Nuts and hard hearts

By Gamal Nkrumah

East Asia's financial crisis and South Asia's nuclear arms race dominated discussions. In their final 18-page communiqué, the G8 nations stopped short of issuing concrete plans and policies to assist in writing off Third World debt. Perhaps their consciousness pricked by the poignant images of death, degradation and destitution among victims of war and famine in southern Sudan, the communiqué payed lip service for the need to alleviate the suffering of the world poor. But, it devoted far more space for drawing an effective plan and backing efforts to negotiate a United Nations convention against organised crime within the next two years.

Unhappy in its own way, Europe has mounting problems of its own such as an aging population, the influx of Third World nationals, and a host of post-industrial social and economic ills. America supposedly does not have any problems to speak of. But, Europe's problems pale into insignificance when compared with Africa's and Asia's. The scale and scope of the Third World's social, political and economic crises is quite simply staggering.

The world is a very unfair place. The average Western annual income per head stands at a staggering $26,000, and is only $500 per head in Africa. Mortality rate of children under five is 147 per 1,000 in Africa. In the West the comparable figure is seven.

The global village was a neat concept, but that vision went out the window with the fact that income disparities between rich and poor nations are widening at a perturbing fast rate.

The Asian economic miracle failed to advance the political and socio-cultural freedoms of the least well-off segment of the population. Some say that it expanded the underdog's economic horizons. But, many Asian newly-industrialised countries have some of the highest known disparities of income in the world.

Only 36 per cent of Asians are provided with adequate sanitation. Only 56 per cent of Africa's population have access to safe potable water, only 46 per cent of the continent's people have access to adequate sanitation, while in Africa, purchasing power parity per capita income is a mere $1,961, the respective figure for Asia is $3,565, Europe $13,134 and America $26,389.

Europe has a population of 729 million and a negative population growth rate of -0.1, while Asia has a population of 3,552 million and a population growth rate of 1.6. America has a population of 267.7 million and an annual population growth rate of 0.6 per cent, while Africa has a population of 743 million and a natural annual population increase of 2.6 per cent.

One of Britain's most important charities, Christian Aid, reckons that it will cost Britain about $3 billion to write off the debts of Third World countries. Christian Aid says that the comparable amount spent on the National Lottery scratch cards in Britain is $4 billion. This is compounded by the fact that defence exports from the the West continue to pose complex ethical and moral questions for rich countries.

The Third World does suffer from a sense of injustice about its place in the world. Potentially the touchiest issue between the West and the rest of us is the redistribution of wealth, writing off the debts of poor countries. Most of the Third World's debts were incurred because of arms sales that poor countries could ill afford. The G8 meeting host nation controls a quarter of the world's conventional arms market. Indonesia, which bought 16 armoured combat vehicles and 17 Hawk combat aircraft in 1996, which are to be delivered next month, at a time when Indonesia is embroiled in political turmoil, economic collapse and social unrest. Moreover, Indonesia owes Britain $3 billion, $1.5 billion of which is for arms. Meanwhile, over half of Indonesia's 205 million people do not have access to sanitation.

Crony capitalism threw Asian economies into a tailspin, but in sharp contrast to the jubilation that followed the demise of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the West is not celebrating capitalist Asia's collapse. Indeed, in spite of the enormity of the calamity, the West is reluctant to acknowledge that capitalism has indeed failed Asia.

The West's view is that flawed democracy is better than no democracy. Asian and African developing countries, with the notable exception of India, are still grappling with the question of democracy. Reforming, economic and political, was never going to be easy and there is a growing body of public opinion and Western decision-makers who are determined to make things fairer.

All the big powers have their troubles, but none more so than Russia. And cutting Russia down to size was done very discretely. All big powers have their squabbles, too. Nationalism did not die with the spread of globalisation. Indeed, national, religious, ethnic and tribal conflicts are on the rise.

To an extent there has been a conspiracy of silence about the implications of empty talk shops. Empty talk shops today provide political expression for that body of opinion defined as liberal, and which includes economic liberalisation. The G8 meetings appear to many to be one such pointless empty talk shop.

Still, it serves a Western purpose. Issues of vital importance were touched upon -- environmental degradation, the advancement and protection of democracy, safeguarding of human rights, an overhaul of the world financial system, the upgrading of financial supervision proposals to ensure that wealthy banks and investors do not escape losses from risky investment decisions. Expectations are high, but there was no serious attempt to flesh out the specifics of how these goals are to be accomplished. Working out the nitty gritty details is left to finance ministers and IMF officials.