Washington, D.C. — "Is it possible for the U.S. to look at itself in the mirror without seeing Africa? I don't think so!" said Alpha Omar Konare, president of the Republic of Mali Thursday, addressing a luncheon hosted by the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa and the Carneigie Endowment for International Peace Africa Initiative. Konare stressed that the United States is inextricably bound to Africa.
Konare, along with the presidents of Senegal and Ghana, met with President Bush at the White House late Thursday. Strengthening African economies, regional stability and furthering democratic reform were the main items of discussion. All three countries convey an image of Africa that Bush is eager to embrace and claim as driving his African policy.
"Those three West African nations are real gems in Africa," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in the morning White House briefing. "They are real success stories. They are democracies. They have implemented economic reforms."
Africa offers opportunity is the message Konare, who also chairs the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), is bringing to Bush. The nations who form Ecowas are rich in natural resources, Konare said citing oil, diamonds, bauxite, fertile soil and fish-filled ocean. "The U.S. should be with us not because Africa might be a risk but because Africa is also an opportunity." Pointing to massive U.S. investment in the development of Latin America and Asia, Konare pointedly asked, "Why not Africa?"
Konare emphasized what is increasingly seen as the central message of the Millennium African Recovery Plan (MAP) which he - like South African President Thabo Mbeki during his visit here earlier this week - is pressing the Bush adminsitration to support: That the driving force behind democratic and economic reform on the African continent must be African commitment. "All those conflicts with no end in sight," Konare said, "it's not because partners are not helping. [They will end] because Africans themselves are playing their role."
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Democracy is key, Konare said. "We need to deepen the democratic process." Alluding to the civil warfare that has wracked the nearby nations of Liberia and Sierra Leone and spilled over into Guinea, Konare said it was the duty of African leaders like himself not to "encourage the logic of armed groups."
In a specific reference to Liberian leader Charles Taylor, Konare said he and other West African leaders approve of limited and carefully focused sanctions, "but also dialogue -- dialogue to force him to behave well, to force him to have dialogue with his opponents."
But he warned that the still simmering conflicts backed by Taylor require a political settlement, "not an armed settlement. A military settlement might force him [Taylor] out of power but lead to the destabilization of neighboring countries."
Konare has eleven months left before his second term in office ends, and he promises to step down. He acknowledges that he hasn't accomplished everything he wished to accomplish but before leaving Konare also promised to try to make sure that those in the successor government "are able to avoid the mistakes and errors that we have not been able to avoid."
