![]() ![]() But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. As global demand for Africa’s resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. ![]() The looting now is accelerating as never before. This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa’s past as a colonial victim. ![]() The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa’s new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states’ value. ![]() In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it’s a mirage. ![]()
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