|
AFRICA’S FRIEND BIDS FAREWELL
|
Tony Blair and Muammar al-Gaddafi in a warm final handshake
|
TONY BLAIR, the departing British prime minister, has visited Africa to personally bid farewell to the continent he so much supported.
Tony Blair, the longest serving Labour Prime Minister as well as the youngest premier of the 20th century, has been in office since 1997.
Tony Blair for the ten year period he has been prime minister has used his office to draw attention to the progress Africa has made as well as how best the developed world can assist Africa tackle the many problems of poverty, environmental degradation, disease and the wars the plaque the contginent.
It will be recalled that in February 2004, Tony Blair launched the Commission for Africa and gave it the mission to take a fresh look at Africa’s past and present and find ways out of which the international community could assist in its development path.
As the leader and host of the G8 Summit, a meeting of the leading economies of the world in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005, Africa was the key agenda Tony Blair put forward for disscussion.
It was therefore no wonder that Africa’s greatest living statesman, Nelson Mandela described Tony Blair as "a very good friend of Africa".
Sierra Leone, one of the notable countries in Africa Tony Blair directly got involved when a civil war was raging crowned Blair an honorary chief for Peace. This was in recognition of his sending in British troops to end an 11-year reign of terror by rebels who hacked off limbs and committed mass rape and murder.
Professor Septimus Kaikai, the country's information minister, said: "Blair is Sierra Leone's knight in shining armour."
Blair delivering a key notespeech in Johannesburg urged African leaders to pressure Robert Mugabe into economic and political reform, saying that decades of repression had forced up to onethird of Zimbabweans to flee and slashed life expectancy from 60 in 1990 to 37.
On Darfur, he said the conflict had killed an estimated 200,000 people, left 4 million dependent on food aid nearly 2.5 million fleeing.
"We must offer President Bashir a choice. Engage with us on a solution. Or, if you reject responsibility for the people of Darfur, then we will table and put to a vote sanctions against the regime."
Blair urged rich countries to embrace the poor to thwart the threat of the spread of terrorism in Africa.
Njongonkulu Ndungane, Cape Town's Anglican archbishop, who is a vocal critic of Western policies, said Blair must "stiffen his spine" at the G-8 summit in Germany and pressure other leaders to make concessions in crisis-ridden world trade talks and end agricultural subsidies that penalise producers in poor countries.
Again he said that Blair should encourage more concrete investment in Africa rather than aid.
Boakai Jaleiba, a student political activist in Liberia, was blunt: "Blair did not in any way and form assist Africa. Africa will remember him for that."
Tony Blair will step down on June 27, 2007 to be suceeded by his long time ally and another friend of Africa Gordon Brown.
|
