West ignoring Africa Mbeki

[Ulhas Joglekar]

4 January 2000
West ignoring Africa: Mbeki
JOHANNESBURG: South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday accused the West
of failing to do enough to tackle Africa's economic and political problems.
''Not enough is being done about that. There needs to be taken a decision
really without equivocation,'' Mbeki told CNN in his first television
interview of the year, and one of the few he has given since succeeding
Nelson Mandela in June last year.
Mbeki, who in his new year message urged Africans to ''aim for the stars''
in the new millennium in line with his vision of an African renaissance,
reckons Africa's problems of debt, disease and war are being largely ignored
by the West.
Africa's debt service payments were about $31.5 billion, or some 25 per cent
of its exports, at the end of 1998.
''Ways and means must be found to wipe out this debt as quickly as
possible,'' said Mbeki.
''You can't disengage the poor countries from the richer countries and you
can't guarantee continued growth and expansion of the economies of the
developed world if you don't address the matter of the further enrichment of
these other billions of people who have no access to what is being produced
because they are poor.'' (Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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