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| In
Too Deep |
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| McDermott's
African Growth and Opportunity Act will drive
countries to debt |
| by
Hanna Petros and Mary Davis |
This August, Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist
Bill Virgin went to great lengths to present
a bleak picture of Nigeria's economic and
environmental hardships. He described Nigeria's
recent history as a "long and depressing litany
of coups and military rule, official plunder,
corruption and oppression" which the West
has abetted by "...throwing money at Nigeria
with little regard to how the ruling kleptocracy
spent it."
He didn't acknowledge that the billions of
dollars in U.S. aid isn't "thrown into a bottomless
well" - it bubbles up as hundreds of billions
for western creditors. In 1996, for every
dollar received in aid, Nigeria paid back
$104 in debt service. That $2.5 billion was
more than six times the country's national
budget for health care or education, and only
half what Nigeria was scheduled to pay. Western
aid to poor countries like Nigeria is like
throwing a buck at the street musician in
front of Safeco Field and then asking him
to pay A-Rod's salary in exchange.
In a selection that speaks volumes about how
African nations are usually dealt with by
those from more developed nations, Virgin
offered only one person' s opinion of how
to harness Nigeria's incredible wealth to
end its crushing poverty. That person was
not someone from Nigeria, or Africa, or even
a policy advocate who has worked on African
issues. It was Seattle's Seventh District
Representative, Jim McDermott, the author
of the "African Growth and Opportunity Act,"
or AGOA, the so-called NAFTA for Africa act.
The bill was signed into law in May.
AGOA was presented as uncontroversial, uncontested
and good for the continent - it is in fact
none of those things. In Virgin's words, McDermott's
act "puts Africa on the trade policy map"
- a map owned and controlled for the benefit
of multinational corporations. AGOA requires
participating African countries to restructure
their government spending around International
Monetary Fund (IMF) dictates, in exchange
for reduced U.S. tariffs on their exports.
Rather than directing investment into those
services most needed by debtor nations, however,
IMF rules regularly mandate that developing
nations increase their debt payments and slash
their already meager budgets for education,
environmental protection, and assistance to
local farmers. The IMF has a long track record
of doing little to reduce poverty while giving
huge boosts to multinational corporations'
profit margins. Asking African countries to
get out of poverty by further submitting to
IMF rules is like prescribing gasoline to
put out a fire.
Dozens of grassroots African organizations,
including peasant, labor, health advocacy
and church groups as well as respected leaders
such as Nelson Mandela strongly opposed McDermott's
legislation since its introduction. Many took
their protests to the streets of Washington
D.C. this past April during the IMF meetings.
Now that the AGOA has been passed, they are
asking African countries not to sign on. In
concert with these groups, U.S.-based groups
have formed to find real alternatives to Africa's
woes. These broad coalitions - from the TransAfrica
Forum to the International Forum on Globalization
to the numerous local Seattle groups involved
in Jubilee 2000's debt relief work, are working
here in Seattle and around the world to put
forward a more socially responsible form of
international trade policy.
One alternative is the Hope for Africa Act,
offered by U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson's
legislation would promote trade with Africa
without the oversight of the IMF. It offers
a crucial difference: it favors working with
Africa at the grassroots level to promote
sustainable development that benefits U.S.
and African workers, rather than slashing
standards in the race to the bottom. McDermott's
main opponent, Green Party candidate Joe Szwaja,
is strongly challenging McDermott's stands
on free trade and is an outspoken supporter
of Jackson's legislation.
We need to broaden the dialogue on trade for
Africa beyond those who have visited with
Bill Clinton or the U.N. to those who have
actually lived there. Then, people in Seattle
and around the world who are working for justice
there will get the consideration they deserve.
Hanna Petros is Executive Director of Ustawi/African
Youth In Action, educating Seattleites on
Africa-related issues. With assistance from
Marjorie Prince and Michael Righi of Jubilee
2000 Northwest. For more information, call
Ustawi at (206) 355-7208 or Jubilee 2000 Northwest
at (206)323-0300 ext.337, or check out their
web site (http://www.ustawi.org).
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