`Racist' U.S. policies against Africa must end: Three agencies

The U.S. foreign policy towards Africa described as "biased and racist" came under attack this week from three agencies that called on the Bush administration to make amends and promote human development in Africa.

"Historically, the U.S. has segregated Africa within foreign policy, relegating it to a second-class status and depriving it of resources and attention," Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, said while addressing a seminar on U.S. policy towards Africa in Washington, D.C..

While denouncing last week's cancellation of president George Bush's trip to Africa, Booker urged him to make amends by assisting the Black continent to redress the impact of HIV/AIDS which has killed over 25 million globally, three-quarter of these in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"The HIV/AIDS crisis is the most urgent crises facing the African continent today and should be a top foreign policy priority of the U.S. It is far more a threat than terrorism or the alleged existence of Iraq weapons," Booker said.

The illegitimate debt foisted on Africa during the Cold War has incapacitated the continent from devoting enough money to fight the dreaded decease according to Marie Clarke, the national coordinator, Jubilee 2000 USA Network. She added that SubSahara Africa pays $40 million weekly to service its $170 billion deficit.

She explained that most of the debt were either stolen from the continent as in the case of the $8.5 billion looted by Mobutu Seseseko in Zaire or spent on destabilization programs and secret police as it happened in South Africa during the Apartheid era.

The panel also cited the failure of the economic policies of IMF and the World Bank as another factor responsible for the huge debt in Africa. "We knew when those loans were being stolen but we kept quiet and protected the leaders that stole them because of the Cold War alliances," Clarke.

Adotei Akwei, the advocacy director for Amnesty International USA deplored the successful oversight of Congress in redressing Africa's problematic situation by rejecting on six different occasions bills that would have stopped warlords from trading diamond and other African mineral resources for weapons to wage tribal wars.

He accused Congress of blocking the bills because 48 percent of illegal diamond buyers are Americans. The panel called on both the Bush administration and Congress to change the biased foreign policies and support the debt cancellation in Africa.

"It should be U.S. policy that 50 percent of funding be devoted to providing treatment to all those living with HIV/AIDS in Africa, Booker said.

Eighteen million out of the 25 million killed by AIDS across the world are from Sub-Sahara Africa, he said, stressing that illegitimate debt foisted on the continent during the Cold War has incapacitated the Africa continent.

Photograph (Thabo Mbeki)