For centuries, beginning with the slave trade, the West has
ruthlessly exploited the African continent, plundered and pillaged its
resources. In the late nineteenth century, in what became known as the
“scramble for Africa,” the continent was arbitrarily carved up into colonies by
the leading European powers, which violently subjected its people and plundered
the continent of its rich natural resources. In the post-independence eras,
African states became weak pawns in the world economy, subject to Cold War
rivalries, their path to development largely blocked by their debilitating
colonial past. The legacy of Western domination has left Africa devastated with
crippling rates of poverty, hunger, and disease. The continent today has a
gross national per-capita yearly below that of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and
1980s in most African countries, and an average life expectancy of only fifty
years. Africa throughout the Cold War until the mid-2000s, played only an
insignificant role on the world’s stage in the context of international relations
and diplomacy most often pulled by the nose as surrogate force and launching
path as appeasement to the will and pleasure of self-styled global policemen. During
the Cold War period, most of Africa remained within the spheres of influence of
the former colonial powers, which made use of the relative freedom they were
given by the Great Powers to materialize their interests in Africa, but with
the end of the Cold War, things somehow turns the other way in the interest of
the continent.
More recently, the West has choked Africa with an onerous
debt regime, forcing many nations to pay more in interest on debts to the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) than on health care, education,
infrastructure, and other vital services combined. Today the geopolitics of
Africa makes oil a core causes for conflict around the African continent and
the US–Chinese race for Africa’s rich natural resources is especially focused
on oil.
This new scramble for
Africa’s resources is already engendering conflicts across the region. In the
Democratic Republic of Congo, where copper and diamonds have inspired wars and
mayhem, there is currently intense competition and militia rivalries over the
mining and sale, a critical raw material used in mobile phones and electronic
devices. The battle over oil and uranium, used in feeding nuclear reactors,
according to French diplomat, Mathieu de Lesseps, continues to be at the root
of conflicts in Niger and Nigeria. The connection between conflict and foreign
exploitation of mineral resources can be drawn with respect to other countries,
including Nigeria where Boko Haram is committing gross human rights violations.
It has become clear that the discovery of significant oil and gas reserves in
Nigeria’s northeastern Lake Chad Basin, the zone of the Boko Haram insurgency,
is a major factor contributing to instability in the region according to Nicolas
Matthieu. The recent discovery has attracted the interest of neighboring
countries, such as Chad, Cameroon and Niger, and international powers,
including the United States, Britain and France. This also includes Sudan,
Libya and Angola, while political crisis over lack of proper accountability
over the use of natural resources especially oil is creating serious tension
several other countries including Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra
Leone, Guinea, and Zimbabwe.
Both the American and the Chinese Governments were important
in paving the way for American and Chinese oil interests in expanding in
Africa. The US government used diplomatic instruments such economic incentives
and military aid (Lionel de Moustier). China has proven more supportive and has
provided loans, debt relief, scholarships, training, and provision of military
hardware without political or economic conditionalities, in exchange for a
foothold in the oil business. In turn, incumbent African leaders have
identified Chinese unconditional financial resources, cheap products, and
know-how as an important tool to fend off pressure for political and economic
reform from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and Western governments. China is the new ‘superstar’ and newest
sensation on the African continent when it comes to new diplomatic ties, trade
expansion and investments in large-scale development projects. Widely believed
to become the world's largest economy, China is successfully seeking its place
under the African sun. Starting out with pariah nations such as Sudan and
Zimbabwe, excellent relations are now held with almost all of Africa's 53
states.
China's new interest mostly has been a blessing, partly a
tipping point and now gradually becoming a game changer in the geo-political
landscape. Diplomatically, their dependence on Western countries is eased,
allowing new diplomatic competition as in the Cold War era, and giving pariah
leaders an alternative backing. Chinese aid be it funds are also popular,
because Beijing asks no questions on good governance and is fond of prestigious
grand projects. However, the Chinese advance has been a mixed-blessing for
Africa. With China's admittance to the World Trade Organization (WTO), it has
boomed into an economic superpower of cheap mass produced exports, giving no
room for African competition. But Beijing is not only interested in gaining
African export markets. Studies shows that the growing and soon to be economic
superpower is not endowed with many natural resources, making Beijing dependent
on mass imports of crude materials.
There is evidence that greater involvement of the United
States and China in Africa, in terms of both commercial interests and political
engagement replays the colonialist divide and conquer tactics." Conflicts
need money. From Sudan to Congo and Libya to Nigeria, natural resources such as
timber, oil, diamonds and other most needed precious minerals have helped fund
armies and militias who murdered, raped and committed other horrendous human
rights abuses against civilians. Currently, there is an amazing infrastructure
race taking place within East and West Africa, while on the other hand, the
West especially powerful nations look on as Boko Haram continue to perpetrate gross human rights violations in
Nigeria.
China is taking a very broad approach and accessing the
region whole heartily, erecting infrastructural, building roads in Southern
Sudan, Ghana, Liberia, and Ethiopia, just to name few. We are also seeing the
French role in Mali, Ivory Coast and Congo while Japan’s involvement in Liberia
and the British involvement in Sierra Leone. In recent time the US has
strengthened its relations across the continent especially in Southern and West
Africa including the north. The recent outbreak of Ebola disease gives the U.S.
the advantage to enforce its relations in West Africa; the Britain and the
French also enforced their presence in Sierra Leone and Guinea, while Beijing
has also been active in combating the deadly disease from Liberia.
The continent in recent time has been repositioning in the
international system as far as international relations and politics are concerned.
Owing to the continent’s recent advancement on the world’s stage to occupy some
major positions in the international system, there have been calls for the
continent to occupy a seat on the Security Council with an equal veto, but
the politically suppressed lingering
question that arises is which of the three African countries to occupy the
dedicated seat ? Nigeria, South Africa and Morocco are all vying. But greed for
power and wealth, and undermined by bad governance, are some of the major
problems that are affecting growth and development of the continent on the
stage of transparency and accountability. In the words of a French diplomat,
Paul Claudel, most African diplomats lack a true representation of their
countries, arguing that their presence bring no benefits to the sending state. Russian
diplomat, Gustavic Édupukiv writes that most African diplomats are politically
strangers to the international system.
According to latest UN report, seventy-six percent of
Africans have no access to standard pipe borne water, good healthcare delivery
system, constant electricity, social security benefits, sanitation facilities
and good meals a day. The report further indicates that 25.8 million people of
the two-thirds of the total world population suffering from HIV/AIDS live in
Africa. Africa remains a continent abundant in human and natural resources, but
are managed to enrich only a handful of African leaders, corrupt bureaucrats,
certain individuals and foreign
capitalists who continue to exploit the continent.
The Congo crisis, the secessions of Katanga and Kasai were
symptoms of the malady of the continent. At the beginning of the 1960s it was
fashionable then to look upon the Congo tragedy as the unique example of
Belgian colonial ineptitude. Now with years of bitter experience behind us, we
can say that the Congo’s situation pointed to all the issues which would
afflict Africa from the ‘60s to 2000s. Since the Congo-Brazzaville war in the
1960s, the continent experienced dozen of brutal wars in several countries
including the Nigeria’s Biafra war, the rebels’ war in the Democratic Republic
of Congo (formally Zaire), Angola, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopian-Eritrea war,
Rwanda war between the Hutu and the Tutsi, Senegal-Casamance Region, Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Northern and Southern Sudan’s wars, Kenya
post-election violence, Libyan, and now Mali, just to name few. All these wars
were direct results of abused of state resources and national wealth, bad governance,
corruption, class system and abused of state power and authority by handful of
African leaders and foreign capitalists.