Pambazuka - Moeletsi Mbeki addresses AFRICOM - 0 views
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On the results of instability, Mbeki said that an important factor that determines whether a country develops or not is, on the one hand, its ability to generate a meaningful economic surplus. On the other hand, it is its ability to direct a large part of that surplus to productive investment rather than merely to private consumption. As a result of Africa's endemic instability, a large part of sub-Saharan Africa's surplus leaves the continent.
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Arabica Robusta on 31 May 10How does Mbeki's argument here fit into the issue of odious debt? Productive resources are used to sell exotic export crops in order to earn money that is used to pay interest on debts from loans made to dictators that were allies during the Cold War. Meanwhile, food is imported and subsistence land sold to China, Saudi Arabia and others.
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Assessing Mbeki’s positions is complicated, as one cannot easily discount the accommodation he made to reach out to his audience. After all this is an audience charged with everything from humanitarian relief to covert anti-terror activities, some of whose operations are alleged to violate fundamental international laws.
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Second, Mbeki posits a developmental model based on comparative advantage, but he does not explain its failure even though it has implemented in many parts of Africa for over 30 years. Yet Mbeki does not hesitate to put the blame ‘in the final analysis’ squarely on African leaders themselves, even though he glosses over the evidence produced by the developmental model he endorses, which north of the Limpopo was foisted on many African countries in the most dastardly circumstances.
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