By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 03 December 2007
The views expressed by United States ambassador to South Africa, Eric Bost, in the Sunday Independent article, “Bush’s SA emissary shoots from hip” (25 November 2007), should not go without some rebuffing.
Amongst other things, Bost is quoted in the article as having expressed impatience with President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation role in the tension between Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The ambassador also argues, quite unconvincingly, that “concerns among Africans that the African Command [sic], Africom, is a global policeman are unfounded.” This comment alone undermines the intelligence of the African people. Africom is meant primarily to entrench US imperialism through intimidation.
That Africom will confront poverty, disease, terrorism and “other challenges that affect regional security and stability” is not true. Why does the US need to fight poverty and disease with gun-totting soldiers? Any plan to fight poverty and disease in Africa should have Africans supporting and driving it. That won’t be the case with Africom.
Bost’s dishonesty gets worse when reminded about the fact that his country invaded Iraq without being sanctioned by the United Nations (UN). He answers the charge with a dubious comparison between the situation in Iraq and that in Dafur, Sudan by suggesting that, “although the UN and 25 other countries have agreed that they need to do something about Darfur and nobody does it, nobody asks why.”
Bost himself knows that, with Iraq, his government ignored the UN and defied international opinion to invade Saddam Hussein under the guise of searching for “weapons of mass destruction (WMD)”. We now all know that Hussein did not possess the WMD as claimed by Bost’s president and comrade, George W. Bush.
Darfur is a different story altogether. Unlike Iraq, the international community agrees that intervention through the UN and the African Union (AU) is urgently needed to stop more deaths and suffering. The basis for intervention is purely humanitarian, unlike Iraq, where Bost’s government is interested in oil and not human life.
Bost is quick to blast the South African government’s alleged foot-dragging in fighting HIV and Aids. He seems to think of his role as that of a big brother. And you cannot blame this on his apparently outspoken personality. Interference is his government’s foreign policy.
The US under Bush and his Republican comrades has effectively reduced the UN to a talk shop. The UN member states have set themselves targets on how drastically they want to treat Aids and cut the rate of HIV infection. Bost just doesn’t seem to see where the problem lies: the problem with the HIV and Aids rate in South Africa must be put squarely on people’s sexual behaviour.
Instead of blaming the South African government’s approach to Zimbabwe, HIV and Aids and other domestic matters, Bost must work hard to repair his country’s damaged reputation. That should be his first task.
- An edited copy of this article appeared in the Sunday Independent newspaper under the headline, “Bost should attend to his own country’s failings,” (09 December 2007).
