The Chief Executive Officer of Goal John O'Shea speaks to The Epoch Times about his concerns with respect to the Chinese Communist Party and how it is taking advantage of African countries with their lending policies. Mr. O'Shea explains how Africa is currently being stripped of its resources by the regime in China and how the world is turning a blind eye.
Irish Relief agency GOAL was founded in 1977 to help street children in Calcutta, it has since responded to nearly every major natural and man made disaster that has effected the poorest of the poor around the world.
EPT: How has the emergence of the CCP in Africa and their lending policies affected the stability of the continent and the work that GOAL and other relief agencies do?
Mr O'Shea: There are many hundreds of thousands of people still alive because of the work GOAL and other relief agencies are doing, but we are still very small in the overall context. We are however on the ground so we can observe what is happening. The real worrying thing about China's involvement is as follows:
The international community has always been very lax in terms of accountability and condition in respect of grants, loans or things of that nature, given to African despots.
It is more a question of giving it to them in the hope that whey will use the money to help their own people. Knowing full well, that they are dealing with some of the most corrupt regimes on the planet.
However, In recent years there have been serious efforts notably by two of the last three world bank presidents to try and bring some form of condition and accountability into the whole grant making process. Both of these men unfortunately lost their jobs when they took on corruption.
Some other western Governments primarily from the Nordic countries are concerned about corruption but the bulk of western governments, sadly are not that interested.
Even if they were, the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the scene has upset the apple cart completely, because they have no interest in accountability or condition.
If a nation in Africa wants a lot of money and knows that the CCP will give it unconditionally and there doesn't appear to be any great rush for them to repay the money because China wants its raw materials not money, this has to be extremely bad news for the poorest people on the planet.
That's the central issue that they are prepared to give the money in a way say for example that a bank or building society were to give out a huge loan to a person to buy a house but without charging any interest, obviously everyone would go there for a loan. This means that the other banks etc are going to struggle.
EPT: Why do you think they are doing that?
Mr O'Shea: They are doing that because of their insatiable appetite for raw material. China's rapidly growing economy and a vastly expanding population. The only way it can solve this problem is by getting in more natural resources. Africa is the home of raw materials so it's not the money it wants from Africa, it's the fact that the African corrupt governments won't be able to repay their debts that's the good news, because what they can't repay in cash they will be forced to repay in raw materials.
Therefore the coal, oil and diamonds will rush out of Africa into China more rapidly than before, Darfur being a case in point.
Europe and America have been caught napping, they are aware of that, hence this reluctance by any country including Ireland to tackle the issue of condition and accountability.
Because they are all afraid that they will be told by the African governments to get the hell out of here we don't want your money because we can get it from China, no strings attached.
The third world experts who study the continent will come up with all kinds of convoluted explanation for China's involvement, the bottom line is greed nothing else.
EPT: Do you think Africa is lost to debt and corruption or can it still be saved?
Mr O'Shea: If Africa can be saved it needs perhaps a half a dozen Mandela like people within Africa and certainly a few of them outside Africa. I don't see anyone resembling Mandela in Africa and I don't think I ever will.
There has never been anybody from the west at Government or UN Security council level who has shown the sort of interest in Africa that is needed to save the lives of the hundreds of millions that are in need.
We again just have to look a Darfur and the way we are allowing the lives of three million people hang by a thread because we haven't even got the guts to threaten to boycott the Olympics in case china turns off the economic tap.
EPT: What are your thoughts on the current situation in Zimbabwe?
Mr O'Shea With respect to Zimbabwe, the African nations don't seem to care this includes South Africa where as western approaches have been lukewarm everybody is saying that this is terrible. They are all sending out statements but I don't see any armies at the gates, threatening Mugabe and saying that we are concerned about the decent people of Zimbabwe ending up as famine victims.
Politicians are doing what politicians do, they are talking and making noise but they are not delivering. Therefore in that context, in that situation in that environment thousands of people die.
EPT: Do you think it is possible to improve the situation in Africa while while the CCP has such a strong influence?
Mr O'Shea: Perhaps there will never be a level playing field when it comes to dealing with the Chinese Regime.
However my main concern is trying to get aid to those in greatest need. In my thirty years experience the way the world is trying to help the poorest of the poor has failed. If this was a business and it failed you would try something else you wouldn't continue doing the same thing. Why not have the courage to try a different way.
Common sense demands that you do not deal with corrupt or brutal regimes because the very least you are propping up people who are killing others that in itself is morally indefensible.
A way perhaps forward would be for governments to adopt one country and treat that country in the way a multinational treats a country, It goes in it gets permission to set up its factories, employs local staff. We would do the same thing through the government. We would provide the infrastructure, we would hire the local staff but we would keep the cheque book, which is entirely different to the way most governments operate, they give the money to the corrupt governments.
Hopefully by providing the hospitals, clinics and roads, maybe the poorest and most vulnerable will benefit as a result of that. I'm not saying that this is a perfect solution. I'm only suggesting an alternative, when you've been working at it for thirty years you perhaps have some sort of authority to speak out in this way.
EPT: In your thirty years with GOAL has the situation ever been as bleak as it is now?
Mr O'Shea: It is hard to answer that kind of question. I was down in Cambodia when Pol Pot was exterminating his people. I was in Ethiopia right through the Ethiopian famine. I was in Rwanda when a million people were killed. I was in Somalia right through the Somali tragedy, through the entire Sudan catastrophe, Honduras so forth. They have all been terrible, death is death and suffering is suffering. People like Martin Meredith who have written extensively about Africa and know much more about it than people like me, has said that there has been no improvement since the time that the first African government got independence with the possible exception of Botswana. Now that's fairly sad.
EPT: What motivates you to keep working for GOAL Mr O'Shea.
Mr O'Shea: I suppose I am passionate about my work, every human beings life is precious. The GOALies (GOAL workers) are the Doctors, Nurses, Engineers etc. they do phenomenal work following the footsteps of the missionaries who went out to Africa over one hundred years ago. If anyone of these people that we save can become a Mandela like figure then it's all been worth while, it's worth while anyway because I think we have a moral obligation as human beings to do so. We may all end our days knowing that the situation is the same as it was thirty years ago when I first went out to Calcutta but this does not make useless or anything like that the work that we do. There are huge numbers of people who desperately care about the poor they have to have that caring reflected in work that we do.
Notes:
Since its inception GOAL has sent 1,400 volunteers (GOALies) to work in the developing world, alongside more than 2,500 local staff and spent over €505 million on the delivery of aid to the poor. It has managed this on as low an administration cost base as possible and pursues a policy of total transparency and accountability and publishes annual audited accounts.
In its efforts to assist the poor, GOAL has received support from, among others, the Governments of Ireland, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Holland, Italy, Spain and Sweden, as well as from the European Union and the United Nations. GOAL is also supported by a variety of charitable trusts and foundations in Ireland, the UK and USA and the general public, through donations, wills and legacies and various fund-raising events. GOAL has its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with GOAL offices also in the UK and USA.
GOAL receives substantial support from sports stars, many of whom are patrons of the organisation. Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash is President of GOAL UK while the former world number one tennis player, Mats Wilander, is President of GOAL USA.
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