Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 February 6, 2004

We should remember Africa
ALEXANDER REED
CONTRIBUTOR

As November's presidential election roars its way into the business of Capitol Hill and simultaneously commands eclipsing media coverage, the unmistakable forces of the democratic political process in America are noisily accelerating for the whole world to see and hear.

In contrast, with a few notable exceptions, the democratic political processes in the poverty-stricken, war-torn nations of Africa are morbidly silent and nearly nonexistent. Many Americans, and indeed many in the wealthy, industrialized world, forget that beyond the bitter polemics regarding the war in Iraq, the adoption of a European constitution, and Janet Jackson's accidental display of cleavage, the most lingering, wide-reaching problems of the world are found in the cities, deserts, and jungles of Africa.

Why does the Western public give such little attention to such human crises as the spread of AIDS in the sub-Sahara or the bitter civil wars that have engulfed Nigeria, Rwanda, and most recently, Liberia, only to name a few?

Perhaps the nations of Africa do not provide enough raw materials or labor power to provoke international commercial interest. This is not the case, though, as Nigeria is one of the world's largest oil exporters, and the country of Niger holds the site of the supposed Iraqi enriched uranium purchase, as related to the American people during President Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech.

Still more perplexing is the vigor of the American-led movements against dictatorship and totalitarianism abroad, as evident in Serbia in 1999 and today in Afghanistan and Iraq, as opposed to the relatively weak pressure placed upon the equally murderous regimes of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Liberia's Charles Taylor.

In the January 29 issue of the Boston Globe, correspondent Declan Walsh contributed an article that highlights and lucidly symbolizes much of Africa's modern socio-political crisis. Walsh describes the "teenage veterans" of Liberia's recently-ended civil war as "the discarded cannon fodder....of former president Charles Taylor." In a nation that was founded in the early nineteenth century as a democratic sanctuary for freed American slaves, the nonchalant Western reaction to Taylor's human rights abuses, and long-delayed deposing of him last year, establishes a grim irony before the backdrop of post-colonialism.

One aspect of the African tragedy that never fails to capture international, and especially Western military attention, however, is the prevalence of Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and especially Sudan. It is widely believed in American and European intelligence communities that Al-Qaeda has had a strong, well-organized presence in Egypt and Sudan, as proven by President Clinton's missile strikes on Sudanese terrorist installations late in his administration.

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 by Libyans over Scotland, by contrast, has aroused great Western upheaval and criticism of that nation and fundamentalist regime. It is indeed alarming that a spectacular act of terrorism is needed to focus world attention on the gravest problems of a continent, and its deadly effect on world peace.

However, as the world community is beginning to discover the urgent need for democratic reform in nearly every African nation, a move toward peace, prosperity, and responsible, democratic government may not be far off. What is most immediately needed is the control of the AIDS crisis which is greedily chewing away at the population of sub-Saharan Africa.

As President Bush declared last year, funding and additional relief programs must be allocated and established to assist the UN and other existing organizations in the battle against this now global disease. With the same vigor, the international community must begin to do everything within its vast power to help alleviate poverty and promote the spread of democratic government in Africa.

After all, the major justifications for the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were the human rights abuses and presence of terrorist organizations that the Ba'ath Party and Taliban officially sanctioned. The same can be argued for an invasion of more than a few African nations, but in the spirit of such African leaders as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, peace and civil rights must prevail, and can only come about through united, peaceful means as proven by the international community banding together and peacefully defeating the racist Apartheid regime and establishing democracy in South Africa.

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