Africa rescrambled
Patrick Marnham
'What do you think happened to the money !ve invested in South-East Asia? It didn't Just disappear. It moved here. West Africa has taken up t he slack from Vietnam. In Mali alone the United States Information budget Is as big as in Afghanistan, although no
West African country appears to be that Important to us.' Thus spoke one genial
American diplomat on being asked to explain what was going on in the huge area of Africa between Mauritania and Angola.
West Africa is barely reported at all at the Moment, but something important is hapPening nonetheless. In terms of twentiethcentury African history, West Africa is the most advanced segment of the sub-Saharan Continent and the furthest along the road from the colonial struggles which still preoccupy the southern African countries: And the pattern of events is not unfamiliar to students of African history. It was in 1876 that King Leopold of the Belgians founded his African International Association, the Prospectus of which, with its pious references to science and commerce, is reminis!ent of the stated intentions of today's development agencies' such as USA1D or the United Nations' FAO. The real intentions of the African International Association were of course imperial, and one finds it difficult today when contemplating the emblem of USA I D, tightly clasped hands on a. Stars and Stripes shield, not to wish for a Sig ht of what another American hand is up to. Is it karate-chopping the lucky recipient of all that Rockefeller fertiliser, or just tickling him into submission ? For America, the Sahelian drought provided a unique opportunity in West Africa USA ID was the weapon to hand. There Is considerable misunderstanding even t,°day about the purposes of the Agency for international Development, much of it carefully fostered by AID itself. For a start it
has nothing to do with relief in times of
h ,arctsniP. Even American diplomats do not always understand about AID. 'Our new cplbassador's wife seemed to think I worked c: some kind of charity,' said one AID ?Ineial. 'So I had to spell it out for her. "My ubffice is in the Embassy, beside your hus ,d's. We both work for Henry Kissinger At the end of what should be his last „ est African tour Henry Kissinger an"ounced a £4,000 million assistance pro„gr‘nrime for the Sahelian countries (an g,nnouncement which AI D's West African uhirector in Senegal pretended never to have „e'trd of three months later). Politicians ciPublicise their gifts, and then AID works inutetlY away turning Sahelian nomads into , beef ranchers for Macdonald's dillmirger shops. The final degree of
control over the country is as complete as anything dreamed of by King Leopold and a great deal more difficult to unscramble. To date,USAID's operation is less grotesque i than n South-East Asia, where (as Richard West recorded in his invaluable memoir, Victory in Vietnam) AID once financed a Pepsi-Cola plant which was used as a cover for a heroin-processing factory. But as in Vietnam, so in Mali, subsistence farmers afe being induced to manufacture gewgaws for the tourist industrY, and when they are paid for these trinkets they will undoubtedly find numbers of imported items handily placed for them to buy. Again as in Vietnam, members of all the American missions enjoy a standard of living which is so far removed from the local one that it might almost be calculated to produce African envy.
A comparison of figures in Mali shows that a Malian official in Bamako earns about £90 a month, which enables him to support a comfortable standard of living. USAID pays its staff £400 a month in housing money alone, of which £300 goes in rent and most of the rest on electricity for the air-conditioning and (sometimes) the pool filter. Naturally these costs are included in the total AID figures for the country; it all comes out of Dr Kissinger's little present. And with that rent, the Malian landlord can recoup his entire building costs within five years. This is the invisible 'tickle': AID's other hand. The most modern quarter of Bamako, which is inhabited by these influential and able citizens, is known by the rest of the population as le Quartier de la Secheresse in memory of the drought which brought forth the famine relief and the development funds so shrewdly invested in these villas. It is not a story of corruption among local officials so much as a calculated exercise in manipulation by donor and recipient for agreed but unstated purposes. The value which America places on its
West African investment seems to be increasing. All along the coast new and larger embassies are under construction and they are even securing their foothold in the territory of the supposedly raging Marxist, Sekou Toure of Guinea. Further south in anglophone West Africa they are not
quite so popular, but none the less present in strength. In Nigeria the Americans received an unusually public rebuff. They undertook to construct a large office block for some of their staff on the understanding that they would then beallowed to occupY it rent-free. No sooner was it complete and furnished than the Lagos authorities, in a move described as 'anti-imperialist,' evicted them and converted the block into agreeable apartments. Optimistically they have now started all over again with an enormous new national compound, this time on Victoria Island where many of John Poulson's barrack-like structures still stand empty.
Kissinger may be going but his influential 'African group,' which arranged the Rhodesian talks, will continue, and the numerous government agencies will grow under the State Department's umbrella. Apart from strategic considerations there are about 150 million people in West Africa, and outside the capital cities there are barely 150 deep freezes. This is the sort of challenge which USA ID can never resist.
The traditional criticism of the old scramble for Africa was that once the boundaries were drawn, the people living within them were largely ignored. But not this time. The savage wars of peace are fought today with rather more attention to detail. It is no longer a matter of securing the capital city; internal politics demand that something be seen to be done for the countryside. This invariably means 'developing' agriculture, which entails the destruction of the traditional methods of producing food. The disruptive potential of this agricultural development, 'the green revolution,' is far greater than old-fashioned mineral exploitation or even the imposition of monocultures, as the real story of recent famines will one day testify.
The Afrithn leaders who dealt with the emissaries of King Leopold and Queen Victoria could choose between resistance and negotiation. Today they have no choice. Not one of the countries of independent Africa can afford to expel the development agencies.
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