African Aid

I'm not a fan of Bob Geldof's campaign to write off African debt and to double aid to that troubled continent. Frankly, I can't see why the African people shouldn't be able to help themselves. They live, after all, on a resource rich continent that should be able to rival America. It seems bizarre that democracy and capitalism have not sprung up all over the place. Here is a very good argument on why aid is bad for Africa- from an African.

I watched one or two episodes of Geldof's BBC series on Africa but his litany of problems on the continent didn't convince me that aid was the answer. For example, in his episode on Uganda he pointed out that though the country possesses a good deal of arable farmland, much of it wasn't farmed because the people were too afraid of the absolutely barbaric and despicable Lord's Resistance Army. This group raids villages to supply itself. According to Geldof, aid would be delivered in the form of food and the LRA would promptly raid the village to seize what they need. His only possible solution was for someone (the US probably) to swoop in and assassinate the LRA leader Joseph Kony. I can just imagine now, the utter outrage from Left wingers around the world about that. Aid and debt relief will not alleviate any of the problems that the people of Uganda suffer from. Having said that, I can completely understand Geldof's frustration- he told an absolutely horrific story of a group of seven or eight young girls kidnapped by the LRA and tied together. The group allowed one of them to try and escape. When they caught her again they put her back with her friends and then told the girls to bite her to death- if they did not they would suffer the same fate. The girls were told that unless they came away with flesh in their mouths they too would be killed. Remember, these were children, friends who had been playing with one another when abducted. You can see why Geldof wanted to see Kony dead.

It's probably incredibly un-PC to say it, but a lot of these countries would have been much better off if the colonial rule of the British (Uganda became independent in the early '60s) had continued. At the very least, British troops would be hunting the LRA right now rather than letting them prey on innocent children. They would also probably have more representative governments than they do now, along with stable economies and a better standard of living.