The Tragedy of Aid to the Third World

From The Tragedy of Afghan Aid at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/the-tragedy-of-afghan-aid/
by Andy Rowell

... in September 2002, the United States launched what would become an aggressive effort to build or refurbish as many as 1,000 schools and clinics by the end of 2004. However, Congressional figures showed that they managed to finish and hand back to the Afghan government only 40 schools by late 2005.

As Ben Jackson wrote in his book Poverty and the Planet published in 1990, “Aid is commonly thought of as handing over money to Third World governments for development. In fact, aid largely consists of funding from Western governments for services, machines, technical experts and consultants to be supplied by companies in rich countries, frequently their own.” The bottom line was that “most aid money is actually spent in the rich world.” Of the $20 billion the World Bank handed out in 1988, $15 billion went to its own contractors or consultants.

... there is a huge disparity between what America spends on war and what the international community spends on aid. The US military currently spends nearly $36 billion a year in the country, some $100 million a day; yet the average volume of aid spending by all donors since 2001 is just $7 million per day. Whilst the military budget is vast, 2.5 million Afghans face severe food insecurity, and one in five children still dies before five. Life expectancy is woefully low at 45 years. Thirdly, over half of all aid to Afghanistan is tied, by which donors often require procurement of services or resources from their own countries. Rather than go to help Afghanistan, the money just lines the pockets of Western contractors and companies. So of the aid actually spent, a staggering 40% has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries.

The report notes: “Vast sums of aid are lost in corporate profits of contractors and sub-contractors, which can be as high as 50% on a single contract … A vast amount of aid is absorbed by high salaries, with generous allowances, and other costs of expatriates working for consulting firms and contractors — each of whom costs $250,000-$500,000 a year.” In contrast, an Afghan civil servant is paid less than $1000 per year.

The role of the United States and other countries in fueling the violence in Darfur

Keith Harmon Snow writes,

Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 after in parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war. The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerilla force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led “war on terror.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda. Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international interests.

Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli military intelligence operates from within the camps, as does U.S intelligence. Eritrea is about to explode into yet another war with Ethiopia.

See complete article at http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1

Here are additional articles on Darfur

• http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7311

• http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html

• http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=453&Itemid=1

Crocodile tears for Darfur flood the civilized world

More celebrities are joining the crocodile tears for Darfur band wagon. See http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/celebrity-women-speak-with-one-voice-on-darfur/2007/09/16/1189881341251.html

Organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Save Darfur Coalition are silent on the role of the United States and other democracies in fueling the violence in Sudan.

See http://allthingspass.com/journalism.php?jid=165
And http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html

For some strange reason these activists are not too concerned about the Congo were a larger number of killings and rapes have occurred. Can it be because the United States, Israel and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, and sale of weapons, that the death of millions of black Africans in the Congo is not so tragic?
See http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9832

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html

Iraq Union Leaders Speak Out Against Occupation

By Ben Terrall
June 19th, 2007
Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Southern Oil Company Union (affiliated with the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions) worked for the Southern Oil Company in Basra for 28 years. Umara was detained by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1998 for union activities. In the post-Saddam years he has worked on his union’s negotiating team with both the Oil Ministry and British occupation authorities, defending the rights of oil company workers.

His colleague Hashmeya Mushin Hussein, President of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, is the first woman to head a national union in Iraq. The Electrical Utility Workers are affiliated with the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW).

USLAW (U.S. Labor Against the War ) National Coordinator Michael Eisenscher introduced the speakers, pointing to the roots of Iraq labor unions in the country’s struggle against British imperialism, and the brave efforts of trade unionists under Saddam Hussein. Eisenscher noted that the June 2005 tour of Iraqi labor leaders USLAW coordinated (all three of the labor federations represented on that tour called for an end to the occupation in order to restore peace and end terrorism in Iraq) took place a month before a national meeting of the AFL-CIO, thereby helping achieve passage of a resolution by that U.S. labor body saying troops in Iraq “deserve a commitment from our country’s leaders to bring them home rapidly.” Eisenscher described this as the first time in its 50 year history that the federation took a position in opposition to a U.S. war while it was being waged, contrasting with unfortunate past history that earned it the label “AFL-CIA.” (The federation long served as an echo chamber for Washington’s cold war anti-communism, and helped facilitate brutal repression in Latin America and elsewhere.
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Since the U.S. high command has announced that it will arm “Sunni insurgents,” allegedly to fight al-Quaida, after years of equipping Shia militias, it doesn’t take much effort to see how Washington might be contributing to fragmentation in Iraq. And as Iraq specialists Antonia Juhasz and Raed Jarrar wrote about the oil law on CounterPunch: “Many Iraqi oil experts are already referring to the draft law as the “Split Iraq Fund,” arguing that it facilitates plans for splitting Iraq into three ethnic/religious regions. The experts believe the law undermines the central government and shifts important decision-making and responsibilities to the regional entities. This shift could serve as the foundation for establishing three new independent states, which is the goal of a number of separatists leaders.”
Meanwhile, the Iraq oil law’s granting dominance to multinational oil giants behind the Bush Administration continues to be largely overlooked by the U.S. media and politicians in Washington. Instead, the mostly unquestioned spin from Washington is that the U.S. is working to heal divisions: UPI energy correspondent Ben Lando, who has written extensively about the oil workers’s strike, this week described Lt. Gen Martin as “the latest U.S. government official to push a common but false claim that the controversial draft oil law will lead to a just division of the proceeds from oil sales and pave the way for reconciliation in the war-torn nation.”
In fact, under the Iraq oil law still being negotiated, foreign oil giants stand to be the primary beneficiaries of those proceeds.
As Antonia Juhasz wrote, “The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq’s oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country’s economic development.
Complete article is at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/iraq-union-leaders-speak-out-against-occupation/
Additional information at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/06/1359232

Website of U.S. Labor Against the War is at http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/

US aid to Africa does more harm than good

I first heard about this in a radio interview with Michael Maren, author of The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity published in 1977. To see a review of the book click here.
Here is more current information about this, where one charity organization is begining to see the light.

“...Care, one of the world's biggest charities, has announced that it will boycott the controversial policy of selling tons of heavily subsidised US produced food in African countries. Care wants the US government to send money to buy food locally, rather than unwanted US produced food.
The US arm of the charity says America is causing rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation. In America, the subsidies for corn in particular, help underpin the junk food industry, which uses corn extracts as a sweetener, creating a home-grown a health crisis.
The farm lobby meanwhile has a stranglehold on Congress, which has balked at making any changes that would interfere with a system that promotes overproduction of commodities.
Critics of the policy say it also undermines African farmers' ability to produce food, making the most vulnerable countries of the world even more dependent on aid to avert famine. ”

from http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2871490.ece

More sympathetic media coverage given to animals than the suffering people in the Congo

http://www.startribune.com/722/story/1329443.html
How come the same amount of attention is not given to the people of the Congo as the gorillas of the Congo? Is it because Western countries benefit from the diamonds and natural resources; as well as the sale of weapons to the Central Africa region?
Here are some articles about it, in case you are not aware of it.
http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9832

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html