Le Monde
Tuesday 16 October 2007
A rain of dollars is storming Africa. At the end of September, China awarded the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) an enormous loan of at least $5 billion (3.5 million euros), partially repayable in mining shares. A real windfall for a country destroyed by war and one that will serve to rebuild railroads, roads, schools and hospitals.
Many Africans are overjoyed at this arrival in force of Chinese money, which will perhaps benefit Guinea (bauxite) and Chad (oil). They take warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for a sign of bad humor on the part of the West, which is finally seeing its mining monopolies demolished.
The dangers of this manna are, however, very real. No one unconditionally injects such sums into very poor countries like the DRC, where three-quarters of the inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day, nor do such sums arrive without throwing the trade balance, the budget and the very structure of a still-embryonic state off balance.
It's not so much that China lends to Angola or Sudan that shocks, but that it lends to over-indebted countries. How will the DRC obtain forgiveness on the $14 billion of its debt load after accepting a $5 billion Chinese loan? In fact, the question is not the Chinese source of the loans: The $4 billion American companies are anteing up for Cameroonian bauxite present the same shortcomings.
These loans recall the vicious behaviors of the cold war when the West and the Soviet Union subsidized dictators and their "white elephants," those projects as useless as they were monumental, with the objective of attracting the recipients to or keeping them on their side.
Today, the objective is no longer to rally Africans to an ideology, but to exploit their underground treasures, and the opacity of the contracts - which will one day reveal themselves to be ravenous - risks promoting devastating corruption in these countries.
Senegal sets a good example. On October 4, it was awarded $3.9 billion in aid. The difference is that this is multilateral aid, since it connects the IMF, World Bank, European Commission, the United Nations Development Program (PNUD), France and the American cooperation agency, USAID.
The aid is under the surveillance of a consultative group that assures its coherence with the country's health. It targets the reduction of poverty, and consequently should not drift too much into predators' pockets.
But perhaps this good example is not really one: Senegal has no tempting raw materials ...
The Kalashnikov Effect
By Mario Roy
La Presse
Monday 15 October 2007
From 1990 to 2005, armed conflicts in Africa cost citizens of that continent over $284 billion. That's roughly equivalent to the international aid awarded to Africans during the same period. And yet, "This figure is probably underestimated," warns a study effected by a group of NGO's, including Oxfam.
That study - Africa's missing billions: International arms flows and the cost of conflict - recently made public, examined 23 armed conflicts that arose during the period.
Meanwhile, during the same period (1991-2004), outflows of funds from Africa by way of the informal economy are calculated to have been close to $170 billion. If one considers a 30-year period, that exodus runs to 400 billion US dollars, or considerably more than the continent's total debt of $215 billion. The UN agency that drew up this report (The Conference on Commerce and Development) is unable to identify what part of this capital flight relates to pure and simple funds embezzlement.
Consequently, in 15 years, wars amputated 15 percent of Africa's potential GNP, and capital flight took another 7.6 percent. No continent, much less Africa, would be able to bear such a hemorrhage.
The first study is, at this time, the more interesting.
During this past weekend, the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide took place in Montreal, bringing some 500 participants to mull over the big conflicts, obviously with the most attention being brought to bear on Darfur.
On Saturday, people said they wanted more rapid intervention from the international community in such cases - which, as everyone knows, is easier said than done, as one specifically observes in the Sudan.
An interesting fact: One conference guest, Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, emphasized the devastating impact of "Chinese imperialism" in Darfur, which is real and not limited to the territory Khartoum administers.
The "Africa's missing billions" study, in fact, reveals that the light weapon used in virtually all African conflicts bears the Kalashnikov brand name and consists above all of spin-offs (specifically the 56 model) made in China. A year ago, Amnesty International also denounced China as one of the most "irresponsible" arms exporters in the world after seizures of considerable made-in-China arsenals, notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.
In 2005 alone, Africa purchased $60 million worth of light weapons - purchases, 99 percent of which are effected outside the continent, that also contribute to capital flight.
The Oxfam report and other NGO's reproach the international community with having allowed Africa to fall by not succeeding in controlling the arms trade there.
But that also is more quickly said than done.
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