Yves Engler - Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation

Canada in Africa
300 Years of Aid and Exploitation

By

Yves Engler

Fernwood Publishing, RED Publishing

Copyright 2015 Yves Engler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

First printing August 2015

Cover design by Working Design

Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Printing

A co-publication of

RED Publishing

2736 Cambridge Street

Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1L7 and

Fernwood Publishing

32 Oceanvista Lane, Black Point, Nova Scotia, B0J 1B0

and 748 Broadway Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 0X3

www.fernwoodpublishing.ca

F ernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism under the Manitoba Publishers Marketing Assistance Program and the Province of Manitoba, through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, for our publishing program.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Engler, Yves, 1979-, author

Canada in Africa : 300 years of aid and exploitation / Yves Engler.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-55266-762-0

1. Canada Foreign relations Africa. 2. Africa Foreign relations Canada. I. Title.

FC244.A35E54 2015 327.7106 C2015-900667-8

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements etc.

Introduction

1. Profiting from Slavery

2. Brute Capitalism

3. Providing Ideological Cover

4. Canadian Colonialism

5. Liberator or Defender of Colonialism

6. Aid Against Independence

7. Canadian Coups

8. Neoliberalism

9. A Mining Superpower

10. Mining Conflict

11. The Spoils of Privatization

12. Mythology and Reality

13. A Sordid Tale

14. Carrying a Big Stick

15. Whose Corruption?

16. Our Shared Environment

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements etc.

I would like to thank Nadia Hausfather who has long encouraged and enabled my research habit. I would also like to acknowledge Dru Oja Jay and Nik Barry Shaw for allowing me to draw from Paved with Good Intentions .

While writing this book I moved between Ottawa, Toronto, Montral and East Africa. A number of individuals allowed me to stay at their places along the way: Rose Marie Whalley, Paul Tetrault and Sally Teich; Dan Rosen and Jessica Haber (as well as Evan and Denise) Araceli Gonzalez Reyes and Diego Hausfather; Angela Schleihauf, Nadia Hausfather and Tareq Shahwan.

I would also like to acknowledge my uncle Al Engler for looking over the manuscript and my father Gary for his endless help. Id like to thank my wonderful partner Bianca Mugyenyi whose rigorous judgement greatly improved the manuscript.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the dozens of individuals (Nikki Baker, Scott Harris, Mark Haley, Peter Eglin ...) whove set up public events for my books. In a hostile media climate, their work makes it possible and worthwhile to continue researching and publishing. Their activism gives us hope for developing a genuinely justice-oriented Canadian foreign-policy.

***

The English spelling of many African place names and other words has changed over the years. I have tried to use current commonly accepted mid-Atlantic spelling, but have respected historical use in quotes and titles.

***

Writing using voice recognition software has been a wonderful solution to old hockey injuries worsened by repetitive strain. But along with beneficial health effects comes danger speaking continent can easily be transcribed as content, for example and cleaning up this technologically-induced minefield can be a daunting task for any editor. I take full responsibility for any such errors and apologize in advance to any upset readers.

Introduction

Judge me by my actions, not my words.

Lord Byron, nineteenth century poet

At the end of 2014 I spent a brief, but exciting, five weeks traveling through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The trip provided a glimpse of life in East Africa. One striking contrast with Canada was the freedom kids had to roam. Siblings, older children and neighbourhood adults supervised the littlest ones. I admired the social trust regarding children, but held my breath every time I saw a six or seven-year-old grasping a toddlers hand mere feet from a road.

A highlight of my travels was running into a group of kids playing football in Mwanza, Tanzania, who were happy to have a Muzungu join their game. Rather than chase the ball, the youngest in the group spent most of the game doing flips. It was fun, but didnt do my team any favours!

After 3,000 km in three countries I can confidently say that the buses are less comfortable than those in Canada. Bumps repeatedly sent me flying. But while the road jolted me from my seat the stops made it so one neednt get out. At every stop individuals sold nuts, fruits, popcorn, drinks and other goodies through the window or aisle. Crossing Tanzania a young man got on with a large bag of warm corn and slowly made his way up the aisle peeling a cob to whet the appetite of anyone who looked his way. By the time the driver let him off he was tens of kilometers from his starting point though carrying a much lighter load. The corn seller was lucky. Another vendor ended up miles from where he started without selling a single biscuit.

The entrepreneurial spirit is much stronger in East Africa than Canada. Notwithstanding certain ideological claims, however, its highly inefficient. It may be convenient to purchase a bag of nuts from the comfort of ones bus seat, but a large number of sellers at every stop reflects limited opportunities and is a poor use of peoples capacities.

***

This book details Canadas role in exploiting Africa and undermining the sovereignty of its people. Canadian policy provides a unique window into Western exploitation of Africa and this book can hopefully contribute to overcoming widespread ignorance of African affairs.

The first half of the book is largely organized chronologically while each chapter in the second half covers a region or theme in Canada-Africa relations. I focus on sub-Saharan Africa, but the northern part of the continent has been included where it fits the general pattern.

Prior to Confederation in 1867 the territories of current day Canada played a small part in the transatlantic slave trade. For over 200 years, New France and the British North America colonies held Africans in bondage and Canadians helped suppress Caribbean slave rebellions. Most significantly, the Atlantic provinces literally fed the slave system, generating great wealth selling cheap, high-protein cod to keep thousands of enslaved people working 16 hours a day.

As the European powers transitioned from stealing Africans to taking the continents resources, Canadians helped Britain and the Belgian King conquer various parts of the continent. Four hundred Canadians traveled halfway across the world to beat back anti-colonial resistance in the Sudan in 1885 while a decade and a half later thousands more fought in defence of British imperial interests in the southern part of the continent. Usually trained at Kingstons Royal Military College, Canadians also led military expeditions, built rail lines and surveyed colonial borders across the continent.