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Africa: Dodging the (Human Rights) Issue
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Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
ANALYSIS
6 December 2007
Posted to the web 6 December 2007
Mario De Queiroz
Lisbon
On the eve of the second Africa-European Union summit, there is broad agreement on the need to defend human rights, above all else. But academics, analysts and activists from both continents harbour serious doubts that this noble aim will find root in reality.
"It is an unavoidable truth that human rights and democratic values are one level below strategic interests," said researcher Manuela Franco at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations, in statements published Wednesday by the Público de Lisboa newspaper.
This new relationship between the two continents "is being fomented because Europe is losing market share in Africa" as China's influence there grows, she said.
On Saturday and Sunday, Lisbon will receive 52 government delegations from Africa, 27 from the EU member states, and observers from the African Union, the European Commission -- the bloc's executive organ -- the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
The first Africa-EU summit was held in 2000 in Cairo, Egypt, also on the initiative of Portugal, when it held the EU rotating presidency, as it does now.
The human rights controversy first broke out when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in September that he would not attend the summit if the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, took part. He confirmed the boycott in late November.
Britain's position, backed by the Netherlands and Denmark, and, more quietly, by Sweden, was in reaction to the human rights situation in that southern African country.
But Portuguese-African observers accuse Britain of turning a blind eye to frequent human rights violations in other African countries, especially Sudan -- in the region of Darfur -- and Ethiopia, but not Zimbabwe, because those affected by the Mugabe regime are white landowners of British descent.
"There are not just two yardsticks, but many, depending on the interests at stake," political analyst Eugenio Costa Almeida told IPS.
"There are humanitarian, political and social reasons to criticise Mugabe and his team, but these were only brought up (in London) after the landowners were 'nationalised' and some British firms were touched - although not all of them; for example, British Airways continues to fly to Zimbabwe," said Costa Almeida, who holds a doctorate in political science from a Portuguese university.
As long as the white farmers were not affected by the Zimbabwean government's policies, "the corruption, misappropriation of funds and theft by Mugabe and his friends went unnoticed by the British," he said.
Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates "is claiming victory because he is bringing together Europeans and Africans, including around 23 heads of state and government, in a summit, something that had never before been achieved -- independently of who will be there: dictators, strongmen or corrupt leaders," he added.
In Portugal, the corruption and autocratic system in Angola is frequently cited, "but everyone forgets about countries where corruption and authoritarianism are deeply-rooted, like Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Somalia, Guinea-Bissau and the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said.
There are also others that "discreetly maintain a certain autocratic attitude, like Mozambique, Zambia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya or Ethiopia. And we also forget, or make every effort to forget, the refugees from Somalia, Uganda and Chad, due to an even worse humanitarian crisis, that of Darfur," he said.
Pointing to China, Costa Almeida argued that when economic interests are at stake, the EU forgets about human rights.
"It is China that most protects the African countries I mentioned, due to its interest in fossil fuels and minerals, while Europe continues to see Africa as a market for its products, rather than a partner on an equal footing," he said.
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Journalist and analyst Ana Dias Cordeiro, who specialises in African affairs, wrote that "civil society in Africa is urging the EU not to forget in Lisbon the values on which the European bloc was built."
Analysts from several countries and representatives of civil society in Africa have criticised the EU's silence with respect to human rights abuses or lack of electoral transparency in Africa, saying that what has predominated are the lack of a firm stance, omission and complicity, said Dias Cordeiro in an article this week in Público.
These criticisms "are based on the viewpoint that the EU-Africa summit will be like so many others: a club where heads of state and government gather to discuss big questions among themselves, while turning their backs on the real problems facing ordinary citizens."
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Talk of past human rights violations appears to be times of yore; particularly from corporate America and the European Union. Under these colonial governments wealth gained is hereditary and its corporate royalties presently active. EU human rights violations in Africa lasted 400 years and on no account spent one day in court for their crimes against humanity.
America and the European Union appear to be suffering from social amnesia, restitutionitis, and compensationism. Wikipedia says, the law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based... [Read Full Text]
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