If a reasonable compromise is reached, the transformation of the EU's relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACPs) will pave the way for improving the lot of many African countries, giving them a new lease of life in their cooperation with Europe. But changes to the legal set-up will not, in and of themselves, change reality in any way. Research suggests that up to 80% of the famine, violent deaths and ecological and health disasters in Africa are caused by conflicts or war within countries or with neighbouring countries. Studies in the field show that many countries in Africa have made much progress and there is virtually infinite potential in the continent, but conflicts and corruption are wiping out all the effort.
Two eye witness accounts. One of the world's most widely read authors, Henning Mankell of Sweden, headed the jury last month for the European Book Prize (won by Guy Verhofstadt), which provided him with several soapboxes in Brussels. For the past 30 years, the novelist has spent half his time in Africa. In his opinion, people in Europe know how Africans die but don't have any idea about how they live. He said that every time he returned to Europe and saw the news on television, he only saw images of death, and in his writing he was trying to present a different image of Africa because Africans do not only die, they live, love, struggle, dream and work. Mankell added that what he had learnt in Africa had helped him become a better person.
Colette Braeckman is one of the small handful of journalists who have always reported on Africa, basing her writing on what she sees in her trips to the continent. She rejects the ideologically one-sided interpretations of the violence that hit Kenya last month that resurrected the worst clichés about Africa - tribal warfare, ethnic cleansing, utter savagery lurking beneath the surface, etc. The true cause of the violence was the frustration of the population. All ethnic groups have seen the gap between the rich elite and the swathes of poor widening. She describes the main cause of the disaster as being the rural exodus, which has given rise to immense slum cities where peasants end up who have been thrown off their land because cash crops have been given the priority (cut flowers, which bring in USD 100 million a year, green beans and out-of-season strawberries) on land which once used to feed entire families. In my view, politicians and big charities like Oxfam would do well to mull over the preceding lines.
According to Braeckman, the corruption of the elite in Kenya has fed festering bitterness, with each ethnic group hoping that the elite of their own ethnic group will favour them and send some wealth their way. She says the set-up is similar in many other countries in Africa where the elites tap into international power networks and feed the seeds of violence, wrongly attributed to 'ethnicity' but really due to an unfair division of resources. Reading her words, one might wonder exactly what interests are defended by certain African economic and political elites, and are backed by European or global pressure groups when they call for solutions based solely or mainly on farm exports to solve the problems in their countries. All too often, positions based on abstract principles fail to take account of the reality of the situation and the real problems on the ground.
Looking beyond doctrine to what is really happening on the ground. Other aspects of the situation also have to be taken into consideration. For example, the funding of national budgets, virtually all of which, in many African countries, comes from customs income alone. There is nothing abnormal about the source of income itself but it is unhealthy if there is little income from elsewhere because it pushes up the price of imports, even when they are beneficial or downright crucial - like machine tools, modern telecommunications, vital foodstuffs, etc. Customs receipts are justified when they protect burgeoning national manufacturing or local farming, and they help boost state coffers, of course. But when this goes beyond a certain level, it feeds into corruption at border crossings and, if customs duties become the only source of state revenue, it makes it impossible to set up free trade zones, even with neighbouring countries, despite the fact that such zones are vital to consolidate the economy and attract investment. The closing of borders for purely budgetary reasons can therefore be counterproductive and hold hidden shortcomings.
The debate and negotiations between the EU and African countries have to take account of the reality on the ground rather than be solely based on theory and doctrine. Account also needs to be taken of other issues beyond the remit of bilateral relations as such, like global trade talks (the WTO's Doha Round) and China's involvement in Africa. I will round off my overview next week by discussing these issues. (F.R.)