[A-List] (Fwd) Did Africa really say no in Lisbon?

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Does anyone who watches these negotiations closely - and who genuinely 
wants to see Africa repel Brussels' exploitative project - report 
substantial progress from the African side? The EU strategy is to keep 
the EPA negotiations in play, and the next months will feature more 
armtwisting and conditional aid, maybe with mure nuanced twists by 
Sarkozy. And then the inevitable elite deal. The appeal to China as it 
were an anti-imperialist counterweight - all evidence to the contrary, 
i.e. forgetting to mention that Beijing is an interimperialist 
competitor with even nastier companies and client regimes - is as 
misleading as this statement: "Economies continue to prosper - even if 
social inequalities remain - and are piloted by a new generation of 
young leaders." Given the character of extractive industry wealth, this 
bears no relation to genuine wealth generation and savings, which are in 
the negative for most countries if any ecologically-broader measure than 
GDP is used. Which 'young' leaders is Ramonet promoting? The hope that 
the continent's wars will fade - only 3!, forgetting Northern Uganda and 
Burundi, not to mention renewed repression in dozens of countries and 
civil strife - without any analysis of the forces behind these wars is 
disappointing. This is the sort of language that would be welcome and 
expected in Davos; yet Ramonet was associated with the WSF, while LMD 
has regularly carried solid realpolitik, not fluff like this. I hope the 
article below is not the last word there, because this is a wholly 
unsatisfactory way to educate French comrades, especially those who seek 
- fruitlessly in this case - even a mention of social movements, labour, 
women, youth, environmentalists and others engaged in fierce struggle 
against the venal elites Ramonet celebrates.)

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/01/RAMONET/15490

Africa Says No
   By Ignacio Ramonet
   Le Monde Diplomatique

   January 2008

   So then, to the great displeasure of arrogant Europe, the 
unimaginable has occurred: in a burst of pride and revolt, Africa, which 
some believed submissive because it is impoverished, said "no." No to 
the straitjacket of force that the Economic Partnership Agreements (APE) 
are. No to the savage liberalization of trade. No to these latest 
avatars of the "colonial pact."

   All this took place in Lisbon in December during the second European 
Union-Africa summit, the main objective of which was to force the 
African countries to sign new trade treaties (the famous APE) before 
December 31, 2007, in application of the Cotonou Agreement (June 2000), 
which provided for the end of the Lome Convention (1975). According to 
the Lome Convention's provisions, goods from the former African colonies 
(and from the Caribbean and the Pacific) come into the Union with 
virtually no customs duty, except on those products that are sensitive 
for European producers, such as sugar, meat and bananas.

   The World Trade Organization (WTO) required that these preferential 
relationships be dismantled, and that they be replaced - the only way, 
according to the WTO, to preserve a difference in treatment in favor of 
African countries - with trade agreements based on reciprocity (1). The 
European Union opted for this second alternative: wholesale, 
fundamentalist free trade camouflaged under the appellation "Economic 
Partnership Agreements."

   In other words, what the Twenty-Seven were demanding from the 
African (and Caribbean and Pacific (2) countries, was that they agree to 
allow European Union goods and services exports to enter their markets 
without any customs duty.

   Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade denounced this pressure and 
refused to sign. He slammed the door. South Africa's president, Mr. 
Thabo Mbeki, immediately supported him. Right afterwards, Namibia also 
made the courageous decision not to sign, when an increase in Europe 
Union customs duties on its beef would have signaled the end of 
Namibia's beef exports and the extinction of that connection.

   Even the French president, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, although he made 
some extremely unfortunate statements in Dakar in July 2007 (3), lent 
his support to the countries most opposed to these rapacious treaties: 
"I'm for globalization; I'm for freedom," he declared, "but I am not for 
the despoliation of countries that, moreover, no longer have anything 
[to despoil] (4)."

   This rebellion against the APE - which, south of the Sahara, arouse 
an immense wave of popular anxiety as well as intense social and labor 
movements - won the field. The summit adjourned on a note of failure. 
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was forced to back 
down and agree to the African countries' demand to continue the 
discussion. He committed to resuming negotiations next February.

   This crucial victory for Africa is an additional sign of the 
favorable moment the continent is experiencing. During the last few 
years, the most deadly conflicts have ended (the only ones remaining are 
those in Darfur, Somalia and eastern Congo) and democratic advances have 
been consolidated. Economies continue to prosper - even if social 
inequalities remain - and are piloted by a new generation of young leaders.

   Another asset, finally: the presence of China, which, investing 
massively, is about to replace the European Union in the first rank of 
suppliers to the African continent, and which, moreover, could become 
its biggest client, ahead of the United States, as soon as 2010. The 
time is long gone when Europe could impose disastrous structural 
adjustment programs. Now Africa is resisting. And that's all to the good.

   ----------

   (1) Read Alternatives Economiques, Paris, December 2007.

   (2) On December 16, 2007, the Caribbean countries agreed to sign an 
APE with the European Union.

   (3) In his speech at the University of Dakar, on July 26, 2007, Mr. 
Sarkozy declared: "Africa's drama is that the African has never made a 
sufficient entry into History (...), has never thrust himself into the 
future." Read Anne-Cecile Robert, "L'Afrique au karcher," Le Monde 
diplomatique, September 2007.

   (4) Le Monde, 15 December 2007.