President Thabo Mbeki on Friday accused the countries of the North of having the wherewithal, but lacking sufficient will to help end poverty in Africa.
Writing in the African National Congress’s online publication, ANC Today, he said recent events in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast have brought into sharp international focus the fact that Spain is facing a new invasion from the South.
Unlike the earlier African invading armies of Hannibal and Djabal Tarik, the African poor who try to enter Spain and Europe through Ceuta and Melilla would prefer doing so legally, ”to serve as lowly workers rather than conquistadors/conquerors”.
Their governments, members of the African Union that authorised the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) initiative, have pleaded with ”rich Europe” to enter into a development partnership with the African poor.
They have argued it is possible to establish an Africa-Europe partnership for development that, by helping to eradicate poverty, underdevelopment and poor governance in Africa, would make it unnecessary for the African poor to tramp north and hammer on the doors of Europe, desperate to flee poverty, war and oppression.
”Nothing that has happened says that the Europeans have fully understood and accepted the pleas of the Africans,” he said.
Taking into account the Group of Eight African action plan adopted in Kananaskis, Canada, in 2002, the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit decisions, and the outcomes of the recent 2005 Washington International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings, it would be incorrect to say Europe and the developed world have completely ignored the pleas of the African poor.
”Ceuta and Melilla have, however, communicated the unequivocal message that — in addition to Kananaskis, Gleneagles and Washington — Europe and the developed world rely for their welfare and the defence of their self-interest on yet another response to the appeals of the poor of Africa and the world.”
That response is made up of the fortress walls in Ceuta and Melilla that are being strengthened further to repel and exclude the poor of the South, the majority of humanity, from the northern world of the European nations, part of the global prosperous minority, Mbeki said.
”These are the countries of the North which have the wherewithal, but lack sufficient will, to end the poverty that drives thousands of Africans to walk from as far south as the Democratic Republic of Congo, across many African countries and the Sahara desert, to reach Fortress Europe, symbolised by Ceuta and Melilla.
”Because the prosperous of Europe refuse, still, properly to listen to the poor of Africa, the wretched of the earth died and were injured as they battled to breach the walls of Fortress Europe at Ceuta and Melilla.
”However, despite the casualties, and many others that go unreported, including those who perish as they try to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean, the millions of the poor of the South are massing in the forests, on the hills and the sea shores that surround Fortress Europe.”
Their numbers will continue to grow, they will not go away and will persist in hammering on the doors of the rich, including the European rich.
Despite the physical barriers, the two worlds of wealthy Europe and poor Africa will continue to meet, intersect and change, Mbeki said. — Sapa