Companion Q: How does G7 wealth contribute to African poverty?"
And please, let's not forget arms sales. There was a great article about it in Harpers a few months ago.
Here's how you play the game:
1. Give dictator X (whom you choose to recognize as the rightful leader because he has essentially agreed to play by your rules and to sell you resources and privatization contracts for next-to-nothing) a bunch of money for arms and counter insurgency training.
2. X signs away his country's rights to anything, puts the money in Switzerland, and uses the guns and trained counter-terrorists to suppress any kind of domestic revolt for as long as he can.
3. The opposition needs arms too. They buy them.
4. The country becomes an unstable butcher's yard and unable to develop anything so it must continue to borrow, to sell its assets for nothing, and to buy more arms of course.
5. When X goes into exile; lather, rinse, and repeat.
Joanna