In Valletta, Macki Sall tells his four truths to Europeans
(B2) At the end of the summit held in Valletta between Africans and Europeans, Macki Sall, the Senegalese President who co-chaired the meeting did not mince his words, in front of the press, questioning an unjust economic system but also the dramaturgy European migration policy.
The key to a self-reliant Africa
"Without tax evasion and the fraudulent transfer of resources, which is valued at 60 billion per year" Africa would manage alone, he believes. “The only repatriation of 17% of this sum would allow Africa to do without development aid and repay the debt. »
The unjust remuneration of natural resources
« As long as Africa does not see the fair remuneration of its natural resources, it will be more or less dependent. It is time to restore a fair remuneration of natural resources but also (to ensure) a transformation of these products on the continent. (This) which will give more added value than the export of raw materials and will give employment abjured the one who also presides over the destinies of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States).
Tax evasion and bad governance
« We must also fight against tax evasion. It is common knowledge that multinationals operating in Africa always find a way to avoid taxation. So there are a lot of wasted resources. Finally, he added, turning his gaze to his African counterparts, there is another cause of poverty in Africa: bad governance and corruption ».
De-dramatize the issue of migrants, organize mobility
The African leader believes that the migration and refugee crisis must be played down. " Wherever there is war, people flee. And where there are differences in development, people will migrate. “And to take” the perfect example " : United States. " A century or two centuries ago, it was Europe that immigrated en masse to the United States. Because it was a new El Dorado. It is a natural phenomenon that must be played down. But it is necessary to organize mobility, and to fight the traffics which use and exploit the poverty and the distress of the African populations. »
Comments : this is undoubtedly one of the most interesting remarks heard at this summit in Malta. Taking a little height, the Senegalese President, pointed out, with clear, understandable, direct remarks, the stake of the discussions between Europe and Africa. Next to it, the European leaders seemed cramped, stuck in withdrawal, having only their 'little' problem of the moment by the yardstick of their vision glasses: How to deal with the flow of refugees? How to get rid of migrants? How can the effectiveness of external border control be made more effective? It will be difficult tomorrow for Europeans to come and give advice to Africans on border management or the reception of refugees. One wonders if an “advisory” and “assistance” mission, of the CSDP type upside down, for Africans in Europe, would not be useless…
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde, in Valletta)
Indeed, Macky Sall has taken a little height but he passes a little quickly on the question of migratory flows. We Europeans, we know what we did in America: we invaded a continent and destroyed civilizations: the whole history of the conquest of the West is just that, the “good” cowboys against the “bad guys” native Indians who refuse progress and the slaughter of bison.
Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, it's 7 to 8 children per woman, a doubling of the country's population every 20 years, 100 million new inhabitants in 2050 and 200 million in the 21st century (Niger had 3 million inhabitants in 1960, 20 million today, 55 million in 2050 with unchanged demography…). Nigeria is going to reach 500 million inhabitants, which alone is as many as all of Europe. The African continent will go from 1 to 2 billion inhabitants in a few decades.
So, as we Europeans do not want to suffer the fate that has been reserved for the natives of the American continent, from Canada to Argentina, our rulers will have to
1 / find the means to invest massively (I mean massively, at least 0,5 to 1% of European GDP per year) throughout Africa and certain countries in the Middle East, to build cities, industries, health services, helping to set up family planning, etc.
2 / put in place mechanisms for the automatic readmission of all those intercepted at sea. We will not get there otherwise, because development initially favors emigration instead of fixing it (because it gives people the means to leave; similarly in the 19th century the Irish who left were those who had the means to pay for the crossing, the poorest stayed and sometimes died in famine).