Ungrateful Natives

One of the Reverend Blair's early successes, Sierra Leone, is the subject of a report by Christian Aid which has the temerity to suggest that land-grabs by foreign capitalists may not necessarily be a Good Thing. Since the civil war which his reverence, aided no doubt by his chum Baby Jesus, ended ten years ago, European companies have made the usual grandiose promises about the benefits of development. Landowners and company employees have indeed benefited, while lesser persons have had their land deemed "unused", their fruit trees cut down, their social structures undermined and their meals reduced. The companies have promised that matters will improve for the natives as soon as matters improve for the shareholders and the boardroom bonus claimants, who over the next ten years will suffer from nearly two hundred million dollars which the government has awarded them in tax breaks.