Mining companies say the government should reconsider the law in order to respect exemptions that were granted by its predecessor. The pope said Europe needed to focus on education and investment in Africa if it wanted to stem the flow of migrants, which is also an increasingly divisive issue in Italy, where the new governing coalition is taking a hard line.
They end up in the jails of traffickers. And they might want to think about not putting their faith in the extractives sector. With few exceptions, countries with abundant mineral wealth experience poorer democracy, weaker economic growth, and worse development. To prevent tax dodging, governments must stop prevaricating on action to address tax havens. No country should tolerate companies with subsidiaries based in tax havens operating in their country.
We should see it both as a form of reparations and redistribution, just as the tax system allows us to redistribute wealth from the richest to the poorest within individual societies. To even begin to embark on such an ambitious programme, we must change the way we talk and think about Africa. Africa is rich.
He was previously the director of Jubilee Debt Campaign. It is up to France to decide when and whether a regime merits protection as already happened in Sudan in , in Chad in and in the Central African Republic in Furthermore, France pushed heavily for intervention in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi. The aim was to thwart Gaddafi's attempt to create a gold-backed African currency to supplant France as the dominant power in the Francophone Africa region.
Gaddafi's gold and silver reserves were estimated at tons of gold and a similar amount in silver: more than enough to pose a huge threat to the CFA French franc. The role of French security policy in Africa has long been recognized as a critical factor in African politics and international relations.
But is French involvement in Africa really in the interest of Africans, or French intervention continues to deny African political freedom and to sustain their current social, economic and political conditions?
In fact policies portrayed as promoting stability and development can be factors of instability, dependency, domination and subordination. When Guinea demanded independence in , France unleashed its fury destroying schools, nurseries, public administration buildings, cars, books, medicine, research institute instruments, tractors; animals were killed and food in warehouses was burned or poisoned.
This was meant to send a message to other colonies that the consequences for rejecting France would be high. Many Africans do maintain that the French have been at the frontline in the enslavement, colonisation and raping of their continent by stealing their gold, diamonds and other natural resources. They also maintain that France colonial tax is bleeding Africa and feeding France. France has good reasons to seek to improve its image.
Numerous resentments have built-up against it due to political interference and armed interventions. The new scramble for Africa involves more powers than the first round over a century ago. France, too, is keen to protect its control over north and west Africa, partly from encroachment by the US, while seeking to penetrate the anglophone sphere.
Britain, likewise, is beefing up its diplomatic and economic presence in Africa, notably in francophone countries, and increasingly in response to a post-Brexit order. Apart from a grab for resources, the new scramble is also designed to counter Chinese investment in Africa — in particular its control over cobalt mining, which provides the raw material for electric car batteries and mobile phones.
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