Anglican priest the Rev Ernle Gordon says African countries should be cautious about the debt relief offer from the Group of 8 (G8) industrialised nations, and advised Africa to ditch its dependence on rich countries.

The time has now come, said Gordon, for African countries to revisit the concept of self-reliance, as was advocated by Marcus Garvey, and chart their development on their own terms – not on those set out by nations providing economic aid.

“Let us be careful of the wonderful plans and gifts of the G-8,” Gordon, in addressing the topic ‘Africa and the G-8 Summit’, told a symposium to mark the 118th anniversary of Garvey’s birth at the PCJ Auditorium last week.

“I’m not suggesting that they aren’t good plans,” he continued. “What I’m saying is, having looked at the past – and I’m not saying that people cannot change – one has to be careful how we just become happy when we get gifts… I’m saying that we should open up our eyes clearly and be careful how we use words, how we redefine words like democracy – a very nice word – but it’s democracy on whose terms.”

In June, finance ministers from the world’s eight richest countries – the United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and France – agreed to a historic US$40 billion debt write-off for the world’s poorest nations.

Britain’s Treasury Chief Gordon Brown said 18 countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa, would benefit immediately from the deal.

As many as 20 other countries could be eligible if they met strict targets for good governance and tackling corruption, leading to a total debt relief package of more than US$55 billion.

Aid agencies welcomed the deal, saying it would save the 18 developing countries a total of US$1.5 billion a year in debt repayments that could now be used for health care, education and infrastructure development.

A month later, G8 leaders, at their meeting in Scotland, agreed to a US$50-billion increase in annual development aid, including US$25 billion for Africa, by 2010.

But last week, Rev Gordon cautioned that that kind of aid could most likely be given on terms that are not beneficial to poor countries.

“.then you’ll have to have a type of government where your coffee and your sugar prices are dictated not by your own parliament, but (by) Brussels,” he said.

Rev Gordon said the underdevelopment of Africa had to be understood in the context of what took place in pre-slavery and post-slavery colonisation.

“If you now examine the linkage between the G8 and some of the same countries that sold them arms, they also assisted in corruption, in that those leaders who would agree with them were supported with arms.”

He made it clear that he was not suggesting that African countries engaged in corrupt practices should not be criticised. “What I’m saying is, for too long we have allowed the dependency syndrome, the deformed psyche for somebody to always tell us what we want,” Gordon said. “The time has come for the Diaspora to meet with others to say what we want as development. And the development must be in accordance with the African mind.”