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Western media glorify the Africa of underdevelopment - Mutharika

Western media glorify the Africa of underdevelopment - Mutharika
By Larry Moonze
Sun 26 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

MALAWIAN President Bingu Wa Mutharika has said the international media glorify the Africa of underdevelopment and hopelessness.
He said African leaders have decided to move from Afro-pessimism to Afro-optimism.

Addressing the ongoing 65th UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, President Mutharika who is also the African Union chairman portrayed the Africa of new hopes and new possibilities.

“I am fully aware that the Africa the world hears about is that of incessant calamities and natural disasters,” he said.

President Mutharika said the international media reported on the Africa of extreme poverty, widespread endemic diseases and human suffering. He said the media constantly portrayed the Africa of civil wars, genocide, terrorism and piracy to glorifying the Africa of underdevelopment and hopelessness.

President Mutharika said there were no reports about successes in participatory democracy and good governance or about peaceful multiparty general elections.
He said such media never reported about high rates of macroeconomic growth in some African countries and successful food security in some of them.

“This is why I now want to present you another Africa,” President Mutharika told the General Assembly. “This is the Africa of new hopes and new possibilities; Africa of industrial, mineral, and agro-processing opportunities; Africa with new job creation prospects; and Africa that can produce enough food to feed its people. This is the Africa of the new beginning.”

He said African leaders had a vision of African nations determined to contribute more to the global economic prosperity, peace and stability including a new Africa free of hunger, disease and poverty.

President Mutharika said the AU leaders had decided to unlock Africa’s combined huge natural resources and human capital to establish new industries that created new wealth for the people.

“I want the United Nations to share our belief that Africa is not a poor continent rather it is its people that are poor,” he said. “This year I have come to inform this world body that Africa has decided to shift from Afro-pessimism to Afro-optimism. We are going to make Africa better.”

President Mutharika said the AU had unanimously agreed to institute measures that would ensure in five years Africa would be able to produce enough food to feed its people and ensure no child died of hunger or malnutrition.

He said the continent was being turned into a food basket whose main aim was to encourage allocation of increased budgetary resources and private sector investment in agriculture and food production.

President Mutharika said policy interventions would focus on three key sectors of agriculture and food security, transport and energy and climate change.
He said that concept envisaged full cooperation between the African and G8 governments, the UN, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the World Bank, the European Union and other multilateral institutions.

“A stronger Africa industrially, economically and politically is a better trading partner for the G8 and the rest of the world than a weaker one,” President Mutharika said.

“I also believe that the Africa of the new beginning with its combined vast mineral, agricultural and human resources will provide the safety valve for a boiling international monetary and financial system.”

On peace and security, President Mutharika said of late Africa was witnessing the reemergence of coups detat and other unconstitutional changes of government.
He said the AU was also gravely concerned that Somalia had had no stable or functioning government for a long time.

“This continuing volatile situation is being compounded by rising and organised piracy in the Indian Ocean,” President Mutharika said. “This is negatively affecting not only Somalia and her immediate neighbours but the entire African continent and the rest of the world.”

He said more countries should be directly involved in finding a lasting solution to the Somalia crisis.
President Mutharika said the AU eagerly awaits the holding of the referendum in January 2011 and the post-referendum structure of relations in the Sudan.
He said the prevailing peace and stability in Sudan must be consolidated.

“The African countries are concerned that while efforts to secure lasting peace in Sudan are ongoing, the International Criminal Court seems to push for a pound of flesh by insisting on arresting President Omar Hassan Al Bashir,” President Mutharika said.

“There is general consensus in Africa that this will negatively polarise the different positions of the stakeholders thereby driving them away from a peaceful settlement.”

He appealed to the UN General Assembly to amend Article 16 of the Rome Stature to enable it to assume the powers of the Security Council to defer the case against President Al Bashir for one year to allow ongoing negotiations and dialogue to succeed.

And President Mutharika said the AU felt that the ideological justifications, if there ever were any for instituting any sanctions against any country had outlived their time.

“The African Union therefore appeals for immediate lifting of sanctions against the Republic of Zimbabwe and the Republic of Cuba,” said President Mutharika.

“We believe that lifting these sanctions will enable ordinary poor Zimbabweans and Cubans to begin a life of new hope and new opportunity for prosperity.”

Labels: BINGU WA MUTHARIKA, DEVELOPMENT, NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, UN, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 4:22 PM