The first step is to accept that infant economies like infant people need protection from adult competition

Posted by admin · · Jump to comments

The first step is to accept that infant economies, like infant people, need protection from adult competition (all the more so when, as with the Common Agricultural Policy, we do what we tell them they mustn't). Africa was quite successful between independence in the early 1960s and the late 1970s. We have set it back at least 25 years.COLIN STONEMANHULLSir: I would like to congratulate Bruce Anderson on his thought- provoking article on African aid (Opinion, 13 June). While politicians sit in self-congratulatory mode, delighted with their own magnanimity in cancelling Third World debt, they refuse to look at the real issue and deal with the rampant corruption that has been bleeding the continent, and its people, dry for decades.Corruption costs Africa more than $150bn every year. All over the continent, people watch their communities pillaged and decimated through greed and corruption. The poor lack even the basic human rights of food and shelter and the dignity of being able to provide for their children. At the same time they see government fat cats licking their lips as they fill their wallets with the spoils of donor aid.While their efforts are to be praised, it is na? of Messrs Blair and Brown to believe that they are championing the African cause.

By giving money to corrupt and criminal regimes we are doing more damage than good; in some instances it could even be seen as collusion.JOHN O'SHEAGOAL, LONDON W1Sir: I agree with much of Johann Hari's assessment of the dangers of linking aid to fundamentalist ideologies, secular or religious (Opinion, 15 June). But in making his case he reveals his own imbalanced ideology.The churches have much to answer for across sub-Saharan Africa in the past and the present. But to blame US fundamentalist churches for the current aid policies without even mentioning that the churches are a leading part of the Make Poverty History coalition, whose work he commends, is bizarre.In Jubilee 2000, Make Poverty History and countless other initiatives, the churches have worked positively and creatively with trades unions, aid agencies, schools, hospitals and businesses across the African continent. The universal primary education of which Hari speaks in Tanzania could not have happened without Jubilee 2000; a coalition led by Christians.REVD MIKE HASLAMPURTON, WILTSHIRE G8 nations must not ignore science Sir: Your report of 17 June says that the draft communiqu?n climate change from the G8 summit has apparently been watered down to accommodate the position of one or more participants (probably the US).

Commitments to research and education have been withdrawn and statements of support for what is now the virtually unanimous view of the scientific community have been removed or are being so diluted as to be meaningless.While this may not be the final position of the summit, it is disturbing that this point in the negotiation has been reached immediately after a stark warning from the science academies of all the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, that urgent action is required now to bring greenhouse-gas emissions under control. Since this warning was clearly timed to coincide with the summit and was intended to express as strongly as possible the position of the world's most authoritative scientific institutions, the response of the G8 nations suggests a worrying lack of respect for the scientific enterprise itself.While I would not expect our heads of government to understand in detail all the scientific issues involved, I would at least expect them to appreciate that there is world of difference between the ethical opinions (however deeply held) of many NGOs and the evidence-based views of professional researchers that the survival of the planet is indeed under threat. By effectively putting two fingers up at the world's scientists they are displaying a level of ignorance and arrogance for which they will not be thanked by future generations.PAUL BUTLERPENTRAETH, ANGLESEY Can torture ever be justified? Sir: Robert Fisk asks what we can do about the complicity of our governments in torture (Opinion, 18 June). To the question "How much suffering may you inflict on a helpless prisoner, if in the process you acquire information that may save innocent lives", there are only two rational answers: none whatso-ever, or whatever it takes.It's hard to tell which is worse; the ineffectuality of an attitude that limits ill treatment to a degree which, while causing distress to those wrongly suspected, is easily withstood by any experienced and committed terrorist; or the hypocrisy of blind-eye laisser faire to the way interrogators pursue their objectives, followed by hand-wringing and scapegoating when the truth comes out.We all need to pick our position, and stand by it unapologetically There is no obvious moral high ground. Whichever way you go, sooner or later, you will have innocent blood on your hands.ROD BEACHAMALFOLD, SURREYSir: I think that your recent front page reports have covered some very important issues. But I can not help feeling that after reading Robert Fisk's horrifying article about torture and the UK and US Governments' complicity, that some front-page coverage of this subject is needed Mr Fisk asks what we can do. We could start by making sure that reports such as this get as much prominence as possible.