Since the BP Oil Spill is front page news in Africa, I thought it was time for the AfriCommons Blog to share just a bit of perspective from right here in Katrina-BP Spill Country.

From the Sun Herald, the Knight Ridder daily in Gulfport-Biloxi here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast:

BILOXI — From all appearances, a new branch of government on the Gulf — BP — continues to dictate the response to what is now the nation’s worst man-made disaster.

Coast leaders accustomed to marshaling resources for disaster response are being told BP will clean up any oil that threatens Mississippi marshlands and beaches. After watching the dismal results in Louisiana, mayors and a Harrison County supervisor told the Sun Herald on Thursday they each have their own plans ready and will step in if oil threatens the shoreline.

“Everything that has been told to us is, ‘BP is responsible. BP is going to clean up. BP is going to do this and BP is going to do that,’ ” Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said. “We are not going to depend on that.”

Holloway, Gulfport Mayor George Schloegel, Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran and Harrison County Supervisor Windy Swetman said in a meeting at the Sun Herald that DEQ and DMR have not released their near- and onshore response plans and did not seek input from Coast localities in developing them.

Instead, Coast localities have delved into their own solutions.

“We are used to dealing with disaster,” Moran said. “It’s just hard to sit around and do nothing and wait for BP to come to the rescue. Let’s just say we don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling about that. . . . .

Surely if there was an environmental disaster in Kenya caused by private industry, and the Kenyan government deferred to the very company that caused the disaster to govern the response, the US would offer criticism of the lack of autonomy and responsibility shown by the Kenyan government.