Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(Midsummer 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Pouring
more money down the drain !!!
 If it's not sufficient that President Bush and his administration have
poured vast amounts of American taxpayer dollars into keeping the wars in the
Middle East aflame, then who should appear upon the scene but Prime Minister
Tony Blair arriving at the White House to promote a "Forgiveness of Debt" proposal,
whereby as many as eighteen nations, mainly African, and a couple of South American
countries, would be forgiven the huge debts that they have accrued. The general
idea is that if their debts are forgiven, the corrupt governing bodies of many
of these nations will make an effort to try to reduce the abject poverty, famine,
and disease, which is claiming millions of lives of the unfortunate poverty ridden
people living on the vast continent of Africa, and in certain South American
countries.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for any rapid improvement in the near
future, as the governing bodies of these nations operate to exploit their people
and control them by keeping them in a constant state of poverty, whist they themselves
live the good life spending their ill-gotten financial gains.
 Prime Minister Blair is trying to promote a very noble
cause, which supposedly will be financed by the Group
of Eight Industrial Nations. Many people on the African
continent, (such as the people eking out an existence
in Darfur in the Sudan), are living in dreadful squalor
and inhumane conditions which need to be rectified -
BUT - history
has shown that in the past, the huge sums of money given
to the governments of impoverished nations by the more
affluent nations with a view to providing badly needed
food, medical care, and other necessities of life, has
gone to the wrong people and has simply disappeared without
trace into the coffers of the members of government of
the countries to which financial aid has been provided,
hence the huge debts that these countries have incurred.
Of course the G8 nations must have fully realised
a long time ago that the debts would never be repaid
anyway, and so what have they to lose, and on the other
hand they probably have much to gain, as I’m sure
that vast amounts of the  debts which are proposed to
be forgiven will be written off by various tax incentives
or other financial manoeuvring somewhere along the line.
A proposal by British Finance Minister Gordon Brown to
issue bonds, using rich nations development budgets as
collateral, and a proposal put forward by Germany and
France to place a tax on airline tickets, were opposed by the United States
for obvious reasons and are not expected to see the light of day.
I would like to bet that the taxpayers of the so-called more affluent,
(rich), countries will eventually foot the bill.
It has been said that the "Forgiveness of debt" deal,
which is currently assessed to top $55B, will provide
rapid relief to countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mauritania,
and Zambia, as well as Honduras and Bolivia.
There again
I would not hold my breath for a rapid recovery in conditions
for the people of any of these impoverished nations.
I was going to say that instead of providing monetary
aid to the people of the distressed countries, perhaps
we should encourage them to form cooperatives, and when
these cooperatives have been established to our satisfaction,
we then provide them with fabricated housing, cattle,
farming equipment, fertilizers,  irrigation equipment,
and many of the other tools required to make a community
self sufficient instead of giving them bucket loads of
cash.
But after saying that, I look back and remember
the time of the ejection of white farmers, (in places
like Kenya, Zimbabwe,etc), from their well established
farms which supplied food and jobs for the local people,
and what happened then, did the local people farm the
land - hell no - they trashed the farm buildings, destroyed
the farm machinery, burned down the crops, stole or killed
most of the cattle and the farms ended up as vast wastelands.
Despite the proposal to go ahead with this goodwill gesture
forgiving the debt of various African countries, I would
suggest that before we pour more money down the drain,
we must first fully determine if the people that we propose
giving the money to are capable of using that money to
better the lives of their citizens and are not going
to squander it upon less desirable projects and programs,
such as buying more arms to fight more wars.
 An idea promoted by a friend of mine, is to reintroduce
Colonial Government, and I must say that I fully agree
with his opinion that the local people, (who prospered
in the past under Colonial Rule), apparently do not have
the capability to control their own destiny. Since the
withdrawal of Colonial Rule, some years ago, many of
the African Nations have reached a state of anarchy,
which has left them with famine, poverty, disease, and
lawlessness. The African nations wanted self-government,
and that is what they got, and look what a terrible mess
they made of it. In my opinion, the proposals by the
G8 Nations, although admirable, are unworkable and will
not solve a no win situation.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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