Torn by conflicting desires to help and desperate needs at home, perennial aid recipients in Africa have confronted a blizzard of emotions in their response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the wealthy United States.
For a continent battling massive poverty, hunger and disease, the question of sending donations to the largely African-American victims of the storm and ensuing floods that wreaked havoc in the Gulf coast has provoked a tempest of debate.
Moved by their plight, especially that of residents of New Orleans, at least five African nations, three of them in the highly undeveloped and disaster prone sub-Saharan Africa, have contributed money to relief efforts.
Yet ordinary citizens in Africa have mixed feelings about the assistance.
“This is a case of misplaced priorities,” said Mbithi Musyoki, a resident of Nairobi after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki donated the equivalent of $100Â 000 to Hurricane Katrina victims.
“In our country, we have so many calamities and we never see the president going there,” he said, noting with dismay that Kenya slumped 20 places lower in the annual UN Human Development Index released last week.
“It’s amazing, I think Kenya is just looking for a favour,” said another Nairobi resident who gave his name only as James and, like many, was suspicious about the government’s motivation in giving away much-needed money.
“I think President Kibaki just wanted a pat on the back,” said an expatriate American citizen residing in Kenya.
In Uganda, which contributed $200Â 000 to Katrina victims and has recently been criticised for slow progress in democratisation, the gesture got a decidedly mixed reception.
“International solidarity in times like this one is more than necessary,” said Omara Atubo, an opposition lawmaker from the country’s troubled north that depends mainly on US aid to support about 1,6-million people who have been displaced by conflict.
“In the African custom, however rich your brother is, during times of sorrow, you reach out to him in however small way you can afford,” he said.
But Ugandan human rights activist James Otto accused President Yoweri Museveni of squandering precious resources to try to win concessions from Washington.
“It is like when you eat meat at home only twice a month, but because you want a favour from the King, you give him one of the two goats you have,” he said in Kampala.
Yet others in East Africa offered sentiments similar to Atubo.
“When aid is needed anywhere, people should be assisted,” said Hellen Bisimba, a human rights activist in Tanzania, which has not yet contributed to Hurricane Katrina relief.
“What is being shown is a gesture of goodwill and a lesson that natural disasters can hit both the rich and the poor,” she said.
Some suggested that they would like to help but could not afford to.
In the impoverished Horn African nation of Eritrea, where two-thirds of its 3,5-million people will need in food aid this year, authorities said Asmara simply could not contribute.
“Eritrea is not providing material help to the US because we are ourselves asking for donations in view of the continuous drought here,” said foreign ministry official Ahferom Berhane.
Zimbabwe criticised the United States’s government response to the disaster, pointing that measures ought to have been put in place to prevent the destruction.
“It is baffling to see Zimbabwe’s detractors criticising the humanitarian programme, yet the same detractors watched and did nothing to protect the lives of thousands of black Americans who perished in Hurricane Katrina,” state radio quoted President Robert Mugabe as saying.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said the storm damage should wake the western world up to the suffering faced by Africa and impress upon it the need for realising the UN’s Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) on the continent.
“Perhaps if these leaders of the nations of the world fully absorb the great lessons communicated by the tragedy in New Orleans, they will take the necessary decisions to ensure that all humanity achieves the MDGs,” he said.
Still, donations in kind and cash poured from West African nations, with the tiny Gabon leading the continent’s contribution with a $500Â 000 package.
Tunisia sent two plane loads of blankets, tents and supplies as a gesture of “friendship between the people of Tunisia and America” and the southern Africa state of Namibia pledged to send canned fish worth $100Â 000. – AFP