Blair and Bush on Africa: pretense of aid masks predatory aims

[undeterred]

By Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland WSWS
10 June 2005

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s visit to Washington earlier this week was portrayed in the media as an effort on his part to persuade President George Bush to endorse plans for African debt relief. That this was so is a measure of the importance placed by Britain’s ruling elite on helping the prime minister cynically exploit the fate of Africa in an effort to renew his favoured pose as the liberal conscience of the world. Blair was meeting with the joint architect of the illegal war against Iraq just one month after Labour suffered massive losses in the general election, largely the result of continuing anti-war sentiment. So anything that distracts attention from Iraq is politically welcome. The same holds true for Bush. An opinion poll released this week finds that, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe that the war against Iraq was a mistake that has failed to make the US more secure.

Only days before the visit, Amnesty International accused the US and Britain of perpetrating and condoning acts of torture at detention facilities in Iraq, Cuba, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Just as significantly, at the height of Britain’s general election campaign, leaked minutes of a July 23, 2002 meeting attended by Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, and senior military and intelligence personnel, confirmed that Britain had seized on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction to justify support for an unprovoked attack on Iraq. The minutes cited Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of the intelligence service MI6, stating that in Washington, “intelligence and facts were being fixed around” this policy of war.

Given the widespread anti-colonialist sentiment in Britain and the loss of trust in Blair and his government, his posturing as a friend of Africa is nauseating. In reality, he is once again utilising a mask of humanitarian concern to justify policies that will facilitate Britain’s imperialist designs. The proposals outlined by Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown offer very little in the form of debt reduction and make even this conditional on the adoption of policies favouring Africa’s penetration by the transnational corporations—particularly in vital areas such as oil and minerals.

The poorest countries in the world owe money to individual countries, the private sector and to institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Debts to multilateral institutions account for approximately one-quarter of total debt—$10-11 billion a year out of $39 billion. Blair is only asking for debt forgiveness by the “multilateral institutions”—the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank—for around 23 countries whose regimes are considered sufficiently pro-western and pro-market oriented. Whatever debt is forgiven will be reimbursed in some form so that the solvency of the institutions is not threatened. Commentators have predicted that the total benefit to poor countries could be as low as $500 million a year, which is equivalent to five days debt repayments.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/blai-j10.shtml

[getmeouttahere]

1. This is the kind of behind-the-scenes....

hidden agenda reporting we need so much more of in this day and age.