African Gangsters Are Winning the Black Gold Rush
Interesting article found here at Spiegel Online: "The Americans and the Chinese are vying for control of Africa’s huge oil reserves. China’s growing industrial base is also foraging for copper, manganese and tropical hardwood to feed its voracious appetite. Africa’s dictators are the real winners."
Interesting article? Words closer to horrific, morally reprehensible, unconscionable are words that come to my mind reading this article. Where is the outcry? Are we all so disconnected, apathetic that a collective blind eye is calmly turned while hundreds of thousand of our fellow humans die every day from poverty, disease, lack of basic needs while their corrupt government officials personally profit and military stockpiles are built? How can we all enjoy products without a single thought of the manner in which they are produced? Produced in factories and warehouses powered by oil tainted with the blood of the innocent. Are we not all complicit in genocide by allowing governments to create highly unethical partnerships that destroy all chances of lifting highly indebted countries out of debt, out the the AIDS pandemic, out of civil strife? Any country that is a member of the U.N., why are they not held accountable, why are they not held to the standards of the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights in business dealings and securing contracts? The veto power should only be accepted if the case at hand is to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Why are we all sitting silently and comfortably while the moral fabric of the world disintegrates, shredded by the desire for power and a black hole sucking away compassion?!? Nothing will be better, no situation will improve for any peoples, millions will needlessly die until we as a public shout for change and social responsibility.
I agree with the comments of Jennifer Howe, but don’t go blaming the African politicians solely. Since the advent of the much vaunted “New World Order”, globalisations and (selective) free trade, African nations have all come very much under the thumbs of the World Bank and the IMF, both of which are answerable to a single master. In that period corruption has increased massively on the continent and compliant leaders are being supported in their positions of power. Those who bucked the system and tried to do things for their people have been slaughtered by the international bodies. This period of “fiscal responsibility” has seen more and more wealth being pocketed by a smaller and smaller section of the community, while poverty has increased dramatically. It is not confined to Africa, but is happening world-wide. The difference is that as Africa has so much untapped wealth, those who want to control it are making it it much easier for the ruling elite to play the game, in fact they are even encouraging it. Remember, the western powers have rarely supplied tangible support to any trully functioning democracy, but they have always loved and supported corrupt military dictatorships, and continue to do so.