Only Africans can free Africa
published: Tuesday | July 19, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

BASED ON what Mr. Moeletsi Mbeki wrote in the Sunday Gleaner titled, 'Liberate Africa from its political elites', Africa before and since the times of slavery remains an economic feeding ground of the vicious. African village leaders used starvation and violence and sold whole villages into slavery for their own economic good; upon this reasoning new societies in the western hemisphere were initially founded but were eventually swept away by Christian ideals of freedom.

My question however is, to whom is Mr. Mbeki appealing? Nobody is going to liberate Africans from the continent's society of elites, who continue to this day to use starvation and man-made disease as a control mechanism. African people must get the courage to put an end to their misery. No amount of debt forgiveness will help to alleviate the continent's distressed situation.

If former Africans can build free societies, they, the current Africans, can do much better if they have the courage as we did to take our destiny in our own bare hands and build. Easier said than done, but so is everything else that was built from the ground up.

I am, etc.,

BERESFORD A. DAVIDSON

BUCScie@netscape.net

Marietta, GA