| | The first issue of RAPE carried an article by Claude Meillassoux entitled, "Is the Sahel famine good business?", which outlined the position that the situation in the Sahel was not caused by climatic phenomena so much as by an economic policy applied during the colonial period, and that eventually it will be turned to the advantage of the advanced capitalist countries. This book documents Meillassoux's position with case studies from each of the Sahelian countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta, Niger and Chad). The text is the work of a collective (le Collectif des chercheurs africanistes) which first called attention to the true nature of the problem in May 1973 and which has suffered direct repression by the French Government as a result. |
