Boat Loan Malaysia
Poverty is a black thing?
The weak performance of African economies and economies where people are of another color that whites took the people ask whether poverty is a black thing or a color.
This issue of poverty to be a black thing gained credibility in many circles. This question is also asked about Africa, because it is the poorest continent on the planet. It is a continent where 30 years there has been no concrete economic development for the rest of the world. It lags behind all other continents in terms of economic and social development. Most were not all countries of the African continent has similar problems areas include high unemployment, high inflation, higher deficits, poor condition of economic infrastructure and social, including roads, ports, education, airports, telecommunications, health and sanitation, and rail system. Africa is a continent where people die for lack of food, water, and against common preventable diseases. It is a continent full of despair, misery and hopelessness. It is a continent where too few children five years old to survive the threat of the six killer diseases. It is a continent where people have no access basic needs of life. It is a continent where people walk several miles of water and children have no access to education services and medical care. It is a continent where rural life is nothing more than a sentence of misery. It is a place where people live in mud / thatched houses with bamboo leaves / raffia as shingles. It is a continent full of wars and armed conflicts. It is a continent of dictators and kleptocrats, a continent where corruption is rewarded and the performance is prevented, a continent where the entry into public life / service is seen as a means of acquiring wealth and a means of obtaining positions top. It is a continent where life expectancy is low and very high corruption.
So it is a thing of race or color? I must say that I I do not agree or subscribe to the notion that poverty has color in it and infer that underdevelopment and impoverishment that is prevalent in the African continent is deeply rooted in centuries of slavery and colonialism, coups, armed conflicts, the brain drain, the endemic corruption and mismanagement, Dictatorial rule, Kleptocracy, foreign intervention and the struggle for control of natural resources.
Slavery and colonialism
Centuries of slavery and colonialism on the continent of his private capacity to human and economic resources. Capable men and women were taken to work plantations of the Americas (at all about people 30-40000000) and they helped make the United States and in Europe they are today. Millions of young Africans were forced to leave the continent of their origin and were transported several thousand miles away to a land where they had no historical connection. They traveled in very deplorable conditions without adequate food, water and air. When they reached the so-called new world were made to work in the morning until the sun goes down once it had been on their own Sunday that they had everything they needed in their own planting of such crops, repairing their houses. It was a very unpleasant experience having to work for us without pay. Some even worked, until he fell dead. The slave trade of the continent private of its men and women of energy a vital resource in any development process and sank the continent into the intellectual desert.
Pillage resources
About the same time that slavery was being vigorously pursued, the natural resources including timber, gold, diamonds, tin ore, ivory and many were looted in large quantities by many European countries as Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy. After slavery was abolished the plundering of natural resources continued. The irony is that virtually all the revenues these resources were used to finance development economic and development infrastructure of the European countries with little or nothing being used to develop various countries where these resources came from. A clear example the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where King Leopold II of Belgium, enslaved Africans, forced them to work without pay, killed about 10 million and plundered the country of its resources and virtually nothing has been used to invest in the country except the weapons that the army used to terrorize Belgium and kill Africans. When the DRC was transferred from Leopold II of Belgium, the state of looting and killing continued until the DRC gained its independence in 1960. Actually DRC (State Congo Free) was the main supplier of rubber a vital raw material for the tire industry and all the money from the sale of rubber has been to Belgium. King Leopold II was able to transform Belgium as one of the poorest countries of Europe in one of the richest courtesy slavery and plunder of Africa and its resources.
Belgium was not the only one she made for the continent. Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy, all looted Africa of its gold diamonds, ivory, timber, cobalt, coltan, tin ore, bauxite, manganese, and all the minerals you can think of. Africans who resisted illegal activities have died in their millions, as happened in South West Africa (now Namibia) in 1904-1907 where the Germans committed the first genocide of this century 20, killing the Herero and Namaqua people. While Europe has become richer in Africa has become poorer and the trend continued until the 1950s when countries Africa began to gain its "independence" beginning in 1951 with Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, all in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.
With little or no investment on the mainland many post colonial governments inherited countries with virtually no infrastructure: roads, rails, ports, telecommunications, education, health and sanitation and airports. The only areas that saw some little infrastructure investment during the colonial period, were those where the raw materials were heavily mined. The achievement of independence does not come Plata silver. Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Namibia and to some extent South Africa achieved their independence from their colonial masters through the arm struggle and in most cases the little infrastructure that existed were destroyed due to conflicts.
Foreign Involvement
How is colonialism, slavery and looting of resources of the continent was not enough the continent became a battlefield during the Cold War, when the two superpowers and their allies fought for influence and control over the continent, especially its resources. As a result, many African governments who believe themselves to be pro-Russia or America was overthrown in the military. A case in point was the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana on February 24, 1966. Another example is the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo, on January 17 1961.Other leaders such as Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for advocating independence or both to improve the conditions of Africans. CIA and Western intelligence community have been implicated in the murder engineering and overthrow of elected leaders of Africa. For example, Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Congo during the day Patrice Lumumba told Washington Post in December 2008 saying that he refused an order to kill Patrice Lumumba, but his refusal did not stop the CIA and the Belgian government from overthrow and assassinate him. The assassination attempt of Egyptian President Gamal Nasser of Egypt on October 24, 1954 and the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 was accused of being the work of M16 Britain because of its refusal to hand over the administration of the Suez Canal for Britain.
The CIA, KGB and its allies and encouraged financed wars and political instability throughout the continent. Angola has become the battleground for the CIA, KGB and Chinese as each tried to gain control of the country, its people and resources. A civil war involving Angola in 1975 ended only in 1991 after 26 years of conflict. When the war ended the little infrastructure that remained after the war independence (1961-1974) is gone.
On March 7, 2004 a British national Simon Mann, a veteran and former mercenary of elite British special forces (SAS), and 69 other mercenaries were arrested at a military airport in Harare, Zimbabwe. His destination was Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. His mission was to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a country of 600,000 people. During his defense, he mentioned that some powerful members of the British establishment, their financiers and supporters, including the UK, Jack Straw, justice minister, Peter Mandelson, former European The Union's trade commissioner and now Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Sir Mark Thatcher, a businessman and son of former prime UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer, a key member of Tory who was convicted of perjury and Ely Calil stinky a Lebanese oil trader accused of funding the plot. Mark Thatcher was arrested in South Africa and accused of supplying the aircraft carrying Simon Mann to Harare. Mr. Thatcher pleaded guilty in South Africa and was later required to pay £ 300,000 in exchange for a prison sentence. The coup put an Severo Moto, an opposition leader living in Spain in command of the country. The coup was to give both the conspirators and their supporters free access to the undoubted appeal of oil in the nation. Mann If the coup had succeeded and his cronies have transformed the Equatorial Guinea on one of the usual sad stories in Africa, bloodshed, corruption, mismanagement, poverty and what you have. Governments Spain, South Africa and another in the west have been seriously implicated by being aware of the plot. Thanks to the vigilance of the regime of Robert Mugabe's knock was cut at its root. Unfortunately, most resource-rich countries in the continent were not all that lucky.
Among the mercenaries who attempted to return to Africa to their former colonial masters was Bob Denard. In fact, Simon Mann is just a small fish compared to Bob Denard, a Frenchman who made a career as a mercenary overthrow leaders in Africa. When Bob Denard died in 2007, he had more than a dozen coups to his credit. Four of these scams have occurred in Comoros island alone. French author Jean Guisner, who has followed Denard career and wrote extensively about the French government, says Denard has done nothing that was contrary to French interests – and he would have acted in close cooperation with intelligence services. Mercenary Denard's career took place between 1950 and 1980. During this period, he reported having been involved in post-independence Nigeria, Benin, in 1977, Angola, Zaire – now DRC and the former Rhodesia – which is now Zimbabwe. Registering your frustration and lack of justice for the Comorians, Mr. Abdou Soule Elbak, former president of Grande Comoro said: "This man sullied our history," referring to Denard. "I regret that it was not meant to respond to all crimes committed in our country, murder and torture that he was guilty," said Moustoifa Said Sheikh, leader of the Democratic Front party. All these mercenary activities on the continent occurred because of natural resources.
The product of all these were political instability, and want the destruction of lives and property that have plagued Africa today. As the elected leaders of the continent were murdered, shot down and subjected to all forms of cold war tactics, including bribery, blackmail and arm twisting the continent's corrupt and failures in all aspects of human activity. The new crop of leaders who replaced postcolonial independence leaders and were widely puppets in the hands of European governments and U.S. became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko, who became the choice of the Americans after they help to assassinate Lumumba ruled Congo for 32 years and those years, the country became poorer as Mobutu and his companions were the richest and most Western countries, including U.S. and its allies were looting the mineral resources Freehand Cobalt most important of an important mineral needed for missile development. Little development activities was carried out by Mobutu. As a result today the Congo can be accessed only by boats and canoes, mainly through the Congo River.
As tyrants and dictators gained the support of Western governments and did what wanted with their savings, no doubt about its people became poorer and hopelessness and despair were the marks of his life. As the little money that came to the government coffers were taken by corrupt government officials and civil servants has been almost no money to carry out the development of infrastructure and poverty increased. Poverty, despair and hopelessness and visited the people along with their inability to change their leaders democratically dissent were sown among the population they serve as breeding more coups, civil wars and civil unrest. This evidence was in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Algeria, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Central Africa, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sierra Leone all scams experienced in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even early 1990. These waves of strikes were followed by civil wars that broke Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, CAR, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Nigeria and Guinea. These wars beyond the human cost has also contributed to the destruction of roads, ports, airports, railways, telecommunications, hospitals, schools and livelihoods of people. With the absence of infrastructure in the country has been unable to make any headway in terms of economic development.
World Bank, IMF, and the role of foreign companies
The World Bank and IMF (Bretton Woods), foreign firms have also played their part in making the endemic poverty the continent. Most African countries billions of debt incurred by borrowing from the Bank and the IMF. Most of these loans conditional was used to service the debt already held by these poor countries. The loans were also used to pay the expatriates who came to continent as "technical experts".
Some of these loans were also used to carry out projects and programs that only benefited the rich. Again part of the loan was also sucked up by corrupt politicians and civil servants.
The structural adjustment program (SAP), has forced the poorest African countries by the World Bank and the IMF has forced many governments to abandon its support for the public sector with serious consequences. The removal of agricultural subsidies in particular has made it difficult for farmers to compete with their Western counterparts, who receive millions of dollars of subsidies government each year. The unrest and riots over food shortages and high food prices that occurred in Egypt, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Sierra Leone in 2008 were the direct result of the Bank and the IMF's bitter pills prescribed for these poor countries.
Due to SAP and other investment policies of the Bank and the IMF on education, health, transport and other sectors of the economy has decreased considerably. Governments were forced to privatize state enterprises. The sad aspect of this exercise was that almost all companies were to foreigners and the resources used to pay debts already belong to these poor nations. Unable to pay its debts and arrested more money from these poor countries turned to the bank and the IMF for more loans and the Bank's response was to open its markets for foreign goods and accept globalization. As a result, the continent has become a repository for foreign goods. Unable to compete with the influx of products cheaper foreign to most local businesses have no choice but to close, laying off several million workers and devastating many families. Mr. John Jenkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man 'has written extensively about how the World Bank, IMF and the large number of cartels corporations and conspired to keep African and developing countries in the state where they are today. Please watch on youtube John Jenkins as he tells his story extraordinary on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8
The presence of companies like Shell, Mobil, Chevron, BP, Total, Rio Tinto, Texaco, BHP Billiton, Anglo American and others contributed to the high levels of poverty the continent. These companies are mainly from the extraction of resources from nature have destroyed the once rich soil of Africa, forcing many farmers to abandon losing their farms and their livelihoods. Rivers, wells and streams used by people for everyday activities like washing clothes and drinking were polluted by these companies nonprofits. Fishing in most mining communities and the drilling of oil left as pollution killed fish stocks in these rivers and ponds provide the unemployed fishermen. Communities that were radiant with life ghosts are communities such as land, rivers, ponds and wells were destroyed. Breath, nausea and other mining-related diseases are increasing in many communities where the mining and oil extraction are occurring, but these nonprofits have to abandon their social responsibilities we owe to the people. In August 2006, a Dutch company called Trafigura dumped waste highly toxic in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, killing 17 people and sickening thousands. Such inhumane acts byTrafigura is just the tip of the iceberg.
Brain Drain
The poverty on the continent also arise as a result of severe brain drain that hit the continent in recent times. The drain of doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, judges, bankers, accountants, teachers, nurses, planners, agricultural experts and others have limited our ability to implement projects and programs. The flight of intellectuals has many government agencies too weak. In some communities, there hospitals without doctors and nurses. In others, there are universities and colleges, teachers and without teachers. Countries like Malawi, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia have lost much of its professionals to the very rich countries of Europe and America so much that many of its industries have resorted to hiring foreigners expertise to deal with. For example, there are more Malawian doctors in Manchester City alone than the entire combined Malawi. The irony is that governments use scarce resources to the formation of these intellectuals only for them to leave the country for greener pastures abroad. Britain and the U.S. are major recipient of such a brain drain and even they are aware of the enormous negative impact it is having in these poor developing countries, they did nothing to prevent that in most cases, have encouraged it.
Corruption and mismanagement
Corruption is another cancer that has tragically made a very poor continent. From South Africa to Egypt there is no country where corruption is not endemic. According to African Union (AU) around 148 billion U.S. dollars are stolen from the continent by its lead ers and public officials. In 2006, the Forbes list of most corrupt nations had nine of the first 16 countries coming from Africa. Since oil was discovered the first time in Nigeria, about 50 years, many billions of dollars have been made from her today, but the population is still to live in poverty and the country has nothing to show for it. As a result of the able men and women are struggling just to get dangerous seas in Europe and try his luck. Others took the 419 a popular scam used to rip people off because their money and valuables. Those who appear to have benefited from oil are Corrupt politicians, civil servants and big oil corporations like Shell, Mobil, BP and its U.S. counterparts. Indeed, Nigeria is constantly in the top 1% of the most corrupt nation on the planet. Between 2005 and 2007, several state governors and their closest relatives were arrested by Scotlandyard in London on money laundering and corruption charges. Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa, who had their assets frozen 35 million dollars for the English court. Mr Ibori wins a thousand dollars a month, but during his eight years as governor, he managed to acquire wealth in the order of $ 35 million and was one of the main financial contributors to the campaign of the current president of Nigeria. He owns a private jet and luxury house in London. Other Diepreye Alamieyeseigha is corrupt governor, governor of oil rich state of Bayelsa State who was also arrested in London on charges of money laundering. Mr. Alamieyeseigha broke his bail conditions and managed to escape in Britain by dressing as a woman. When police conducted a search at his home in London found that one million pounds of cash into your home. Another governor who was arrested in England was Joshua Dariya of Plateau State. He was arrested in a London hotel for stealing money earmarked for the development of their state. In South Africa Jacob Zuma is still battling it out with the court for his involvement in arms deal Multi-billion in 2001 in South Africa who was forced to resign as Vice President of South Africa at the end of the Mobutu's 32 years as President of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo has accumulated several billion dollars that belong to the people of Congo. In 2006, former president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was arrested for embezzling U.S. $ 12 million donated to his impoverished country by foreign governments. Again, the former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba was arrested along with two businessmen and Aaron Chungu Faustin Kabwe and charged with 11 counts of stealing money earmarked for the development of Zambia. In Equatorial Guinea, where oil exports earned the country billions of dollars to 600,000 people living in the country still live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to suck oil revenues, without accountability. Angola and Gabon, both oil-exporting countries are no different. Indeed, governments, Gabon and Guinea Equatorial can best be described as a kleptocracy that is government by thieves. In countries like Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Gambia, Uganda, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, a class of people Kleptocracy replaced democracy nothing. In these countries many people stay in power and people have no say in how their country is rule or enforcement. For example Gaddafi of Libya was in power for 39 years. Omar Bongo of Gabon, 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon, 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, 22 years, Omar Al Bashir, 19, Iddriss Derby of Chad for 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, 14, and the list is endless. What is clear is that these leaders do not elected continue to accumulate wealth at the expense of poor countries and continue to mismanage what remains of their corrupt acts. Because most leaders are ex-military or ex-rebels without understanding of economics and management, are unable to make any good economic policies that will make their economies grow, so poverty has become a part the people but their leaders do not know what poverty is. A visit to the region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria shows that most people are unemployed. Years of oil spills have made the soil unsuitable for any agricultural activity. Its streams and wells are contaminated and people have no access to basic necessities of life, despite billions of dollars is realized on the sale of oil in the region every year. In the economic hardship 1990, abject poverty, environmental destruction and forced the people of Ogoniland demand a say in which Shell operates, but the military regime led by General Sani Abacha arrested environmentalists led by Ken Sorowiwa and executed them. Are these resources for developing States that these governors were caught trying to bank far in Europe. Every effort for the government of Nigeria to develop the oil-rich areas fell on death ears to unemployed youths took up arms against the federal government. They kidnapped foreign workers and demanded ransom before their victims were released. They disrupted oil production forcing companies oil to move several miles off its own security, but they were not safe. Eventually, companies had to reduce its production 25% in 2007-8. These disruptions affected oil supplies in the world market, forcing the price jump to $ 140 a barrel in the summer of 2008.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo it is estimated that gold and diamond deposits could only get the country 23 billion dollars for not mention the abundance of wood and other various minerals that are found in large quantities, as columbo-tantalite (Coltan) and cassiterite (tin ore), but years of corruption, mismanagement, conflicts and foreign participation has made this country a rich resource of the world's poorest. Coltan, for example, is used on any mobile phone and a series of electronic devices in the world. Tin used in electronic circuit boards is the most traded metal on the London Stock Exchange. It is often said that Western nations can not maintain their current standard of living without Congo and most corporations, west, you can easily go bust without Congo. question is whether the DRC is the blood line of the west and west is rich because of the Congo, why is it so poor Congo? And where are the billions of dollars from the sale of those minerals? The answer lies in the history of the nation that is corruption, slavery, colonialism, murder, armed conflicts and foreign entanglements. Since its independence from Belgium in 1960, no peace in the country. Several million Congolese died about 4 million of them in the last eight years alone and most of the dead are civilians. The conflict in Congo has seen large part of who controls the vast resources in that country. The huge size of the country made the administration very difficult. And the problem is compounded by weak poorly trained, undisciplined and very corrupt Congolese army to kidnap, terrorize, rape and murder of people instead of protecting them.
The various militia groups operating in eastern Afghanistan have made life very difficult and unbearable for the civilian population. These armed groups with support Rwanda and Uganda, largely operated in the region with impunity – abducting, raping, massacring and robbing the poor. Jean Pierre Bemba, who is now facing war crimes in The Hague was a famous warrior whose activities have not escaped the International Criminal Court (ICC). Another famous warrior who is still operating with impunity Laurent Nkunda is. A visit to Walikale town in eastern country in vivid terms explains why people are so tragically poor. People left their farms and moved to the mines, but what is done from the mining is taken away from them by the Congolese army and the ever present predators or armed groups. These armed groups forcing the population to mine for minerals without pay. Unable to farm and not paid for their hard work, most of them to credit food to survive. Walikale Everyday in about 16 aircraft flying out of town, with loads of mineral bound for Rwanda. These minerals also stolen find their way into western mineral market in London and Switzerland. The resources are shared by the warlords in Congo, generals, politicians and entrepreneurs in Rwanda and the rest is used to purchase weapons that are used to terrorize the people and prolong the war. Click the link below to watch a video of the Congo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8c81xHLmw
Recommendations and Conclusion
It is clear that various forces within and outside the continent have contributed to make the planet's poorest continent. But there no time to look back, but a moment to look ahead and get our acts together, organize ourselves and start doing something. Progress What has been done by China, India, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Gulf countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia and Qatar over the past 30-50 years shows that poverty has nothing to do with color or race. Nations become poor because their leaders can not formulate policies and programs that address their problems.
To reverse the negative impact of centuries of slavery and colonialism and decades of one side of coups, civil wars, corruption, mismanagement and foreign interventions, on the other hand, governments should focus their attention on reform its democratic institutions and allow free and fair elections to be organized. They should do more to fight corruption and mismanagement, establish mechanisms for independent monitoring corruption, strengthen the judiciary, and be accountable to the people.
Should limit the power Army and embark on concrete, the sound and the result of policies directed and provide more incentives to discourage brain drain.
Governments should undertake the construction of economic infrastructure and social – schools, hospitals, roads, railways, telecommunications, airports, ports, markets, which will establish the foundations for economic and social development. They must establish research institutions to discover how best to utilize the various natural resources for the benefit the people. As the saying goes "the resources are not, but they become" means that you can have all the natural resources in the world, but if you not have the ability to convert them into useful products and / or supplies to benefit people who are nothing.
The AU be more concerned with fighting poverty that was just a discussion forum for corruption, kleptocracy and dictators.
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