Japanese editorial excerpts -3-

Japan Policy & Politics, July 22, 2003

TOKYO, July 18 Kyodo

Selected editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

AID TO AFRICAN NATIONS (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published July 17)

Meeting in Mozambique last week, leaders of the 53 member countries of the African Union declared their will to exercise self-help to promote peace and encourage economic development. At about the same time, U.S. President George W. Bush was in Africa, and the European Union increased its diplomatic initiative to end the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Thus African endeavors are about to mesh with the assistance of advanced nations. This trend must be given a staying power.

Conditions in Africa, especially sub-Sahara Africa, have become more grave. About half the people live on less than $1 (120 yen) a day. The 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit declared that the number of those poor people would be halved by 2015. But the latest annual report from the U.N. Development Fund warns it could take 150 years to achieve this objective under present circumstances.

Civil wars continue and other clashes that have once calmed can flare anew in many African nations.

AIDS is an affliction of the people of Africa as well. Estimates from U.N. agencies and other special programs suggest 2.7 million people have already died of AIDS, and about 10% of the 30 million HIV-infected people are children. That has eroded the working population, in turn making it difficult for African economies to be self-sustaining.

It has been a year since the African Union was formed on the model of the European Union, to promote united self-help efforts rather than rely on assistance from advanced nations. But the African Union faces a difficult future.

The will of advanced nations to help Africa is being questioned. American officials are considering sending U.S. troops to restore peace in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves. But if the United States, which could put 200,000 troops in Iraq, cannot send a mere 2,000 to Liberia, it cannot gain the trust of African nations.

During his African tour, Bush said the U.S. would commit $15 billion (1.8 trillion yen) to the fight against AIDS in Africa over five years. U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs argues that if the world's leading nations would contribute a total of $25 billion a year to disease prevention, 8 million lives could be saved every year in Africa and other parts of the world. That amount is just half the annual cost of maintaining the occupation of Iraq.

In the four decades since African nations won independence from European colonizers, they have been beset by Cold War. Most have been left out of the information technology revolution and economic globalization.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States were an opportunity to consider the poverty and chaos in Africa -- a potential breeding ground of terrorism. But the attention of developed nations is more likely to be focused upon Iraq, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula.

Japan, which will sponsor the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in September, will have to talk to participating countries from the basics again about the importance of assistance to Africa.

(July 18)