Message-ID: <9505161614.AA29953@gn.apc.org> Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 17:14:48 BST From: Patrik Schumann <mailto:ecoasys@GN.APC.ORG> Subject: Re: Ebola and the U.S. (sidetrack) To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
At 01:11 95-5-16 -0640, James Mccoy wrote: >Get real Nick. By no stretch of the imagination can you blame Zaire's problems
>on the US. The US did provide AID to the Zairean government and if Mobutu stole
>most of it what are we to do - cut it off and be accused of victimizing the
>poor and destitute or impinge on the independence of an independent state and
>tell him how to run his internal affairs...
This seems a disingenuous statement. How did Mobuto come to power and what sustained him in it? Why do America's development assistance and foreign policy not conform with its own liberal democratic principles? Perhaps we're talking about complicity rather than responsibility.
>The people of Africa had better figure out how
>to get their respective houses in order or more and more development aid will
>go to those who at least try to help themselves, e.g. Eastern Europe, South and
>Southeast Asia.
Where do you get your notion of "the people of Africa". Perhaps they really do get by everyday, only to also have largely alien governments and economies to accomodate.
How are their situations comparable with those other regions? You appear to be fitting them all onto one development-motivation-potential continuum for which one parameter is U$AID.
Aside from the internationally mooted figure that Africa is a net exporter of wealth, the reality that US aid is a minor component of a larger Federal financial crisis, the fact that US aid missions overseas are *incredibly* self-indulgent, you overlook your implication that peoples need to liberate themselves from the very systems your government has sponsored. I suggest that you take a much closer look at how, and where, your aid dollars are really being spent.
Patrik Schumann Principal ecOasys (by design) building ecosystems
421 Cornell Avenue, SE 43 Holland Street Albuquerque, NM 87106 London W8 4LX USA ENGLAND
+1 (505) 254 3990 +44 [0171] 937 8255 mailto:ecoasys@igc.apc.org ecoasys@gn.apc.org