German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/209,
pp. 26393-26394.
Right honorable Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
South Sudan fundamentally has all the natural resources
required to build a flourishing economy: A great land mass, petroleum, various
metals, good agricultural land and the water reserves belonging thereto –
fundamentally everything necessary not only for self-support but also for
export. However, South Sudan is in fact one of the world’s poorest countries.
According to the ranking list of Transparency International, it is in addition
the world’s most corrupt country, a rank it shares with neighboring Somalia.
For many years, two warlords engage in a brutal struggle
over power and money which has driven millions of people out of the country. Of
the 12 million inhabitants of South Sudan – the State Minister has already
plainly referred to it – 7.5 million, far more than half, are dependent on food
assistance. In other central and western African countries it is to be sure not
much better.
Because the political heroes engage in civil wars,
assistance is required and delivered. As a first impulse, this is completely
comprehensible. Yet the opposite of well done is well intentioned; since in
supplying any crisis area with food, the warlords are primarily freed to
further conduct their wars and not to trouble themselves with the needs of the
people. By means of these doubtless well intentioned deliveries to the
populace, the wars and the people’s suffering were ultimately made possible and
prolonged.
A further consequence of the constantly well intentioned
deliveries is that many places scarcely still pursue an agriculture and will have
built no real distribution system; of a construction of industries, there is
nothing to be said. In ever more African states, however, there meanwhile
develops a resistance against the dependence-forming alms of the West. Native African
economists see them as new form of colonialism rather than as selfless assistance.
The Deutschlandfunk,
for example, frequently reported in recent years on the experiences of African
scientists, but of also the people who live in these areas, who ask themselves:
Why should I still build something, if the aid comes anyway? Why should I try
to sell in the market foodstuffs of my own production, when the foodstuffs assistance
will be delivered and distributed free of cost?
Armin-Paulus Hampel (AfD): So it is!
The little German military mission in South Sudan is now to
be seen against this background. Liaison staff activity and technical equipment
assistance, according to the Federal government’s motion, should stand in the
foreground, and not so much the securing of aid deliveries as before. This is
to be welcomed. Therefore, the AfD, as in previous years, will support this
mission and vote for the motion.
Nevertheless, 28 million euros for humanitarian aid for 2021
is again foreseen by the Federal government, thus deliveries of foodstuffs. We
think it would be more sensible to scale down the foodstuffs assistance and to
intensify the development of the agriculture and distribution system in this
country, and also in other countries. The BMZ’s
[Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development] crucial point of
activity is now already the development of the agricultural infrastructure, the
supply of water and sanitation – a consequential and correct decision.
We should not however allow the warlords to further neglect their
responsibility for the people of South Sudan. Help for self-help – yes,
unconditionally, but no help which makes them helpless.
I thank you.
[trans: tem]
