Fair exchange
From Mr Jeremy Lowry Sir: South African President Thabo Mbeki's Earth Summit demand for cash from the West to 'eradicate poverty and underdevelopment' will attract little sympathy. To elicit a more positive response, he might have tried the following.
Thanked the West for the billions of dollars it has already poured into Africa. Made a statement regretting that the majority of the aid, already generously provided by the West, had been wasted through incompetence, lost through corruption, or used to finance the luxurious lifestyles of Africa's leaders and their acolytes. He might then have condemned his neighbour President Mugabe's racist programme of ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe as the direct cause of the people's suffering. But, of course, he did not. Africa's leaders blame everyone apart from themselves. and appeal to our post-colonialist guilt to bail them out. If Africa wants help, it should trade honesty in return. Such an approach might yield better results.
Jeremy Lowly
Geneva, Switzerland
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