Africa, the Next Frontier?
Pacific News Service, Commentary, Franz Schurmann, Posted: Aug 01, 2003
Editor's Note: Some of the biggest infrastructure projects of the 21st century might be slated for Africa. But African states must move beyond civil strife and take advantage of the new interest in the region.
Huge infrastructure projects taken for granted in any developed society -- roads, communication networks, dams, oil and gas conduits -- might finally transform Africa. But the window of opportunity there is new and much will depend on two things. Will giant corporations have the vision to invest in long-term infrastructure that may not come into operation for decades? And will the countries of Africa, many torn apart by civil war, be able to take advantage of the new long-term opportunities instead of the short-term lure of "blood diamonds"?
More and more international governments, corporations and experts want Africans to stop fighting among themselves. Mbendi, a South Africa-based Web site that caters to global business, writes, "While many write off Africa as the continent of despair, other enterprising individuals and organizations have recognized the huge, untapped potential of Africa."
Africa now has a window of opportunity it didn't have before. While many African countries are stable and growing, in others warlords rule amidst civil strife. Many foreign corporations find it profitable to deal with them as the lucrative trade in "blood diamonds" and "blood gold" demonstrates. But these blood-oriented corporations cannot provide the infrastructure Africa needs. That can only come from huge corporations working with their own governments and those of Africa.
The corporations and their governments now need Africa because of its riches in raw materials. A big reason for the new corporate interest in Africa is oil, especially now that another great oil-rich region, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, has bombed, thanks to the Enron-like greed that grips the Russian energy industry.
Corporations and states realize that the global demand for oil is rising by about 3 percent annually and if they don't lift it then others -- like the Chinese -- will do so. In fact, big Chinese construction companies have already built oil-lifting infrastructures, including pipelines, in Sudan, while their Anglo-American counterparts were excluded by sanctions slapped by the United States on an alleged "rogue" state.
Meanwhile, Africa will need the infrastructure for its impending population boom. Carl Haub writes in a report for the Population Reference Bureau, a private research group, "over the next 47 years Africa is expected to increase its population by 1 billion people." Now Africa's population is 700 million. Developing economies need large pools of workers who are not unskilled but educated well beyond grade school. In many parts of Africa such a labor force is already available.
But Haub also writes, "Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, must create millions of jobs, health care facilities, and educational opportunities at a time of staggering poverty, conflict, and epidemics." Africa's choice is now to grab onto the enormous investments that are waiting to move into the continent or remain mired in killing that will lead to more poverty, conflict and epidemics.
The Sudan, Africa's biggest country by landmass, is a test case. It has enormous amounts of oil and water. Sudan's oil is part of a geological oil formation that goes through thinly populated Chad, northward into Libya, westward to southern Algeria and possibly to the Atlantic Ocean. Sudan's water comes from the monsoon rains that keep southern Sudan perpetually green. Oil could do for the Sudan what it richly did for Libya, Iraq and Gabon. And the water could potentially feed all of Africa's millions.
In the Sudan, President Bush took a political line diametrically opposite to that on Iraq. In the latter, Bush's war rhetoric was out in the open. In the Sudan, he moved secretly and relied on his emissary, former Senator John Danforth (R-Mo.) appointed well before 9/11. As a result, a few weeks ago August 14 had been selected for signing a peace treaty that would have ended a 20-year civil war called Anyanya II between Arab northerners and Afro-Nilotic southerners. Its predecessor, "Anyanya I" had lasted from 1965 to 1973.
But in July, unexpected hostilities broke out in the Sudan's far west (Darfur) near the oil-rich Chad border. A new organization called the Army for the Liberation of the Sudan appeared on the scene. Danforth got angry at both the new "Army" and the violent response of the Khartoum government. Observers wondered whether the Darfur fighting was just a last sortie or the beginning of another African civil strife.
Danforth, who has now become Bush's roving ambassador in Africa, said the war had gone on for too long. If he should, in anger, quit his role in bringing peace to the Sudan then that will be a bad omen for Africa's future.
Many Africa watchers are hoping that an August peace will still be proclaimed in the Sudan. But if a small insurrection can destroy a huge peace effort that bodes badly, not just for Africa, but the entire world as well.
PNS Editor Franz Schurmann (fschurmann@pacificnews.org) is emeritus professor of history at U.C. Berkeley and the author of numerous books.
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