by PATRICK BOND and KHADIJA SHARIF
Prime Minsiter Manmohan Singh with Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Jacob Zuma, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the family photo at the Fifth BRICS Summit in Durban South Africa. PHOTO/PTI/The New Indian Express
The reach of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) leaders was palpable this week, not just here in Durban where they gathered on Tuesday and Wednesday to plan investments and infrastructure, but everywhere up continent where extraction does extreme damage.
One site is the Central African Republic (CAR), where last Saturday thirteen SA National Defense Force troops lost their lives (with 27 wounded) in a fight of 200 South Africans initially against the very CAR troops they were training, according to an army trade unionist, followed by Seleka rebels who then apologized for killing the South Africans.
These tragic deaths were in vain: not in support of African democracy, for François Bozizé was such a brutal tyrant that not even France made an attempt to prop him up. Instead, over the past ten weeks, our SA troops have been defending counterproductive, repressive military investments and potential mining deals, as deputy foreign minister Ebrahim Ebrahim let on in a recent interview explaining their deployment.
A Reuters correspondent is probably correct: ‘It is particularly embarrassing for South Africa, which is seeking to project itself as an influential regional power on the continent this week as it hosts a summit of the BRICS emerging states and welcomes new Chinese President Xi Jinping on his first visit to Africa as head of state.’
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CSO PROHIBITED FROM BRICS MEETING
A few hours later on the same radio network, SA’s BRICS Ambassador Anil Sukla confirmed Pretoria’s refusal to send a representative to the ‘brics-from-below’ civil society conference, which on Monday-Tuesday was located in a church just a few minutes away from the BRICS meeting. Requests to participate in BRICS deliberations made over prior weeks by social movements, NGOs and even major trade unions were swatted away by Suklal’s colleagues – yet big business has pride of place inside today.
That leaves BRICS rulers and their corporations to quietly plan the further looting of Africa, joined by the pliable guests led by Museveni. However, subsidized state funding is needed to facilitate deals because commercial banks know there are intolerable risks – like those the SANDF troops just suffered.
To facilitate, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is lining up to play a crucial role, and Suklal lobbied for SA to host the $50 billion BRICS Bank that was supposed to have been launched on Wednesday. Its postponement until further talks when the Russians host the G20, appeared to reflect the lack of confidence of BRICS in Pretoria.
ESCHEWING PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT IDEALS
A genuinely counterhegemonic financial strategy would have been for BRICS to instead support the late Hugo Chavez’s Bank of the South. The idea was spurned, as BRICS elites apparently want an institution without any residue of more progressive development ideals.
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