Washington, DC — No question, say analysts of varied persuasions across the political spectrum, President George W. Bush has surprised them with the attention he seems to be paying to Africa. Campaigning for the presidency three years ago, Bush said Africa was not one of the "areas of strategic importance," to the U.S. and that given a choice, he would not have sent troops into Rwanda to head off the genocide in 1994.
Now, here he is on the cusp of sending up to 2,000 U.S. troops into Liberia and traveling across the continent holding out the promise of billions of new dollars for the HIV/Aids fight and foreign assistance. He also has a billion dollars for the anti-terror fight - and the head of the United States European Command, General James Jones, says Africa is a potential terrorist breeding ground that will require U.S. bases on the continent.
Oil, as well as terrorism, seems to be an important part of the president's new-found Africa awareness. Currently, the United States imports about 18 percent of its oil from Africa - most of it from Nigeria, Angola and Gabon. By some estimates, oil imports from Africa are expected to grow to 25 percent over the next 10 years. But he dismisses the idea that his Africa policy is driven by oil interests: "Well, there are conspiracy theorists everywhere, I guess."
Tuesday in Senegal, at the start of his six-day trip to five African nations, Bush will meet with at least seven African heads of state and government - "West African leaders that are from small democracies," said National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, last week. "The countries that will come together with President Wade and President Bush in Senegal are...countries that are trying to do the right thing."
Both Liberia's current tumult and concerns with terrorism will be high on the agenda of those talks. Many experts think the dispatch of U.S. troops in Liberia is likely, but the tough question for the talks in Senegal is what to do about the war crimes indictment of Liberian president Charles Taylor and international warrant for his arrest. Taylor has the opportunity to quit office and gain asylum in Nigeria but he may continue to fear the possibility of facing the criminal court in Sierra Leone; that, and the danger he personally faces from anti-government rebels, may cause Taylor to believe he would be best off continuing to fight.
State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, Monday backed away from acknowledging any administration efforts to work out a deal on the indictment. "We recognize the work of the court, but how this works out in the end is going to be a matter between Taylor and the prosecutor."
President Bush also gives a major address on race - "a Message of Compassion" - during a visit to Senegal's Goree Island, infamous as a European slave pen and port. "The President is going to talk about and acknowledge what slavery has meant to Africa and has meant to America," says Condoleezza Rice. "Africa is part of America's history," she said. "Europeans and Africans came to this country together, Africans in chains. And slavery was, of course, America's birth defect. And we've been trying to deal with the consequences of it ever since."
African leaders like the attention they've been getting in the past two years. At the White House, Bush has met with 22 African heads of state since he took office. But while his welcome on the continent will certainly be courteous, there will also be questions, some of them prickly.
Delicate talks in South Africa
The war with Iraq dominates perceptions of his tenure in many capitals. South Africa, considered by the Bush administration to be a crucial partner in Africa, took the lead in objecting to the war. President Thabo Mbeki openly opposed Bush and the strain still shows in U.S. - South African relations. And the issue may haunt Bush across Africa. About 50 protesters marched in Senegal's capital, Dakar, on Monday, expressing anger over the U.S. president's visit; but their issue was not Africa policy but Iraq and the Middle East.
"For anybody, especially the leader of a superstate, to act outside the United Nations is something that must be condemned by everybody," said former South African president Nelson Mandela - who quite conspicuously will not be in South Africa when Bush visits.
On another sensitive front, the U.S. has frozen military aid to 35 countries which have declined to sign agreements promising not to bring American citizens before the International War Crimes Tribunal. South Africa is one of them.
Nonetheless, good relations with South Africa are considered vital. U.S. exports to the former apartheid nation are larger than those to Russia even though Russia's population is 3.5 times larger than South Africa. And South Africa is playing an increasingly significant role in economies across the continent. "South Africa has been a leader," said President Bush during a briefing last week. "President Mbeki is a leader. When you think about the continent of Africa, you think about leadership, you think about President Mbeki."
Bush and Mbeki will first talk to each other alone for about an hour on Wednesday morning. They will be joined for a second hour of discussion by South African and U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and South African Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma. After hosting a luncheon for Bush, Mbeki will leave for Mozambique and the annual African Union summit there.
Zimbabwe, too, has the United States and many African nations staring at each other from different sides of a difficult-to-cross canyon. Bush wants a tougher more aggressive, even belligerent, stance from continental leaders and will certainly bring this up with Mbeki and Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who along with Malawi President Bakili Muluzi, have been attempting to find a diplomatic solution to Zimbabwe's crisis. But the gap is not likely to be bridged. Meanwhile, Mbeki, who has also been trying to facilitate a solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is unhappy with continued lack of U.S. clarity on whether it will support an expanded role for United Nations forces in that war-torn nation.
In Nigeria, where President Obasanjo's position seems stronger in the aftermath of the recently held elections, Nigeria's role in regional security will form an important part of the discussion. But tuning the economic engine may be an even more important discussion. The administration can help, said former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, Princeton Lyman recently, but "no amount of economic aid that we're going to provide to Nigeria is going to make the difference in terms of wealth... This is a country that has to get its wealth from its agriculture and do a better job with its oil."
Carrots - and sticks
Political differences are linked to U.S.-Africa economic relations, and administration officials are making it plain that much of the economic discussion on the trip will emphasize that U.S. interest in expanded trade and investment is conditional on 'good behavior'. Nepad - the New Partnership for African Development - in which African nations promise greater transparency and commitment to good governance, is still viewed suspiciously by the Bush administration in part because of dissatisfaction with "Africa's" approach to Zimbabwe.
The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a five-year plan which promises US$5bn in development assistance, perhaps half of it potentially available to Africa, is the official carrot. To a lesser extent, so is Agoa - the African Growth and Opportunities Act - which will be discussed in Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. The "key insight" of the MCA, says Alan Larson, Under Secretary for Economic, Business, and Agriculture Affairs, is that "thoughtful and participatory political and economic governance are fundamental to lasting progress." He was explaining that the U.S. would make money available to African nations only if receiving governments are held to a standard of accountability set by the United States.
But though proposed by President Bush back in March 2002, no MCA funds have been authorized as yet. Bush has requested US$1.3bn in the 2004 budget submitted to Congress this year. If approved, African nations will compete with other nations for this money.
President Bush favors a ten-year extension of Agoa - another carrot, but is at loggerheads with Africa on intellectual property rights for pharmaceuticals, which affect the supply of generic drugs to fight HIV/Aids. And while generally opposing European agricultural subsidies, he has resisted ending some U.S. subsidies - like cotton - which keep African prices below their production costs.
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Commitment to the fight against the HIV/Aids pandemic - a promise of US$15bn to 14 countries, 12 of them African, over 5 years - is the great triumphal message Bush intends to carry everywhere on his travels. United Nations figures put the number of people infected with HIV in Africa at 30 million. In Botswana, which Bush will visit Thursday, nearly four of every 10 people are HIV-infected, while in Zimbabwe and Swaziland, a third of the population are infected.
But though the new money for HIV/Aids is certainly appreciated, it's the Bush Administration approach to this fight that brings one of the sharpest differences between the United States and Africa into focus. As Salih Booker the Executive Director of Africa Action, a think tank and advocacy group, puts it: "American unilateralism is at odds with African efforts to gain international cooperation to address the most urgent global priorities such as AIDS, poverty and civil conflict, which have the most devastating consequences in Africa."
The United Nations Global Aids fund is virtually bankrupt but the United States continues to maintain an arms length suspicious stance with regard to it, asking in this year's budget request, a mere US$200m of the US$5bn-US$7bn UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says will be needed annually for the next 10 years. At the same time, a new structure is slowly being built to managed the new U.S. Aids money. Aids activists point to last week's appointment of retired Eli Lilly chief, Randall Tobias, as the U.S. global anti-Aids coordinator as proof that the administration cares more about protecting US pharmaceutical giants than fighting the disease in Africa.
In any case, Congress has yet to appropriate any money for the Bush Aids fight. This trip, say some analysts, will give him some ammunition to prod Congress into action. It's difficult to organize a presidential trip, notes Gayle Smith, who was National Security Advisor for Africa during the Clinton administration. "It's a nightmare, and it's equally difficult to get the rest of government wrapped around Africa...and to get the Congress seriously engaged, and I hope this trip will help on both of those fronts."
