The news that at long last the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands have decided to put aside the hypocrisy that political correctness in the arena of international relations represents, and do the right thing: by ending their budgetary support for the ruthless apartheid regime now ruling the police-state known as Rwanda, is the best news ever heard by the oppressed people of Africa, since the end of colonial rule on the continent.
In taking that bold decision they have shown great moral courage – and leadership. They must now move ahead and end budgetary support for all the nations in the continent – all of whom do not deserve to be propped up by the taxpayers’ of the developed world. Why help African despots to line their pockets with aid money whiles their people continue to wallow in poverty – as their kleptocratic rulers scramble to join the list of the world’s richest individuals?
Let those Western governments with a social conscience, such as that of Sweden and The Netherlands; rather make such funds available to the NGO’s providing humanitarian assistance to the many victims of the cruelty of Africa’s various despots; ditto online micro-credit organizations such as Kiva; Ashoka; the various micro-credit organizations set up by Mohamed Yunis, the Noble Laureate from Bangladesh; as well as online volunteer developmental organizations such as Nabuur.com
Such a radical paradigm shift, will be one of the best means of ameliorating the situation of hundreds of millions suffering Africans who are the victims of the continent’s corrupt and incompetent regimes – some of whom are busy committing crimes against humanity in places like eastern DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Chad, Darfur and southern Sudan on a daily basis and with complete impunity.
If nations like Sweden and The Netherlands really want to end the catastrophic impact on the quality of life of ordinary Africans, of the misrule of the continent’s many unimaginative and incompetent leaders, and help loosen their grip on power, then in addition to ending budgetary support for all African governments, they ought to get the rest of the G8 nations to quickly agree that as part of the ongoing reforms of the international financial system, they will act to close down all the world’s offshore tax havens.
They must also freeze all the overseas bank accounts of the crooks amongst the leaders of the continent – and channel the huge sums they contain to the international NGO’s doing humanitarian work in the nations in the continent that are ruled by greedy and corrupt regimes.
The West must act swiftly to end budgetary support for all the governments of the nations on the continent without exception – as that will help bring corruption in Africa to a quick end. Nothing will focus the minds of those lazy and unimaginative leaders better. It will also make them think twice about stealing the little taxes they are able to collect from their citizenry – as they will not be able to carry out any development projects at all if they were to steal local taxes on the scale they are currently looting their national treasuries: because they are propped up annually by Western aid money.
The time has now come for nations like Sweden and The Netherlands to ask the UN and the EU to impose sanctions on Rwanda – whose support for Laurent Nkunda helps fuel his greedy ambitions. It is outrageous that Rwanda has succeeded in becoming a big exporter of metals it does not even have any deposits of, at all, in its own territory: but which Rwanda’s ruling elites, through the agency of that warlord and mass murderer, the war criminal Laurent Nkunda, have been busy looting in eastern DR Congo.
The governments of the Western nations will find that such a move will swiftly bring an end to the unimaginable suffering currently being experienced by millions of the hapless citizens of eastern DR Congo, who are the victims of the unfathomable greed of Rwanda’s ruling elites.
Above all, the UN and the EU must help the International Criminal Court (ICC) to carry out investigations into the conduct of all the men and women in leadership positions who are responsible for the endless suffering of ordinary Africans – and swiftly indict them. Why has the ICC still not indicted the self-styled and narcissistic “General” Laurent Nkunda and his sponsor Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame?
How many more millions must suffer and die in Africa before the international community takes these relatively simple measures to end the abominable acts of cruelty so many Africans in places like Eastern DR Congo, Darfur, Southern Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Chad suffer daily, at the hands of the cruel monsters amongst the ruling elites of the continent?
Bravo to Sweden and The Netherlands for showing the international community the way. Let them act further by cutting off all budgetary support to the whole of the continent now, too.
The clever and despotic rulers of Rwanda, who rule their Tutsi-dominated apartheid state by fear, will now think twice about using their nation’s meagre resources to destabilize its big neighbour DR Congo – and concentrate instead on developing their own country in order to maintain their grip on power there. Ordinary Africans want to see an end to the unending cruelty and suffering of their fellow Africans in the trouble spots on the continent – enough is enough!
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