Baroness Amos on British Policy towards Africa

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Baroness Amos on British Policy towards Africa

In the wake of Tony Blair’s pronouncements on Africa during his recent visits to Mozambique and South Africa, the government’s "Minister for Africa", Baroness Amos, delivered a keynote speech entitled "British Policy Towards Africa: Championing New Partnership from the North" to the conference on Stability and the Reform Agenda in Africa.

The government is eager to promote the view that its interference in Africa’s affairs is for purely humanitarian and philanthropic reasons. It is even suggested that this is a personal crusade for the Prime Minister who continues to refer to the state of Africa as "a scar on the conscience of the world". The fact is that Africa’s predicament is a consequence of the devastation of the continent caused by the major imperialist powers, through neo-colonial exploitation, during the colonial era and in previous centuries, when Africa’s human and material resources were forcibly seized and removed from the continent. It is this historical relationship that was highlighted in the speeches of the presidents of Namibia and Zimbabwe at the World Summit on Sustainable Development this week in Johannesburg. Britain was both the leading slave trading power and the leading colonial power in Africa and yet the British government refuses to acknowledge this fact or to make any reparation for it. Indeed Africa’s poverty and instability is blamed simply on African "mismanagement", while the peoples of Africa are told that all that is needed is "a new partnership" with the very forces that are the cause of their suffering.

The insistence on such a "partnership" must be seen in the context of the attempts by Britain and the other big powers to re-divide the African continent between in what has been seen as a new scramble for Africa’s resources and jockeying for strategic advantage. Under the guise of humanitarian concern Britain and others are again taking up the "white man’s burden" and claim to be involved in a "civilising mission" just as their predecessors did at the close of the 19th century. At the centre of the British government’s strategy for continued interference in Africa is the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NePAD), which Baroness Amos referred to as "Africa’s blueprint for the future". Although NePAD was originally drawn up by some of Africa’s leaders, it incorporates all the "universal values" promoted by Britain and the other imperialist powers – so called good governance, the multiparty system, the free-market economy. Originally intended to combat the consequences of globalisation it has become the means to facilitate it, to encourage inward investment and is based on the premise that Africa’s development requires a partnership with the most developed countries. What is more it incorporates a peer-review system, allowing African governments to monitor each other’s adherence to these reactionary principles and goals.

As Baroness Amos explained, Britain’s policy is to support NePAD through the recently agreed G8 Action Plan for Africa. Britain and the G8 countries will work most closely with those African governments that "demonstrate a commitment to good governance and the rule of law". They will encourage the development of African proxies that can intervene throughout the continent in so called "peace support operations" and will increase what is referred to as "development assistance", the enslaving "aid" which has caused so much of Africa’s economic dependence. Indeed what is noticeable about the so-called Action Plan is that it is a continuation of those exploitative measures that have been carried out in the past both by individual countries and, as Baroness Amos made clear by the international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. Far from championing a new partnership with Africa, the government remains committed to the continued and intensified exploitation of its peoples and resources.