OP/ED: Time To Pull The Plug On Africa

Don't go pulling the plug on Africa yet, because unlike Terri Schiavo who is without a brain stem and has no hope of recovery, Africa may be down, but certainly not out.

And charity has nothing to do with it. Go--withhold your $10 from OXFAM if it makes you feel like you are making a statement, but what is going on in Africa has nothing to do with public giving.

Nigeria. Cote D'Ivoire. Congo. Cameroon. Angola. Chad. Libya. Mauritania. Uganda. Equitorial Guinea. Botswana.

Do you know what all of these countries have in common besides geography?

Oil.

The U.S., China, Britain, France, Japan, India and every other country wants to get it's grubby little hands on that oil. Why did assistance to Africa start increasing dramatically over the past two years--was it because Bono is such a great fundraiser or because the major oil companies in the world started becoming pessimistic about production?

Africa is the fortunate (and sometimes unfortunate) beneficiary of the aid-for-oil deals that are being struck with oil-hungry nations. In some cases, oil deals are stuck in exchange for much needed support for HIV/AIDS defense--in other cases, especially in the case of China, aid also comes in the form of arms.

And the multinational energy companies are getting involved also--why do you think that the Society of Petroleum Engineers sponsors lectures on how energy companies should approach the "AIDS apocalypse" in African countries in which they operate--including setting up testing clinics, treatment centers and educational programs? Because they care about Nigerians? Uh-huh.

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The good news is that Africa will be helped to the next level of development--and yet again it goes to show that the true motives of our politicians is not to save lives. Governments around the world could care less about the people dying in Africa if it wasn't for the fact that they are dying on top of fertile oil fields....

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