Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Boat people, toxic waste and the neo-colonization of Africa

According to a news bulletin by AFP (september 4, 2006), susbtantiated by Swiss Radio in an interview with a local correspondent, on september 5, several hundreds of inhabitants of the capital of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Abidjan, have been hospitalized with symptoms of serious intoxication after the deposition of liquid toxic waste in different locations of the city, two weeks ago. According to the correspondent, the material had been unloaded from a ship sailing under a Panamean flag, after several unsuccessful attempts of the ship's captain to get rid of his cargo at various ports on the coast of West Africa. The material in question is believed to contain waste from oil refineries somewhere in Europe. A company based in Lucerne, Switzerland (Trafigura Ltd.)
has been said to be involved in one step of the multi-level commissioning of the transport. Whatever the nature of the waste, and whatever it's origin, it is interesting to observe that economic relations between Europe and Africa tend to concentrate on an exchange of toxic waste against boat people.

China and Russia continue a strategic build-up of their presence in Africa, the Chinese in Eastern and Central Africa, the Russians with concentrating on South Africa, as President Putin's visit to the RSA clearly demonstrates.

Questions:
a) How can Africans be persuaded to stay on their continent instead of fleeing to Europe, as long as there are enterprises in Europe that consider Africa as being the ideal dumping station for their toxic waste?

b) How can Africans get rid of colonialist suppression if they continue to replace European colonists by new ones from China and Russia?

Your Answer?

1 comment:

Osservatore Profano said...

Dear CUULAS,

Thanks for your comment.
Let me try to explain the situation.
There are various reasons for the current wave of emigration from Africa towards Europe. The majority of the migrants these days come from Senegal and try to reach the Canaries (Teneriffa). The particularly bleak economic outlook in their country and the politics of easy legalization of the government of Spain in recent years seem to be the most important motives for their move.
The situation in Côte d'Ivoire is different, but I chose the example of the toxic waste scandal to show
that there is always a whole array of motives that can ignite mass reactions.