Well…well…well…how things have changed!! Used to be that the only news we used to get out of Africa was of starvation, coups, and dictators. But while we may still have those – note the four coups in the Sahel in three years! – we just got a planeload of African investors and entrepreneurs flying in to investigate business opportunities in our (Caricom) neck of the woods!! This is just a sample of the new Africa that’s slowly emerging out of the hole in which the colonial powers had dumped them after a hundred years of divvying up the continent for their benefit.
Now some might say this is a new colonisation with the US$1.5 billion line of credit the African Import-Export Bank has already established to facilitate their investments – with the promise of doubling that during this Second AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF23). But how come no one complains when the White folks come in as investors and leave us with holes in the ground and nothing in our hands?? We call it Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)!! Remember the Australian Troy Resources that absconded without paying their royalties or fixing those craters??
Anyhow, your Eyewitness is happy if for nothing else than Africa’s beginning to throw off those nasty stereotypes foisted on them by the same Europeans who’d departed only in name. Even those four coups that are being bemoaned are basically efforts to remove the stranglehold France had maintained over them by controlling the currency they use!! Imagine that Macron and his minions could simply print pieces of paper to “buy” resources from those countries!! Anyhow, your Eyewitness welcomes this new Africa, and he wants to know why the investors had to deplane on the tarmac and not into one of those new airbridges we’ve been paying for every month??
He notes that in ACTIF23 – which kicked off yesterday at the Marriott – the theme is “Creating a Shared Prosperous Future”, through “consolidating commercial collaboration between the Caribbean region and Africa, for increased inter-regional trade and investment building on the successes of the inaugural edition that was held in Barbados last year.” But he’d like to offer a word of caution to the Guyanese public: it’s not for nothing since Roman times the motto of business remains “caveat emptor” – buyer beware! Imagine if aid came with strings attached, what it’s gonna be like with businesses.
Never mind these entrepreneurs might look like us – they’ll be no different when it comes to playing hardball when it comes to the question of profits!! We gotta look out for number one – meaning us and our interests.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world, baby!!
…into the tunnels
Ever since the Oct 7th Hamas attack – which obviously was being planned and prepared for years – the Israelis have been responding even more brutally than ever before. They’ve been going way beyond their Biblical “eye for an eye” philosophy. This time, it’s been more like the whole goddamn body for an eye!! They started with aerial bombardment into both the urbanised northern Gaza and – to everyone’s surprise, – the southern desert into which they had advised the inhabitants to flee.
What’s going on?? Is this just wanton destruction with Israel striking out blindly?? Actually, it’s part of the action and reaction that’s been going on since 1948 when the Israelis expelled the Palestinians into the open-air prisons called Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians have created hundreds of miles of tunnels under Gaza extending from the north – into Egypt even!! They call it “the metro”!!
They hide, and bring in weapons and whatever they need through these tunnels. These are the targets of the Israeli IDF!!
…the opportunities shrink
Modern economic growth has come from developed countries shifting their manufacturing to countries with cheaper labour. The latest was China becoming America’s workshop. However, manufacturing jobs are shrinking in absolute terms – so it’s good we’re focusing on agri!!
