| Are the cotton producers from the United States ; Greece or Spain shaking for their subsidies faced with the offensive in which a few African countries are committed? Do the cotton rates grow up in sight of a likely fall of public fund and a lower harvest in the developed countries?
Obviously, NO. The heads of the cotton industry of Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast may still play the hard guy, it is unlikely that this will make any impression on the occidental developed empires. Already, the Americans built up a strong defence. According to a representative member of the Dutch government who is used to the European cenacle, Greece is fond of its subsidies and won’t let it go that easily! Besides, the person in charge of a Swiss association, that supports the Africans in this clash, admits that “the chances of success are negligible”. Negligible because there is not much time left before the WTO meeting in September in Cancun to make the African thesis avalaible to all. The chances of success are negligible also because Africa seems alienated. Regional organisations exist in number and are trying to outdo each other in ingenuity that sometimes end up with nothing concrete as explained by the delegate of the Economic Community of the West African States in Ouagadougou. This structure gathers 15 countries. “Last April, we gathered in Accra, Ghana. We alluded to this cotton matter, he said. We took few decisions. None of them have been put into practice. We chose to cancel the meeting we had planned at the end of May to avoid competing with this one”. Indeed, the reunion in Ouagadougou is organised by another structure, the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa, which only reunifies French-speaking states in opposition to the ECWAS. Moreover the division seems to prevail between the different rulers of the Region. President Blaise Compaore, Burkina Faso, adopted the “cotton file” and went by himself to speak up for it last week in Geneva. But according to what is said here and there around the reunion in Ouagadougou, neither the Senegalese President, neither his Malian homologue Amadou Toumani Touré are showing the same combativeness. The President of Mali must go to the United-States before the end of June. His country is the main cotton producer of the Region but, to the great detriment of anyone fighting for the eliminating of the American and European subsidies, he seems not decided to defend this matter in Washington. Jean-Pierre BORIS , 18/06/2003 " chronique sur les matières premières" on www.rfi.fr |
View from the South