Issue No. 593
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4 - 10 July 2002 Issue No. 593 International |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Any excuse to punish Africa
US President George W Bush's new Middle East plan cast a shadow over the G-8 Summit and pushed to the sidelines the issue of African aid, writes Gamal Zayda
The G-8 Summit's discussions, held in Kananaskis, Canada, last week, were overshadowed by US President George Bush's new Middle East peace plan. The proposals, which dominated the agenda, eclipsed the African Development Plan submitted by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, the war against terrorism and the $30 billion nuclear disarmament package that Putin secured for the former Soviet Union.
Bush's greatest obstacle to winning over his G-8 partners lay in his demand that the Palestinian people change leader and radically reform their administration. Bush declared that "the Palestinians need to have a leadership that is not involved with terrorism".
The G-8 leaders refused to openly declare that they accepted the proposition, insisting that this matter should be decided by the Palestinian people through a democratic vote. But this did not stop Bush from piling pressure onto the delegations. The Canadian prime minister suggested that the Bush plan may, after all, be a positive development, only for his foreign minister, Bill Graham, to reject it, stating that "Canada refuses Yasser Arafat's ouster."
At the end of the day, Chrétien was pressured into rejecting the Bush plan for deposing Arafat. But the Bush administration, which is looking to swing international support behind its initiative, declared that the Canadian prime minister has committed his support, and reiterated the earlier assessment that Arafat's ouster was a "good idea".
Nevertheless, G-8 leaders including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the US president's staunchest ally, refused to heed Bush's call. The French president also strongly rejected the idea of ousting Arafat.
There were problems on other fronts. Chrétien said that the G-8 leaders discussed the situation in Afghanistan but did not approve the US initiative to spread the war against terrorism to other theatres.
The G-8 leaders gingerly proclaimed that the world economy was recovering, but also expressed their concerns about developments inside US financial markets and especially the ongoing WorldCom accounting scandal and its impact on global financial markets.
There were doubts about the degree to which the long- awaited New African Development Plan (NEPAD) -- the springboard from which industrialised countries intend to renew their aid projects in Africa -- achieved its objectives. NEPAD was allotted a meagre $1 billion -- just one 10th of the figure that was dispensed to Russia for continuing its nuclear disarmament programme.
Although NEPAD is hoping to receive $100 billion dollars in yearly aid allocations, it soon became apparent that neither the US, Japan or Russia showed much interest in the African Development Programme. Canada tried to convince the G-8 leaders to commit 50 per cent of their financial aid to Africa. The undertaking seemed ever unlikelier when the World Bank announced that anywhere between $15 and $23 billion will be needed per year to realise such a plan.
On the subject of the war on terrorism, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterated their fear that Northern targets might be struck by potential terrorist attacks, especially in this week of 4 July celebrations.
Finally, G-8 leaders agreed to invest $30 billion on disarmament. Chrétien declared that the assembled leaders approved a US initiative to destroy all materials in the former Soviet Union which could be used for nuclear or biological armament, within the next 10 years. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said that the US will furnish half the amount with other countries footing the rest of the bill. He explained that the plan was approved by all G-8 leaders because of their "awareness" of the danger that such armaments might reach certain countries. This sounds particularly alarming to the West given that military experts have expressed concerns that the lack of security in Russia and the former Soviet republics could lead to terrorist organisations acquiring awesome weapons.
While the leaders debated, anti-globalisation activists were carrying out carefully orchestrated, low-key protests. One of the organisers explained: "We had to review our strategy after two major events: the killing of a young protester at the Genoa Summit and 11 September. We had to be very careful."
The choice of the Kananaskis resort, strategically located in the back woods of Canada, proved to be another effective deterrent for the anti-globalisation activists. The protestors had no option but to move to Calgary, the closest city to Kananaskis. However, about 4,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Ottawa. The protesters wanted to express their anger against the choice of Kananaskis. Some 350 people tried to march through the resort but had to backtrack because of police check points. Nevertheless, their anti-globalisation message reverberated loud and clear.
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