4 October 2001
Dakar — The September 11 terror attacks in the United States will have disastrous consequences for the daily lives of many Africans already resigned to poverty, disease and marginalisation, warn experts across the continent.
"Necessarily, developing countries that are tied to developed countries will suffer," Ivorian Finance Minister, Alain Bohoun Bouabre said in response to a pessimistic World Bank, report issued Monday.
World Bank President, James Wolfensohn warned of "another human toll that is largely unseen and one that will be felt in all parts of the developing world, especially Africa.
"We estimate that tens of thousands more children will die worldwide and some 10 million more people are likely to be living below the poverty line of one dollar a day because of the terrorist attacks," Wolfensohn said.
He said "many, many more people will be thrown into poverty if development strategies are disrupted."
Tourism has already been heavily affected, especially in Zimbabwe where it accounts for 12 per cent of the economy and was already hit by election related violence.
British, German and US tourists who once flocked to the country are staying away in droves, according to hotels, travel agencies and Air Zimbabwe.
In Senegal, which normally attracts tourists from Europe, operators are reporting cancellations but remain hopeful that effects will be minimal.
The World Bank report said that falling commodity prices may impoverish another two million to three million people in Africa.
Even before the attacks, commodity prices were forecast to fall 7.4 % on average this year.
Oil prices have fallen to $22 a barrel, down five dollars from before the attacks, the World Bank said, possibly setting the stage for lower agricultural and metals commodity prices next year.
In Cote d' Ivoire, the world's top producer of cocoa, projections of 1.5 % growth this year and 2.5 % growth in 2002 are no longer realistic, Bouabre said.
A cocoa industry official, Locine Cisse, said the World Bank report would provoke a "voluntary fall in prices" of raw materials in London and New York.
"Even when the West swims in plenty, we don't benefit," said Cisse, of the Ivorian Federation of Coffee and Cocoa Producers. "But now ... it won't be the plantations that die. It's going to be human lives that will disappear."
In South Africa, whose economy is one_quarter driven by exports, diamond giant, De Beers has modified sales projections downward, the daily Business Day reported.
In the face of a drop in world demand, South African commodity exports are expected to suffer, as well as the aeronautical industry and, as elsewhere, tourism.
The South African currency, the rand is at an all-time low of $9.14 to, and fuel and food staple prices have dropped.
Oil exporting countries such as Nigeria fear that crude oil prices will collapse if a recession takes hold in the United States.
A ray of hope came from the National Institute for Economic Policy in Johannesburg, whose research director, Asghar Adelzadeah said that if the United States continued to lower interest rates and South Africa followed suit, the domestic market would benefit.
He also pointed to a possible windfall from rising gold prices as investors turn to the precious metal in search of a safe haven away from turbulent stock and currency markets.
Meanwhile, large number of prominent Taliban officials have already fled Afghanistan, fearing reprisals should the Islamic militia be toppled from power, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review.
An Islamic judge as well as senior officials in the militia's feared religious police have fled the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, together with the city's mayor, the weekly magazine cited Afghan sources in the Pakistani city of Quetta as saying.
Most of them have already arrived in Quetta, the Review reported in its latest issue, while some Taliban ministers have escaped to the North Western Pakistani city of Peshawar.
The same sources said the religious police had almost disappeared from the streets of the Afghan capital Kabul, apparently for fear of retribution from a civilian population they have "harassed, jailed and beaten" for the past five years.
In Western Afghanistan, around the city of Herat, Taliban troops have deserted checkpoints along the border with Iran.
"In the West, the Taliban have all but disappeared," the Review quoted Patricia Grossman, an American human rights advocate who is in contact with Afghans inside the country, as saying.
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