Wall Street Journal, Sept 26, 1991; p. A14). When the presidents of Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa traveled to Kananaski, Alberta (Canada) on June 26,
2002, to present NEPAD to the G-8 Summit for funding by the rich nations, Mercy Muigai, an unemployed Kenyan was irate: All these people [African leaders and elites] do is talk, talk, talk. Then if they do get any money from the wazungu [white men], they just steal it for themselves. And what about us? We have no food. We have no schools. We have no future. We are just left to die (The Washington Times, June 28, 2002; p.A17).

In July, African leaders will be heading to another G-8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to beg, beg, and beg for more foreign aid. I will be going there myself to represent Mercy Muigai. Let the other African scholars continue to read How Europe Under-developed Africa by Walter Rodney.