Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9505162005.A17760-0100000@cln> Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 20:36:57 -0700 From: VALERIE BRUCE <mailto:vbruce@CLN.ETC.BC.CA> Subject: Re: Africa To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
I wish people would stop bashing the US government for most of the ills of the world. Forget the past, look at the present, and decide on the process to create a solution, if any. What's done is done. Looking at history is useful, to learn from past mistakes. But pointing out this particular historical fact does nothing to alleviate the situation.Assigning blame is unproductive. In this instance, what are possible solutions? A US-sponsored coup, with a new "good guy"? Billions more in aid, which will disappear into Swiss bank accounts and Audis and mansions abroad? A complete cutoff of aid?The various countries of the world have their own cultures, priorities, polictics, etc. etc. etc., and they will never echo those of the US. So accept the differences, the good and the bad. Hard to do. We want everyone to be as right as we are. (I'm Canadian, but I'm sick of US bashing, and I'm tired of victimization excuses.) :-)
On Tue, 16 May 1995, Joy Morgenstern wrote:
> 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...
>
> Actually, if you check just about any historical source, you'll find that
> Mobutu was put into power in the mid-60s by a CIA-led coup that overthrew
> Patrice Lumumba, the legally and popularly-elected president. Lumumba was
> democratic, nationalist, left-leaning but not a communist. The U.S.
> government's cold-war policies at the time saw him as a threat and the CIA
> had him removed. So if you want to "get real" about the situation in this
> particular country, Mr. Mccoy, you might want to read its history and I
> think you'll see that one can, in fact, blame a lot of Zaire's problems on
> the U.S. - or at least Zaire's main problem - Mobutu, a bloodthirsty,
> criminal dictator who was put in power by OUR government with OUR tax money
> and maintained there with OUR money for 30 years.
>