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AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK
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"If you look at Africa, you can't classify Senegal as a bad pupil," Sarkozy said late Wednesday. "
The foregoing is a statement made by the president of a western nation (France) in reference to the president of an ex-colonized African nation (Senegal) on the occasion of the former's tour of Francophone Africa. I thought that Abdoulaye Wade was the president of an independent country. Hardly did I know that Mr Wade was still a pupil sitting on a bench in a Gaullist school of ideological intoxication gulping down the tomfoolery of Nicolas Sarkozy. I wonder when this nonsensical Western paternalism toward the African continent will ever come to an end. Senegal is not an isolated case. Many years ago lame duck Head of State Mr Paul Biya of Cameroon described himself as the "best pupil" of Francois Mitterand. There was a hue and cry in the Cameroonian media about the subservient attitude of the Cameroonian head of state to no avail. Mr Paul Biya simply said " le chien aboie et la caravane passe." in typical Beti nonchalance. When will these minions who call themselves Afr
ican leaders ever learn to stand on their wobbling legs and tell these Western bigots that self-determination is the magic wand needed in the developmental enterprise of the African continent? We need South-South cooperation and not make-believe South- North cooperation (disguised re-colonization). The African Union through NEPAD has put a premium on South-South integration. No amount of Western "goodwill" will get us of out of the current socio-economic quagmire in which we find ourselves. We had better learn this lesson and desist from kowtowing in front of the self-seeking Gang of industrialized Robbers (G-8).
PETER W.VAKUNTA
DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON
602 VAN HISE HALL
1220 LINDEN DRIVE
MADISON WI 53706-1525
U.S.A
Office 608 262 4067
Home 608 442 6089
Cell 608 381 0407
"The day will come when history will speak... Africa will write its own history... it will be a history of glory and dignity." - Patrice Lumumba
----- Original Message -----
From: Aggo Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, July 27, 2007 6:23 am
Subject: On African tour, Sarkozy underscores France's ties with ex-colonies
To: [log in to unmask]
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>
> AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK
>
> Join African Association of Madison, Inc. for $25 per year:Oct - Sept.
>
> Mail check to: AAM, PO Box 1016, Madison, WI 53701
> Phone: 608-258-0261 -- Email: [log in to unmask]
> Web: www.AfricanAssociation.org
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>
> On African tour, Sarkozy underscores France's ties with ex-colonies
>
> The Associated Press
> Thursday, July 26, 2007
>
> DAKAR, Senegal: Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Senegal on Thursday for his
> first visit as president to sub-Saharan Africa to underscore France's
> ties with former colonies and promote the "diplomatic priority" of
> African development.
> His African tour started with fanfare Wednesday when he signed defense
> and nuclear power deals with Libya after he and his wife, Cécilia, won
> wide attention for Tripoli's release of six foreign medics convicted
> of starting an HIV epidemic.
> In Senegal, sub-Saharan Africa's top recipient of aid from Paris,
> Sarkozy is due to sign agreements on investment promotion and two
> French Development Agency projects.
> He is also expected to speak at Dakar's university, which will allow
> him to set out his views on African development, described by a
> spokesman as "one of his diplomatic priorities."
> Sarkozy has won points with Africans for vowing to reorient the
> relationship with France's former colonies. In a speech in Benin last
> year, where he was taunted with shouts of "racist," Sarkozy distanced
> himself from former French presidents, saying that personal
> allegiances would no longer be the basis for diplomacy in Africa.
> It was seen as a veiled jab at his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who
> had nurtured close ties with strongmen and dictators in France's
> former colonies.
> Sarkozy's first meeting with an African head of state was not with a
> leader of a former French colony, or even a close ally of France, but
> rather with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, a Harvard
> graduate and former World Bank economist who has been held up as a
> model of good governance.
> The political columnist Die Maty Fall, a staff writer for the
> Senegalese magazine Weekender, said several African heads of state had
> been refused, and that even those who have had an audience with
> Sarkozy were inside for a only brief of period of time.
> "He is making clear that there is no longer complicity between African
> heads of state and France," she said.
> In an interview published by the Senegalese daily Le Soleil, Sarkozy
> said it was "preferable" that development aid "be guided by rules that
> guarantee the effectiveness of public money" with clear commitments on
> both sides and proper accounting.
> His public appearance at Dakar University may also expose him to
> popular unease over his policy of selective immigration.
> Sarkozy visited Senegal 10 months ago as Chirac's interior minister
> and signed a deal with President Abdoulaye Wade's government on "joint
> management" of migratory flows between the two countries.
> Thousands of young Senegalese have risked death to cross the hundreds
> of kilometers to Spain's Canary Islands in open fishing boats in the
> hope of work and a better life in Europe.
> Wade will host Sarkozy's 24-hour trip, but the French president is
> also due to meet opponents who accuse Wade and his ruling Democratic
> Party of fraud in his February re-election and boycotted parliamentary
> polls in June.
> "If you look at Africa, you can't classify Senegal as a bad pupil,"
> Sarkozy said late Wednesday. "Sure, the parliamentary elections pose a
> problem, but it would be difficult for me not to come to Senegal."
> Senegal and Gabon are two of Paris's closest allies, having nearly
> 2,000 of the 11,000 French troops in Africa.
> France has used its forces in Africa over the years to protect its
> allies from invasion and rebel insurgency, most recently in Gabon's
> close neighbor Central African Republic, where France used planes and
> special forces to dislodge rebels who invaded over the border from
> Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
> In an interview with Walfadjri, another Senegalese daily, Sarkozy said
> the role and possibly the legal status of France's various forces in
> Africa might need to be clarified.
> "Senegal renegotiated its 1960 accord in 1974," he said. "Other
> countries have not done so, even though their agreements include
> outmoded and anachronistic clauses like access to raw materials or
> common command structures."
> "I also think it is necessary to make reciprocal rights and
> obligations as transparent as possible in these accords."
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Aggo Akyea
> http://akyea.tribalpages.com/
> Check my photos at:
> www.flickr.com/photos/peki
>
> "Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my
> baskets,
> I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."
> WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau – 1854
>
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