Is Obama's Trip to Africa about Investment or the Extraction of African Resources?

[KoKo]

TRANSCRIPT...PLUS VIDEO: HERE:

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BioBio
Emira Woods is a co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. Ms. Woods is chair of the Board of Africa Action and serves on the Board of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. She is also a member of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative Africa Council.

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JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. President

Obama is making another historic trip to the African continent. This is his first trip in his second term, where he will be visiting Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania. The White House is saying that the president will be focused on trade and investment, but longtime African analyst Emira Woods says that such policies go hand-in-hand with militarization and extracting African resources

Emira Woods is a codirector of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is the chair of the board of Africa Action and serves on the board of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. She's also a member of the American Board Association Rule of Law Initiative Africa Council.Thank you for joining us,

Emira.EMIRA WOODS, CODIRECTOR, FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, IPS: Pleasure to be with you.

DESVARIEUX: So, Emira, let's first start off with what the president has on his agenda. The White House says that it's mostly about trade and investment. But you're saying that there's also these underlining issues that go hand-in-hand with such policies. Can you elaborate more?WOODS: Well, Jessica, trade and investment has happened with the Africa continent for quite some time, and, you know, from the days of slavery, really. But today, as you look at the global economy, the key issues, the key ingredients on which the global economy survives are being sourced from Africa. So whether it's oil or gas or uranium, these key resources, oil, gas, and mining, end up being the dominant factor in trade with Africa and the U.S., as well as other countries throughout the world. So trade and investment is not necessarily a new phenomenon when it comes to Africa.I think clearly what is needed now is trade and investment that doesn't just continue the status quo but actually provides bold leadership to ensure that communities on whose land resources lie are actually benefiting from investment and trade practices, that small- and medium-size enterprises are able to benefit, that labor rights and environmental protection standards are actually built into any efforts to expand areas of trade and investment with Africa. I think what is needed is just a whole new vision of how the U.S. engages with the continent and not just business as usual.

DESVARIEUX: Well, let's talk about some of the policies that they've already enacted. At last year's G8 summit, there was the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. Can you just discuss a little bit about this policy? How much money are we talking about? What's at stake here? And how is this part of this whole problem with the same sort of initiatives being repeated in Africa's colonial past we're seeing here in modern-day society?WOODS: Well, I think a lot of concerns are being raised in Africa around this question of food sovereignty to ensure that people in communities throughout the continent--70 percent of the continent is reliant on agriculture and lives in the rural areas--and to ensure that people are actually benefiting from the resources on their land. So it sounds great when we think about this new alliance for food. You know, increasing yields, increasing productivity all sound fantastic. But if you look beyond the mask, beyond the title, what you recognize is that, you know, throughout the continent there has been this push now for the appropriation of Africa's land. Africa continues to enjoy much of the last remaining arable land on this planet. And so what you have is what many are calling a land grab that's underway, where U.S. and other foreign investors--it's not just U.S.; it's China, it's Saudi Arabia, it's a number of countries now that are investing in land in Africa.And two of the issues. First, you know, often it's communities that have been longtime residents of this land, you know, being now tossed off their ancestral lands, being forced out of farmlands and out of the rural areas altogether. I think the second concern is around biofuel production and the appropriation of land for really growing biofuels to feed cars, you know, as opposed to growing food to feed people.And, of course, the third concern is around genetically modified organisms, GMOs, and efforts by particularly U.S. agribusiness companies to expand their production of genetically modified foods. I think the concerns are often that small- and medium-size farmers, their practices to actually feed their families, their communities, their region will be pushed aside as large agribusiness firms, particularly U.S. and European companies, swoop in in efforts to appropriate land for large-scale agricultural production that can feed the interest of U.S. particularly biofuel industries and others outside of Africa

.DESVARIEUX: So let's talk a little bit about President Obama and what sort of grade you would give him in terms of his policies in Africa, being that he is the first African-American U.S. president. What sort of grade would you give him, number one? And how are you perceiving there being--the mood there on the continent from the image that President Obama had in his first term compared to here in his second term? Are we seeing a shift there?

WOODS: Jessica, I think I would have made a terrible teacher, because for me grading can be hard. I think I would probably take an average of a C if I were to give an honest assessment today.I think there was tremendous excitement when President Obama took office. It was, after after all, a son of Africa rising to the highest office on the planet to be president of the United States and in the White House, a great degree of high expectations and true joy that that historic marker had been made at long last.But I think since then a lot of that joy has been replaced, really, by a sense of, well, there has been a change in the presidency in the United States, but there is still very much a continuation of programs established under the Bush administration, programs like the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, which many see as a militarization of U.S. engagement with Africa. You know, it started under Bush and really continued and strengthened under Obama, and a sense of frustration, maybe the limitations of the presidency, perhaps, but also the dominance of forces that are really interested in maintaining the status quo. And I think that now creates a mixed reaction where there are some that are still applauding that Obama is carving out time early in the second term to go to Africa, understanding the significance of Africa's, you know, over 1 billion people on the rise, largely young people, who are engaged in vibrant technologies and in a range of activities on the continent. And some are applauding the opportunities to spotlight that through a presidential visit to Africa. You know. But there is still a bit of concern and actual resentment that the high hopes have been really dashed because there has not been the bold leadership needed to actually change the status quo of how the U.S. engages with Africa to create a truly mutually beneficial relationship where Africa's rise is actually supported and bolstered by a visionary U.S. leadership from the White House and beyond.DESVARIEUX:

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Emira.WOODS: Oh, it's always a pleasure. Thank you.

LINK:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

[Tx4obama]

1. ... expanding economic growth, investment, & trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and...

May 20, 2013

Obama to visit Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania from June 26 to July 3, the White House announced on Monday. The Obamas spent one emotionally charged day in Ghana in July 2009—the president's only other visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office.

"The president will reinforce the importance that the United States places on our deep and growing ties with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including through expanding economic growth, investment, and trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of African leaders," press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

"The president will meet with a wide array of leaders from government, business, and civil society, including youth, to discuss our strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues," Carney said, adding that "the trip will underscore the President’s commitment to broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa to advance regional and global peace and prosperity."

-snip-

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-visit-senegal-south-africa-tanzania-203546237.html

[former9thward]

2. It is about grabbing resources.

China is in Africa in a big way and the U.S. is afraid it will get cut out of the grab.

[malaise]

20. Ding ding we have a winner

The entire world wants Africa's resources - they started with our healthiest inhabitants

[former9thward]

21. Obama has 500 businessmen along with him on this trip.

They are not there just to see the scenery.

[forestpath]

3. Whatever the 1% wants.

[leftstreet]

4. Resource stealing, privatizing, profiteering

Same shit, same Global Elite, different country

[KittyWampus]

5. Which must be why Obama wants Russ Feingold there. Cause Feingold is so into that sort of stuff

[leftstreet]

6. Kerry wants Feingold

Possibly because he was Chairman of African Affairs and he's, uh, like qualified, and needs a job?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

7. They are considered the same thing by our capitalist

But now they have competition form China... hopefully that will force them to change some of their nefarious ways.

[pampango]

8. If Africa uses its resources to produce its own goods, will the West put tariffs on Africa's exports

We certainly should encourage Africa to use its resources to develop industries. Allowing them to sell their products to people everywhere rather than only to their own lower-income consumers will accelerate their development.

A resource grab whether undertaken by China, the US or any other country would be a horrible policy. Ignoring or isolating Africa would be no better.

[Gravitycollapse]

9. The history of modern Africa is one of intentional retardation of growth.

Precisely because the West wishes to control African resources. They do not wish to see an independent Africa.

[pampango]

11. That has been the history with some exceptions. Of course, it does not have to be the future.

The "curse" of being resource-rich is that others see a country as merely a source of that resource rather than as people who are quite like us and should be treated as such - welcomed, respected, helped if appropriate, traded with equitably.

I can lament the past, but if the future is not to mirror the past, what can we do to help make that happen? Our goal is for Africa to use its own resources to manufacture its own goods rather than exporting resources to the West and importing manufactured products from the West.

[Gravitycollapse]

12. Our goal has never been to help Africans. They are merely in the way.

To assume that fact has somehow changed quite recently is without merit.

[pampango]

13. I did not say that our policy had changed. I said that the future can be different than the past.

I do not think Africa is doomed forever just because the West has a history of holding it back. I hope you do not believe that either. For Africa's future to be better than its past change has to happen.

A few decades ago some thought Asia (with over half of the world's population and almost none of its wealth was) "doomed". Few people contend that now. Change, unpredictable at the time, happened.

Forty years ago few would have predicted that China would have the world's second biggest economy. Africa has a population similar to China. Perhaps in forty years many will be surprised at what Africa looks like.

[Gravitycollapse]

15. Ugh. It's telling that you think China is a success story.

It means your standard of whether or not a country or continent succeeds is whether or not they have given into the mass consumption and production of capitalist exploitation.

Africa is fucked in so many different ways that it's hard to imagine how the damage could ever be undone. What I do know, however, is that we, the colonizers, will never help.

[Fumesucker]

10. Yes

[UTUSN]

14. those are the choices?!1 nt

[polly7]

16. Contextualizing Obama’s Visit to Africa

By Horace Campbell

Source: Pambazuka

Monday, July 01, 2013

The nervousness and anxiety of the West over the future of the U.S. financial dominance was quite clear from the communique issued after the recent 2013 G8 meeting in Ireland. Most of the points in the communique issued by the White House (the Lough Erne Declaration) dealt with the challenges coming out of Africa and the role of transnational corporations plundering African resources without paying taxes.[8] Prior to the G8 meeting, the 2013 Report of the Africa Progress Panel headed by former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Anan, called on the same G8 leaders to police their corporations. The Panel had called for inter alia:

• The G8 and the G20 to establish common rules requiring full public disclosure of the beneficial ownership of companies, with no exceptions.
• Companies bidding for natural resource concessions to disclose the names of the people who own and control them.[9]

The destructive extraction of resources from Africa is old and has taken new forms, as Patrick Bond reminds us in Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation.[10] For the past six decades the World Bank domination of economic arrangements in Africa has seen the period of dramatic capital flight from Africa.[11] The multi-billion dollar enterprise of looting Africa was at the foundation of an international system that increasingly worked on the basis of speculative capital. The World Bank and the IMF understood that the real foundations of actual resources were to be found in Africa. To conceal the looting and plunder, the West disguised the reality that Africa is a net creditor to the advanced capitalist countries (termed “donors” in neo-liberal parlance). For this reason (and to perpetuate the myths of “spurring economic growth and investment”), the United States government has been caught in a losing battle where new rising forces such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, Turkey, South Korea and other states offer alternatives to the structural adjustment and austerity packages. Barack Obama is going to Africa to boost the armaments culture of the United States at a moment when details of the massive corporate-government spy operations has exposed the surveillance of citizens in all parts of the world in the name of fighting extremism. Citizens are finding out that the gathering of intelligence ultimately serves the interests of capital equity groups such as the Carlyle group that is involved in armaments, intelligence and the stock market.[12]

Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/contextualizing-obama-s-visit-to-africa-by-horace-campbell

[scarletwoman]

18. This really deserves to be an OP!

Citizens are finding out that the gathering of intelligence ultimately serves the interests of capital equity groups such as the Carlyle group that is involved in armaments, intelligence and the stock market.

[polly7]

19. I'll make it one. Thanks, scarletwoman ... I thought it was a good article, too. nt.

[KoKo]

17. International News I saw today seemed to have a "Mixed Reaction."

From "Al Jazeera to RT to Press TV to BBC to CNN International...MIXED....