Washington, DC — The Bush Administration is pressing African nations to support the impending war with Iraq, and the three African nations on the United Nations Security Council have been targets of special lobby efforts by the president, Secretary of State and other administration officials.
As part of an intensive search for at least nine 'yes' votes on the Security Council resolution on Iraq introduced Monday, the administration last week dispatched Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kansteiner, to the capitals of the three nations with current Council seats - Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, which takes over as Security Council president on March 1.
President George W. Bush has also conversed by telephone with Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and also may talk directly with Cameroon's President Paul Biya and Guinea's President Lansana Conte, prior to the next crucial Security Council vote.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has weighed in with all three nations as well, placing telephone calls to their foreign ministers, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has briefed the African diplomatic corps here in Washington. She has also spoken with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, as well as with Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka.
Strikingly, there has been no high-level exchange on this issue between the Bush administration and the South African government, whose president, Thabo Mbeki, has been outspoken in opposition to the war. For the past two years, Bush and Mbeki have had regular telephone conversations on a range of other issues.
Currently, South Africa has a team of weapons experts in Bagdad sharing expertise from their country's post-apartheid disarmament with the Iraqis in an attempt to prevent the outbreak of war.
Last week, as he ended his one-year term as leader of the 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement, Mbeki said war with Iraq would claim lives, "increase instability" in the region and throughout the world and "deliver a deadly blow" to billions of impoverished people. He was a key mover behind a resolution adopted earlier this month by the African Union advocating more time to allow the inspection process in Iraq to proceed.
On February 20, the 22nd Franco-Africa Summit in Paris, with 52 African leaders in attendance, issued a statement that called war "a last resort" and expressed "support for the continuation of the inspections and the substantial enhancement of their human and technical capacities, within the framework of Resolution 1441, whose possibilities have not yet been entirely exhausted."
Although the statement made specific reference to the resolution adopted by the African Union, U.S. officials have insisted that the African position is not as hard-line as that advocated by France and that the Paris statement was drawn up by the French government without consulting other summit participants.
One leader who taken that stance as well is Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who said after the Paris statement was issued: "Nobody asked me my opinion. We didn't even discuss it."
Speaking to AllAfrica by telephone from Rwanda, Special Presidential Envoy Patrick Mazimhaka reiterated his president's statement. "If there was discussion, we were out of the room," he said. The Elysée generally writes these statements and announces them, he said. "That's the way these meetings work."
Mazimhaka believes there is a subtle difference in approach. "The French say no war," he said. "We say you cannot have peace without disarmament." But Kagame has declared that he does not rule out war, saying war is sometimes "the best worst option." Kagame will be meeting with President Bush on March 4 to discuss "issues affecting common interests, " the White House has announced.
The dispute between Paris and Washington creates difficulties for many African governments, considering France's still-powerful role in Africa, fear of a Muslim backlash on the Continent, and the need many countries have for both French and U.S. financial assistance. Across Africa, opposition to war with Iraq appears to be overwhelming. But a refusal to back Washington on the issue could be a costly move by the three Security Council members.
"For a long time now, we have been asking for help to rebuild our country after years of war," said Angolan Ambassador to the United Nations Ismael Gaspar Martins, according to the Associated Press. "No one is tying the request to support on Iraq but it is all happening at the same time."
As incoming Security Council president, serving for the month of March, Guinea is being wooed by all sides. Prime Minister Lamine Sidime was warmly greeted when he showed up in Paris for the Summit, despite the rocky relationship Guinea has had with its former colonial ruler since independence in 1958. Kansteiner's visit came just after Sidime returned home.
Following Kansteiner's trail, the British Foreign Office Minister responsible for Africa, Baroness Amos, arrived in the Guinea capital Conakry on Monday, just hours after the United States, Britain and Spain introduced the latest resolution on Iraq. Before heading on to Cameroon and Angola, she is slated to meet with Guinea's long-serving president, Lansana Conte, if his failing health permits. Gravely ill from kidney disease, Conte has been in virtual seclusion for months, which has also complicated White House efforts to arrange a phone conversation between him and President Bush.
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France is Guinea's largest aid donor and second largest trading partner -- after the United States. Bauxite accounts for most of Guinea's exports, and with 30 percent of the world's bauxite reserves, the country has potential to become far wealthier. Most of the world's largest aluminum companies, including Alcoa, Alcan and Pechiney, have interests there.
But the population of more than seven million, which is predominantly Muslim, remains desperately poor. Wars in neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone have flooded the country with refugees and further increased dependence on foreign aid. Since last year, the U.S. military has operated a training program to help increase security on Guinea's troubled borders.
Meanwhile, the White House is expected to seek support at home for its stance on Iraq vis-à-vis Africa during a briefing on Thursday for Africa interest groups. Billed as a Black History Month event, the gathering will be addressed by both the State Department's Kansteiner and Jendayi Frazer, senior director for African affairs on the National Security Council staff. President Bush is expected to make a brief appearance.
