Africans united in rejecting European arrogance

By Sukant Chandan
sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com
December 15, 2007

The recent summit between African heads of states and the EU has shown that Europe has failed to move beyond their colonial–era past–times of economic and political bullying. The African delegates gave Europe an unmistakable cold shoulder on the two big issues of the conference: trade, especially the European proposed Economic Partnership Agreements, and European political interference in African affairs, centered on British arrogance towards Zimbabwe.

This African–EU Summit in Lisbon was possibly Portugal's most important international meeting in its history. The intention of the summit was to discuss peace and security, human rights, international trade and climatic change. 40 presidents – 5 from Europe and 35 from Africa – and 27 prime ministers – 15 from Europe and 12 from Africa - took part in a summit which summed up the state of African–European relations today.

To give some background to the events in Lisbon, it is worth taking a short look at the history of these summits. The first African–EU Summit took place in Cairo in 2000 at the initiative of Egypt's President Mubarak and the then President of the African Union Algeria's President Bouteflika. Ever since then Britain has been unable to get over itself on the issue of Zimbabwe. From the first summit Blair refused to attend in protest at Mugabe's presence. Already back in 2000 Britain's puerile games on the issue of Mugabe was given a firm rebuttal by Africans when they insisted that Britain had no right to dictate who should or should not attend the summit. There should have been a second summit in 2003 but failed to materialise and was postponed indefinitely after the imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe by the EU and due to Britain's continued objection to the attendance of President Mugabe. So the Labour Government's attitude towards Zimbabwe and the rejection of it has been an on–going issue in European–African relations ever since.

The British mainstream press likes to present the problems at the summit as the fault of the Africans, rather than the reality which is it is the behavior of former imperialists who, engaged in fruitless antics, results in them looking the fool on the international stage. Countries such as Britain and Germany seem to put more importance on dictating to Africa on how it should deal with its internal affairs than grappling with the critical issues of African development and progress. Britain has turned what is essentially a bilateral political rift between itself and Zimbabwe into an international issue in the face of opposition by Africa. Even the head of the Commonwealth, Mr Don McKinnon while being a critic of the Zimbabwean Government agreed that President Mugabe must be allowed to attend. José Manuel Barroso head of the EU commission expressed the Portuguese position which has consistently argued that the prospective rewards of closer ties between Africa and the EU are more important than the problems between Britain and Zimbabwe. Barroso made the headlines when he scolded the British apropos their pre–conditions: "If you are an international leader then you are going to have to be prepared to meet some people your mother would not like you to meet. That is what we have to do from time to time."