[Nasional-e] 'What we need more than development aid is social justice'

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'What we need more than development aid is social justice'

The Malian president, Amadou Toumani Toure, talks to Stephen Smith and
Jean-Pierre Tuquoi

You are on a four-day visit to France, where the community of sans papiers
[immigrant workers whose status has not been regularised], many of whom are
from Mali, have been demonstrating against their predicament. The French
interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is due to go on a trip to Mali in
October to organise what he describes as "a positive immigration network".
How can the problem be solved?
It is a mistake to assume that we are the only people responsible for the
problem. Initially, France welcomed Malian workers. If people in Mali talk
to you about Renault, Peugeot and Citroen, it's because a large number of
them spent many long years working here in France.
It guaranteed them a regular income. In some regions, notably in western
Mali, going to work in France was a tradition that was handed down from
father to son. People would emigrate so that the savings they sent back home
could help to build a water tower, a road or a clinic.
 We're quite prepared to sit down with the French authorities and discuss
the problem of sans papiers , immigration and integration. But I think it's
primarily an individual problem that is difficult to settle at government
level.
France has its domestic constraints, but so do we. My main concern is
naturally the defence and protection of the Malian population.
 The money sent home by Malians working in France amounts to €90m
[$90m] a year, whereas France's official development aid to Mali stands at
€55m. Will the return of your compatriots be linked to an increase in
ODA?
The two things are complementary. That Malian nationals are investing in
their country is a very good thing. At the same time we should not be guilty
of ingratitude. ODA helps us, but not so much to develop as to keep our
heads above water. We need a new and more open form of partnership that is
based on investment and will enable us to stop having to rely on handouts.
 For that to happen, shouldn't the United States, for example, stop
subsidising its cotton producers so as to give yours a chance?
This was something that was reiterated at the Earth summit: the North cannot
massively subsidise its farm exports and at the same time try and give
lessons in competitiveness to the South, which it is starving.
 Cotton accounts for 40% of tax revenues in Mali, which is the biggest
producer of the commodity in sub-Saharan Africa, and it provides a living
for 3 million of its inhabitants. Today you have to sell three kilos of seed
cotton to be able to buy one t-shirt.
As long as this situation continues, we'll have no chance of making a go of
it. What we need more than development aid is social justice and an end to
the double standards that are the rule in international relations.
 But surely the "new partnership" cannot be credible as long as the African
heads of state applaud a man like Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe,
who has been evicting white farmers from their land?
That is true. Just as it is true that agrarian reform is a problem in
several African countries. We have to ask ourselves whether those who
promised Zimbabwe aid after its independence, to help solve that problem,
actually paid up. Responsibility for the situation must be shared,
 even if one may feel uneasy about the brutal way Zimbabwe has been pushing
through its agrarian reforms. The whites who are being expelled from their
farms are Zimbabweans too.
The way that the agrarian issue is dealt with in Zimbabwe will influence the
way other countries approach the same problem in future.
 At a time when the victims of the September 11 attacks on the US are being
commemorated, what is the African perspective on terrorism?
It's a threat for us too, since the weakness of institutions in African
countries makes them very vulnerable, but above all because poverty is a
breeding ground for terrorism.
When you've nothing more to lose, you're prepared to embark on any kind of
wild venture. In Mali we say: "The village belongs to the village chief, but
the lives of those who are prepared to die belong to them." When people
become desperate there's nothing you can do to stop them. September 12

The Guardian Weekly 19-9-2002, page 26