A mockery of aid

Joanna Drake, head of the Representation of the European Commission in Malta, writes effusively of the range of programmes the EU has at hand to cope with the phenomenon of so-called illegal immigration from Africa.

She concludes her sanguine article (October 24) by telling us that the EU is not only constantly gearing up to cope with the symptoms, it is also addressing the root causes by alleviating poverty in Africa. She optimistically concludes that: "Europe will therefore continue to pull its weight, it will go on proving that, rather than being the problem, it is part of the solution".

She would have us believe that in its relations with Africa and other Third World countries, the EU plays an altruistic, constructive role. As an official of the EU, one would expect Dr Drake to be better informed and not be carried away by her blind faith in the EU.

The European project is built on noble ideals. It has buried the narrow concept of egoistic nationalism that has crucified Europe for so many centuries until the end of World War II in 1945 and the subsequent dismantlement of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

However, we must recognise that the EU is party to an unfair world trade system that favours the wealthy countries and is a main contributor to world hunger and poverty.

The instruments for economic development that were fashioned out of the ashes of World War II created an inbuilt unjust system that has fortified the power of the financial centres of the victorious nations under control of the US.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other corporate interests have set up an unjust system that has had a devastating effect on the political, social and economic development of Third World countries, particularly those in Africa.

Should we be surprised that the people of Africa are in such desperate straits? Sub-Saharan Africa paid twice the sum of their total debt in interest between 1980 and 1996. Yet, they still owed three times more in 1996 than in 1980.

This is usury on an unprecedented scale. It is a poor reflection on the public opinion of the western world that boasts a Christian heritage. Trade rules and policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank have ruined the economies of many countries, devastating the environment and promoting world tensions that are leading to more and more social and political upheaval.

Instead of being part of the solution to Africa's problems, the EU policies are also contributing to this unacceptable state of affairs. A report published as recently as September 8 this year points out that the EU adopts trade policies of high tariffs and subsidies that are patently unjust.

The EU forks out at least a staggering $51 billion a year in farm subsidies, the majority of which go to the large, industrial agri-businesses that employ only a small fraction of the EU's workforce.

The subsidies soak up an unbelievable 40 per cent of the EU's budget! EU taxpayers are compelled to lavish funds on huge agri-businesses that wipe out efficient, ecologically friendly small-scale farmers. The EU then dumps heavily subsidised agricultural surplus on Third World countries undermining their rural economy which employs a large percentage of their workforce.

Also, many European countries connive with African regimes to have access to their resources and raw materials. The unfairness and short-sightedness of the deals defy imagination. For instance, the fish stocks of Western Africa are being plundered by EU fishing fleets, using industrial-scale fishing technology that has already reduced considerably fish stocks in the European waters.

This is not sustainable economics but rapacious piracy on a global scale. The local African communities which harvested the seas for centuries in a sustainable manner are now starved out of work while the bounty of their seas is ravished.

Africa is portrayed as a beggar dependent on the largesse of a magnanimous Europe. This is a travesty of the truth. Thankfully, in the west, public opinion is being increasingly aroused. More recently and forcefully, the campaigners of Make Poverty History are realising that something radical is amiss. So-called charity is not the solution at all.

Although overdue, the stress is now on justice and fair trade. The recently beatified Jesuit from Chile, Fr Alberto Hurtado SJ, emphasised this reality with extraordinary lucidity by saying: "Injustice causes far more evil than can be replaced by charity".

Lobbies of the Catholic Church in Brussels are particularly well placed to exert pressure at the highest levels and quote chapter and verse, demanding that the EU abandons policies that make a mockery of the principles it professes to uphold.

The EU was fashioned on values that respect the human dignity of one and all, a philosophy that maintains that we are all citizens of the world with a common destiny. We expect our European political leaders to uphold this ideal and make a serious attempt to change tack.