Spend a couple of hours surfing countless Canadian political websites on the internet today and you might get sorely disappointed. Browse anything form the Indymedia newswires to your friends recently updated Blog and you�ll probably see the same sort of stuff you�d find in any major Canadian paper: recent rants on the situation in Iraq, the state of the Israel/Palestine conflict and how someone feels about Bush getting another 4 years in office. Granted the views you find on the web are usually a little more extreme, but the subjects are basically the same.
Early claims by web-gurus and media-junkies that the �media revolution� would provide more in-depth coverage on under-reported news stories seem to be coming up short. While activists in Canada on the right and left (but mostly on the left) have been quick to focus intensively on minute Iraqi statistics or the latest verbal blunder that comes out of G.W. Bush�s mouth, other actions by the US, Canada and other major states have been largely falling under the radar, with certain regions paying more of a price than others.
The continent of Africa is one of them. Not a lot of attention has been given to the world�s most impoverished continent in the post Sept. 11th years by either mainstream media or alternative media sources. While both professional and amateur journalists have been quick to respond to the number of civilian and troop casualties in Iraq, the death of single school children in Palestine and the scale of response to the Tsunami disaster, calls by the UN for international attention and aid to the 4 million dead in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) have gone on deaf ears. So too have the 20,000 children used as military slaves in Uganda, civil wars in the Ivory Coast, as well as other human rights problems in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone.
Sudan of course is a notable exception, but even here, most of the coverage on the web and in the mainstream media has focused primarily on how many people are dying, the religious dynamics of the conflict and the thoughtfulness of the newer Band-Aid single. Little attention has been given to why the response from the US, Europe and the UN has been so weak, who has interests in the country or the fact that 100,000 are dying due to genocide.
One could argue that this is understandable in mainstream media since many media networks are simply business enterprises catering to public interest and perhaps African conflicts just aren�t what the general public wants to hear about. This doesn�t explain however, why alternative media outlets have remained silent on economic and human rights situations in the region.
Why hasn�t Africa been a focus? The political activity has certainly been high throughout the continent and it�s easy to see why. Mineral and ore deposits are both high and concentrated in the area. Both Ghana and Tanzania contain vast gold deposits; Congo and Zambia possess 50 per cent of world cobalt reserves; almost all of the world's chrome reserves are in Zimbabwe and South Africa; oil and natural gas deposits reside in west Africa, from Nigeria to Angola, and in the Higleig Basin in Sudan. A number of economic summits and US policy focusing on Africa has been appearing over the last 10 years as a result, mainly under president Clinton. Indeed, one of the documents, entitled �Comprehensive Trade and Development Policy for the Countries of Africa�, outlined Africa as the �last frontier for American business�.
There has probably been little focus on Africa by independent media for predictable reasons, mainly that there has been little to report on. Media interest has usually followed where US, Canada and European intervention has been most apparent. So while Iraq, Kosovo and more recently Tsunami aid were front page news, the US and Canada have been passing policy that very subversively influences African-state economies at the same time that it completely avoids the loss of life in the DR. of Congo that has only been topped in the number of dead by the World Wars at the beginning of the century. The US has shied away from intervention in Zimbabwe and the DR. of Congo, and has instead been increasing American business interests there and throughout Africa.
John Pilger pointed out that, �Clinton secretly set up the African Crisis Response Initiative which allows the US to establish "military assistance programmes" in Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Ghana, Benin, Algeria, Niger, Mali and Chad,� and �G.W. Bush�s policy towards Africa has almost been identical towards Clinton�. These bases however have not been used to stop civil wars and conflicts in the region.
Instead, the US has busied itself with the �African Growth and Opportunity Act� and the �Trade and Investment Initiative� pushed by Clinton at the Denver G8 meeting in 1996, both aimed at creating privatization reforms and opportunities for American investment. Canada has done little better with aid given through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Partnership Africa-Canada, one of the more successful Canadian aid programs, has been dismantled and CIDA�s focus remains on tied-aid: aid given in exchange for Canadian access to markets.
At the same time, the developing countries in Africa have recently failed in this years attempt to win more voting power at the IMF and World Bank, an attempt that went widely unnoticed by both the general and more active public. World Bank and IMF voting numbers are dominated by both the US and Europe and traditionally the managing director of the World bank is an American and the Managing director of the IMF is a European.
The US and Canada are not the only countries to be increasing interests in Africa. Although Europe is decreasing its influence in certain parts of the continent, China has been creating ties with Zimbabwe, Sudan and Botswana. According to the BBC �Zimbabwe's mineral wealth, which includes platinum, gold and diamonds, may also be a cause of China's heightened interest. Chinese interests have become a staple feature of the burgeoning African oil industry. In all, China-Africa trade is expected to top $20bn in 2004.�
As the race for Africa�s resources remains silent, and the humanitarian crisis� continue to be ignored, it is a wonder if either the international community and/or the alternative media sources will ever take notice. Unfortunately, the elections in Iraq and the continuing conspiracy theories about the World Trade Centre bombings being an inside job will probably mean the fact that millions are dying in �some-country-in-Africa� will have to wait.