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To free Africa

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Lora J. Mackel

We have all seen the images before: Children with bloated bellies, rebels armed with assault weaponry, shanty towns that spread as far as the camera can pan. These images reflect our modern conceptions of Africa, for it seems that these wretched conditions and the continent itself are permanently linked. When taking a closer view of the situation, it is neither natural nor hopeless. Western countries have the power to free Africa from the debt that shackles it to misery.

Last Wednesday, I had the privilege of hearing a lecture given by two Africans on this issue. These two men, Lybon Masbasa and Norbert Gbikbi Benissen, spoke eloquently about the states of their nations and of their continent. Simply and directly, they stated over and over again that Africa was dying. Statistics available give support to this claim. In Africa, one million people-400,000 of which are children under the age of 4-die of malaria, a treatable disease, each year. Another 600,000 Africans die of tuberculosis, which also is treatable. In some African countries, 25% of the population between the ages of 19 and 45 have HIV or AIDS.

Disease is not the only problem currently plaguing Africa. Wars, famine, crime and poverty are also crippling Africa to the extreme. Forty two percent of the population of Africa survives on less than dollar a day. To put that into terms that hit home, for the cost of buying a T-shirt at the GAP, an African could live for a month.

How did a continent so rich in exportable materials come to live in such wretchedness? Anyone who has studied Africa knows that there are rich stores of ore, petroleum and other minerals to be exported. African farms also produce items like cocoa, bananas and coffee. So how could the people of Africa be living in such misery?

The roots of these problems go back hundreds of years. First, millions of Africans, the very life force of the continent, were stolen and exported as cheap labor. Africa, thus depleted, was vulnerable to the encroachment of opportunistic Europeans looking to expand their power, wealth, and influence. Basically, imperialism took the land, resources and lives from Africa and from Africans.

Starting about 50 years ago, the people of Africa decided they had had enough of being exploited . Many revolutions took place, and the imperial governments that had set up the colonies in Africa were no longer able to handle the burden of upkeep. So European countries, by this time dependent on the wealth they obtained from African exploitation, created new governments for the people they left behind. Basically, the Europeans got to keep controlling the wealth, and the native Africans inherited a system in which they were still the exploited labor force. While at first this arrangement might have seemed like freedom to the Africans, it was just a mutated outgrowth of imperialism.

Under these conditions, fledgling governments were pressured into taking high interest loans from the people who had formally colonized them. These debts are the source of the majority of African problems. Currently the majority of African countries are paying over 50 percent of their income to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Africa, as a continent, owes $350 billion. Often, these debts' terms, as in the case of South Africa, were made to corrupt governments under terms that the people of those countries would never agree to. The crushing debt that South Africa accumulated was acquired during Apartheid, for the purpose of buying guns and supplying the military that oppressed the native Africans for so long. It hardly seems fair to make people pay for the tools of their own oppression.

Happily, there are things that can be done to alleviate the suffering of Africa. Asking the IMF and World Bank to forgive the more than 350 billion dollar debt would free up more than $35 billion for African governments to use for pressing health, educational and social problems while allowing investment so that the African economy can grow.

Though the banks would take a loss financially, appeasement could be found in the human investment that Western countries would be making in these much wronged people. Americans have been giving a unique opportunity to help their fellow men. I urge you to write to your congressmen and ask other elected officials to put pressure on international institutions to erase the debt of African countries. After so much oppression, Africa deserves her freedom.