Africa faces 'new colonialism'

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday warned of a creeping "new colonialism" in Africa from foreign investors and governments interested only in extracting natural resources to enrich themselves. African leaders must ensure that foreign projects are sustainable and benefit all their citizens, not only elites, she said. A day earlier, she urged scrutiny of China's large investments and business interests in Africa so that the African people are not taken advantage of. "We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave," Clinton said. "And when you leave, you don't leave much behind for the people who are there. We don't want to see a new colonialism in Africa." Clinton said the United States didn't want foreign governments and investors to fail in Africa, but they also should give back. "We want them to do well, but also we want them to do good," she said. "We don't want them to undermine good governance, we don't want them to basically deal with just the top elites, and frankly too often pay for their concessions or their opportunities to invest." Clinton said that American development aid and public works projects come with good governance conditions and that the Obama administration is interested in Africa and its people. Their success, she said, is in everyone's long-term interest. Her comments, in a pan-African television interview, followed the handover of a US built paediatric hospital in Lusaka to the Zambian government. Earlier, at the inaugural meeting of the US-Zambia Chamber of Commerce, Clinton laid out the US strategy for helping Africa. "We want a relationship of partnership not patronage, of sustainability, not quick fixes," she said. "We want to establish a strong foundation to attract new investment, open new businesses ... create more paycheques, and do so within the context of a positive ethic of corporate responsibility." "We think it's essential that we have an idea going in that doing well is not in any way a contradiction of doing good," she said. Clinton is the first secretary of state to visit Zambia since Henry Kissinger came in 1976 to lay out the Ford administration's policy for southern Africa as revolts against white minority rule in South Africa and what was then Rhodesia were intensifying. From / Gulf News