The
Africans are at the
fulcrum of power
in the Security Council
By
Jonathan
Power
March 12, 2003
LONDON - A rare shake of the dice has given three
African countries- Angola, Guinea and Cameroon, 20% of
the vote on the UN Security Council. In effect, if
cleverly used, this gives them a swing vote, enough to
convince the U.S. and the U.K. that they are not going to
garner the nine votes necessary to approve an attack on
Iraq and perhaps trigger chaos and upheaval across the
Islamic world, but contra wise, if they vote the other
way, enough to convince France, Russia and China that a
veto would be an isolated one, whose only lasting legacy
would be a UN from which America and its large financial
resources could well withdraw.
No wonder the Africans are not enjoying the pressure
that history, events and chance have thrust upon them.
Yet good may well come of the test. For Africa's own
self-esteem, it is a badly needed boost after years of
economic and military upheaval. This is an important
departure that puts Africa right in the crucible of world
decision making. Moreover, at the helm of the UN is a
Ghanaian, the much admired secretary-general, Kofi Annan.
Indeed one should never play down the fact that the U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell's own roots are as a
descendant of slaves wrenched out of Africa and
transported to work the plantations in Jamaica. The same
point can be made about Condoleezza Rice, the U.S.
National Security Advisor, who sits by President Bush's
right ear seven days of the average week.
This is a remarkable achievement. Compare it with the
last great crises of the UN. Although there was the
occasional black face on the Security Council, as the
non-permanent members were rotated, they worked and voted
in the shadows. Today they are centre stage. This may
pass over the average man driving a bus in Nairobi or
picking his cocoa pods in Cote d'Ivoire- although one
should never underestimate what does trickle through by
means of radio, TV and vernacular newspapers- but it
certainly is making a profound impact on educated
Africans who run the governments, the schools, the
hospitals and the business life of this vast continent.
Having suffered nothing but a bad press- and a bad
self-image- for years, as wars consumed much of Africa in
Angola, the Congo, Sierra Leone, the Sudan, Somalia and
Ethiopia, it is something of an antidote to have been
given this great responsibility- at a time, fortuitously,
when the latest round of war making appears to be on the
ebb. Over the last 100 years the West one way and
another, in colonial times and after, has been telling
Africa what to do. Now the Africans have the chance, if
they are clever and wise, to tell the rest of the world
what to do.
This turning of the wheel comes at a propitious
moment. The rich world, despite all its own problems,
knows that it is not treating Africa well. The departing
colonialists often left Africa in parlous state. The
French fled Guinea pulling out even the phone lines. The
British had presided over economic policies that favoured
the town, the mine and the plantation at the expense of
the rural peasant, thus bequeathing to the new African
governments, including Cameroon, horrendous urban
problems, family breakdown and a lack of resources
implanted in the countryside where the majority of the
people still live. The Americans presided over a Cold War
policy, taking sides and feeding in guns during the civil
war in Angola that worked to tear the country limb from
limb.
Now in modern day Africa almost every country is
shackled by debt, inequitable terms of trade, lack of
access to outside markets, all in a continent that
whatever the endowment of mineral wealth has to struggle
for survival in the harshest of physical conditions of
any of the continents, apart from Antarctica.
The other day French President Jacques Chirac came up
with the surprising admission that the West is hurting
Africa by subsiding its agricultural exports to the
detriment of African cultivators. He appeared ready to
consider changes in both French and European policies
that depress prices in the African market place and make
it next to impossible for many farmers to get into the
export business. Only last year George Bush added to
Africa's woes by authorising $4 billion in subsidies to
America's 25,000 cotton growers that had the effect of
lowering world cotton prices by 25%, hitting hard
Africa's 11 million cotton-producing households and
losing Africa an estimated $200 million in precious
foreign exchange.
African countries account for an insignificant
percentage of world trade-1.6%. Exceptions are not going
to upset France or the United States. The same can be
said for debt relief in which there has been some
progress but not enough. The cost of debt cancellation is
less that it appears because so much of the bad debt will
never be repaid. Besides much of the debt has built
up because of mistakes made by donors as much as
recipients.
If the tense Security Council debate has the side
benefit of throwing the spotlight on Africa it will be to
the good. But for neither of the big power blocs is it
enough to try and "buy" the three African votes, as they
appear to be trying to. Instead of asking how they can
help Africa, the Security Council powers need to ask what
they can do to hurt it less.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
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