From Rwanda I headed to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to visit a friend named Enoch. He and I were both stewards in Porto Alegre, Brazil, for the World Council of Churches assembly in 2006.
I stayed with Enoch, his brother and a friend in an apartment near Makere University, one of the most well known universities in East Africa. Enoch is studying there, with several years left until he graduates.
The students in Makere, like those in many places that I’ve been to in Africa, seem to be very willing to demonstrate whenever they feel there is injustice. Usually they will only demonstrate if they are directly affected, and even though some of the demonstrations seem to be over petty issues, I admire the fact that they are willing to strike.
But the right to assemble is being taken away from them.
‘President’ Musseveni, who has been leading the country since 1986, has recently clamped down on public gatherings. After several large demonstrations against his regime, he has enforced with violence a ban on all public marches and gatherings. Ironically, you can no longer gather in independence square, in downtown Kampala, where Ugandans demanded their freedom from British rule less than 50 years ago. He has even created a secret police force, which has little oversight and only does the presidents bidding.
In addition, he has cut back the political science courses at Makere and other universities, because he was afraid that the students could turn into opposition leaders one day.
Musseveni doesn’t get as much negative press as some of the other dictators, like Mugabe in Zimbabwe. But a dictator is a dictator. From the favorable way he is treated by the West, it seems like Uganda doesn’t have enough oil for us to really care.
In addition to these problems, there has been a civil war in the north of the country for many years that has claimed thousands of lives. Enoch’s brother was one of the victims. As part of his job as the young adult representative on the National Council of Churches in Uganda (the national level of the World Council of Churches), he went to the north to help monitor national elections. He was taken hostage, tortured, and then killed. His was so disfigured, that his family was told that they wouldn’t want to see his body.
Africa continues to suffer. But we continue to turn our backs on them. I have heard many people talk about Africa like it will never recover. And so, our policies towards the continent seem to reflect this. But one thing I noticed everywhere I went is that Africans have hope. There are success stories. There are countries that are on the right path, but economic depression and as a result high unemployment are major obstacles that threaten to reverse these advances. Agricultural subsidies in the U.S. and in Europe continue to tilt the field against the Africans, making it impossible for them to export their cash crops. Increased foreign aid isn’t the only answer- in fact, if the overall GDP went up just a few percentage points, it would generate more money for the countries than all of the foreign aid combined.
There is all this talk in the USA about free trade and how important it is. But if you look closely, we are only for free trade if we think it will benefit us. It’s time to make a choice. If we are really for free and fair trade, then lets show it. Stop punishing the world’s poor.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Kampala, Uganda
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No major international issue is every as clear-cut as we make it seem when we write ourselves a short personal rant while fired-up about it.
That's especially true of a discussion of free trade/fair trade. Which are two very different things, in any event. I would define fair trade, personally, as an ideal within the humanitarian movement (and not really a concept of serious economics) that seeks to provide a greater share of the profits from the sale of finished goods to the producers of the initial raw materials.
Free trade being a very well known serious economic concept I'm not going to try and define it. Suffice it to say that it posits that economies, if not necessarily individuals, flourish in an economic atmosphere with the fewest restrictions possible.
The United States, as a country, has never had a policy pursuing "fair trade." Its trade policies are also certainly not those espoused by the "free trade" ideal. It seeks to make supposed free-trade agreements with other countries individually and uses its immense bargaining power to create agreements that greatly favor the USA. This includes maintaining protective tariffs on US farm products (see - impossibility of overcoming the farm lobby) for the main reason.
However, if the USA and other G7 nations actually did make a near-perfectly "free" trade agreement with developing nations would the results be entirely beneficial to those developing nations? Most certainly not - that's why the purpose of the Doha round of talks was to craft some free-trade agreements that benefited these countries.
Imagine, if you will, that the USA formed a complete and equal free trade agreement with Uganda. Ugandan farmers would be able to directly compete with farmers from the USA. They would be in a better competitive position than they are now. But would it be enough? US producers would still maintain huge advantages in terms of location (closer to major global food markets), technology and economies of scale. Perhaps the result would be a resurgent Ugandan agricultural sector. Maybe they would seek niche products so as to not directly compete with the USA. Or, perhaps the cheaper US grains would flow into the country, destroying the agricultural sector that you were seeking to build up with your free-trade policy.
Most people seem to think that gains in the agricultural sector would be a mixed bag. However most economists believe that there would be a more direct and extremely deleterious impact to the manufacturing and technology sectors in developing countries. As of now many developing nations are trying to nurse these industries into existence behind protective trade barriers. Some countries have had success with this. However, imagine this: free trade agreement comes in. Both sides drop their trade barriers. The local South African computer chip manufacturer now competes directly with Intel. The manufacturer of televisions in Ecuador would be competing against Sony and Aivo (right now imports to Ecuador carry a 30-40 percent protective tariff).
US and European tariffs on agricultural products are unconscionable and violate the rules of decency (and international trade laws). That's why developing nations regularly challenge these tariffs before the WTO. However, developing nations themselves often have extremely high protectionist tariffs. They clamor for the developed world to lower barriers while allowing them to keep their own. Personally I think this is reasonable...in the short term. If we ever see some sort of result from the Doha round of talks it should be something like that. A sharp lowering of tariffs in the developed world combined with a gradual lowering of tariffs in the developing world.
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