Development to bring about peace in Africa: Analyst
Press TV has conducted an interview with Lawrence Freeman, a member of the Executive Intelligence Review in Baltimore, to discuss the recent military coup in Burkina Faso.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Ouagadougou has definitely seen its fair share of political turbulence in recent times. Talk to us about what is taking place now and what is being seen as a major conundrum for the African country.
Freeman: It is a very significant problem but it is not unique, because what we are seeing in large portions of Africa is because of the instability that is developed in many of these nations due to a complete failure for economic development supported by the rest of the world. All these countries have an inherent problem and they have great difficulty maintaining sovereign stable governments and the only way to change that is to actually have a massive ‘Marshall Plan,’ economic development program for infrastructure throughout Africa, which is what my organization is working on right now.
Press TV: And what about a response from African Union countries? We have been hearing lots of condemnations for what is taking place in Ouagadougou.
Freeman: Of course the AU is going to condemn it. The UN has already condemned it. This is unfortunately not sufficient. We have seen what has happened in South Sudan as in your earlier report, where the country is now being destroyed, and was never properly developed to become a country. We see these other conflicts going on throughout other areas of Africa. Look at the situation in Mali.
So the Burkina Faso situation is unfortunate but I do not think it is the end of it. I think we are going to see more unstable countries, because they have not been developed properly economically. We are going to see more coups and more counter coups. You have a situation like this developing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So rather than hand-wringing and condemning and issuing sanctions, we should really get on with the policy of development and development is the way to bring about peace in Africa.
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