ARTICLE - PROP UP DICTATORS = FAILING POOR

PROPPING UP THE DICTATORS AND FAILING THE POOR
(St. Thomas Times Journal) - By Peter Worthington

A lot of people, ranging from the respected Fraser Institute to African economists, regard foreign aid programs as mostly useless.

Others, like U.S. libertarian presidential contender Ron Paul, see foreign aid as an instrument that props up dictators -- a view, sadly, substantiated by looking at the African continent.

Canada, for instance, allocates $5 billion a year for foreign aid -- mainly to 20 countries (down from 25 when Paul Martin was PM), and mostly in the western hemisphere.

Significantly, Freedom House studied 228 cases of U.S. intervention in foreign countries from 1975 to 2005, and discovered in 96 cases there had been no perceptive changes, while in 69 cases things were worse. In 63 cases, there was more democracy.

Hmm. So much for the U.S. fixation on exporting democracy.

In too many cases, especially in Africa, the effect of foreign aid (especially government-to-government) has been to sustain and prop up dictatorships. Foreign aid enables dictators to depend on foreign aid to feed the people, while diverting domestic money to buying weapons and maintaining an army that enhances the dictatorship.

Ron Paul notes $70 billion in aid to Egypt over the years didn't do much for the ordinary Egyptian, but did bolster the Mubarak bank account. In his words: "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor in rich countries, and giving it to the rich in poor countries."

A glib way of saying something that often is too true.

The 10 biggest annual recipients of U.S. aid are Afghanistan ($4.1 billion), Israel ($2.7 billion), Pakistan $1.88 billion), Haiti ($1.77 billion), Egypt ($1.55 billion), Iraq ($1.11 billion), Jordan ($843 million), Mexico ($758 million), Kenya ($680 million) and Nigeria ($615 million).

Of these, only Israel can be considered genuinely "stable," with Jordan and Kenya marginal. Afghanistan is peaceful only as long as foreign troops are there, Pakistan is a questionable ally, Egypt is in chaos, Iraq is uncertain, and Haiti is a perpetual basket case. Not resounding triumphs of exporting democracy or helping the needy.

Canada's relatively new policy of committing aid programs to the western hemisphere and (hopefully) to countries that show signs of wanting democracy, is reassuring. It doesn't deflect from the reality foreign aid in the long run usually does more damage than good.

On a personal level, in the late 1970s Tanzania was desperate for food --but there was ample foreign aid food stacked at the airport with no effort to distribute it.

And during the Ethiopian famine, with people starving, the Mengistu regime was still charging duty on incoming food.

I was with Eritrean fighters when they routed an Ethiopian division and found army kitchens stacked with sacks of flour, stenciled with "Gift of Canada for Ethiopian people."

In 2002 King Mswati III, of Swaziland, purchased a $45-million royal jet, so he could fly to various countries to beg for aid money -- this is a country where 65% of the 1.2 million population lives in abject poverty, 33% are HIV positive, and the royal jet cost twice as much as the annual health budget.

Political parties are banned in Swaziland, but foreign aid isn't.

Foreign aid tends to promote dependency, and undermines self-reliance, confidence and initiative, three cornerstones of developing countries.