Washington, DC — President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, current chairman of the African Union (AU), spoke on developments on the continent as well as investment opportunities in his country and also took questions at a dinner organized by the Corporate Council on Africa in Washington, D.C. recently.
At an earlier press briefing, Nguesso said he was optimistic that AU efforts to bring order and peace to Somalia -- which has not had a central government since 1991 when Siad Barré was deposed -- would produce positive results.
Nguesso said he discussed the issue of American support for an armed group calling itself the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in meetings with U.S. President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He said that the AU is opposed to funding Somalia's armed factions, and prefers that countries seeking peace in the country work with the Somali Transitional Federal Government based in the south-central town of Baidoa.
Nguesso said progress has been made in restoring peace to Sudan's western region of Darfur, where it is estimated that 70,000-400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease, and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in a three-year conflict.
According to President Nguesso, African troops will form the bulk of the UN peacekeeping force planned for Darfur.
Excerpts as captured through an interpreter:
Dear friends, it is with pleasure and great honor that I meet once again with you tonight. I think it is the fourth or fifth time that I so do, and someone here can bear witness to this fact. It is with pleasure that I meet once again with the friends of my country and of Africa. And each time we have had very fruitful exchanges.
But every time I left the United States, it was with the hope that our friends would follow us to Africa. And since we have not been followed yet, I have come back with the hope that this time I can persuade you.
And actually in this room there are friends from the United States who could talk about Africa and the Congo better than I could do myself. I see here Ambassador Herman Cohen who has a great wealth of knowledge, both of Africa and the Congo, and all you have to do is ask him. And I also see Ambassador Robin Sanders, who recently was U.S. ambassador to the Congo, and who also has a great wealth of knowledge.
The new U.S. ambassador to Brazzaville is also here with his wife, and both have recent experiences of Congo. They can give you up-to-date information on the Congo.
We take this opportunity to talk to you about the Congo and Africa, but after we are gone, I encourage you to talk with Ambassador Herman Cohen and Ambassador Robin Sanders, because they can explain to you the situation there. They know it, and you should take advantage of this.
And I would like to say a few words on Africa. There is a feeling of pessimism sometimes when it comes to Africa, but I can tell you, and I am not saying this lightly, that despite certain difficulties, such as the AIDS pandemic, strife and civil war, that I have optimism when it comes to Africa. I feel that the leaders and the people of Africa want to overcome these difficulties and go forward, and I don't think that it is possible to imagine the world of tomorrow without Africa.
And the democratic movement in Africa is progressing. We have concrete results on the ground, and we are also making great strides when it comes to training and education. We are preparing a new generation of Africans, the new generations of leaders who are linked to the rest of the world, and who will be ready to bring practical results.
And we also have a civil society movement that is becoming quite organized, and one has the sense that the local populations are really trying to take their future into their own hands.
And when it comes to resources, Africa has enough resources to ensure its development.
People talk a lot about Asia and Latin America, and sure, those are great regions, but those continents as well had difficulties. They had wars that were quite violent at times, but the people were able to overcome those difficulties, and now, the investors have faith in these countries, so much so that they have invested heavily, specifically I'm thinking about Asia where there are a lot of emerging countries, but I don't see why we couldn't do the same thing with Africa.
We could talk a lot about Africa. I have just given a few elements. There are many other things that could be said, but we don't have enough time. What I wanted to give you were elements in order for you to be able to see my optimism that I wish to share with all of you.
We are here in the business world, and if you look at the NEPAD program and if you consider its subregional components, you will see that there are serious projects that were developed by African leaders and their experts. Whichever region you consider, be it northern Africa, western, eastern, central or southern Africa, there are serious projects in the NEPAD framework, and it would be a great thing if these could be truly implemented. They would help Africa's future.
And I would like to give you one example of this. It's quite simple. In the NEPAD framework for Central Africa, we are envisaging to build a road rail bridge, a toll bridge, linking Kinshasa to Brazzaville, and I am convinced that if investors were to help us to build this link and to get the toll, and if you imagine all the vehicles that would be going over this bridge morning, noon and night, at the end of the day, these investors would be quite satisfied with the result of their investment. And at the same time, this would encourage regional integration.
This brings me back to Central Africa. And so allow me to say a few words on the Congo and Central Africa.
The Congo is a country at the heart of Central Africa, but it's also at the heart of the Congo Basin, which is a whole topic in itself. And so my country shares the fate and the future of the Congo Basin and that of the Gulf of Guinea.
The Congo Basin is the world's second lung after the Amazon Basin, and there is a global project for the Congo Basin that covers ecotourism, protected areas, ranching, agriculture, education – in a nutshell, it is development that we foresee for this basin that, as I was saying, is the second lung of the world.
And in my country, 11 percent of the national territory is covered by protected areas in the Congo Basin.
In New York City, you will find the Bronx Zoo that is filled with chimps, gorillas and monkeys that have been taken in the Congo, and I encourage you to go to New York City and see them.
My country has a true vocation to develop ecotourism, parks and a full development program for the whole Congo Basin.
Congo's future is also linked to that of the Gulf of Guinea, which is a strategic area in the world. The Gulf of Guinea plays an important role when it comes to security and energy because it has a lot of oil and gas, but also navigation security, trade, fisheries. The U.S. authorities give the utmost importance to the development of the Gulf of Guinea.
And there is a host of other possibilities when it comes to investing in my country, such as ranching, iron, agriculture. We have important reserves of lye that will enable us produce magnesium, and we have a large-scale project that we are trying to develop in Point Noir, and we have been promoting this project in Canada and the United States, but up until now, no investors have shown commitment. This project could lead to many things, such as the production of salts and fertilizers, and for decades, we have been promoting this project in the U.S. and Canada, but we have had no luck as of yet, but hopefully as a follow-up of this intervention, we can be more successful next time.
Some investors might have certain fears when it comes to investing in my country, but you should be reassured there are numerous U.S. companies already that have already invested in the Congo, not only in the oil sector where we have Murphy and Chevron, but other companies such as Seaboard that produces cattle feed amongst other things, and I believe that the investors have obtained great results in my country, and we have signed an agreement here that guarantees the safety of your investments, so you should have no fear in this regard.
I don't know what else I could add. Maybe we should give the floor to Ambassadors Cohen and Sanders who could continue what I have just done, because otherwise I am just going to continue all alone here by myself, but maybe the time has come to stop me and to make this a more living exchange by allowing people to ask questions.
As regards the conflict in Darfur for instance, what does the AU need in terms of assistance or outside help and what specific request was made to President Bush?
The African Union has for some months now, actually for a little over one year, committed to putting an end to the tragedy that is the situation in Darfur. That is why the African Union has sent a little over 7,000 troops in the region to try to control the situation.
And we have felt that our efforts in the region have reached their limit, and so we have decided and suggested that the United Nations should replace the African Union in the peacekeeping operations in Darfur, and this is an approach that is supported by the president and the government of the United States.
So the request that we made today in our meeting with the authorities was twofold. First, we would like the U.S. government to support the current AU efforts while we are waiting for the UN troops to replace the African Union troops. So we are asking for two things: support to the African Union activity now, and then support to the UN activities in the future.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
And so we believe that by September at the latest, the African Union mission in Darfur will be replaced by the UN mission.
NEPAD is an excellent idea, but it needs funding. What is the best way to work it?
Yes thank you, I think it is a generous and appropriate idea, and it's an idea that I support personally. We cannot always be asking others to help finance our projects; we have to do some of it ourselves. I have suggested to my peers during my mandate that each regional grouping, economic grouping, choose one project per region, an integrating project, that would be chosen by the leader and the people of this region that the NEPAD could then truly work to develop and implement, so that NEPAD doesn't remain just an idea, but that it can really become something practical. And I have written to the presidents of the regional communities and shared this idea with them, and we will work on it in the future during the Banjul summit and see what comes out of it. But as you can see, there are different ideas to promote the future of NEPAD, and this is one of the reasons why I'm optimistic.
And I have already discussed this with Louis Michel, who is the European Commissioner for Development, and he agrees fully with this idea. Tomorrow I will meet with the president of the World Bank, and I will also share this idea with him, and I want to also share the idea with the president of the African Development Bank, and I will see what their reactions will be, and hopefully they will support this as well because we need to act because we need NEPAD to go beyond the stage of just being an idea.
What advice would you offer businessmen seeking investment opportunities and going back to the Republic of Congo and the area?
The first thing you have to do is to have faith. You have to believe. But the next thing you have to do is you have to come.
And so you have to come see me in Brazzaville, and we will work together and will help you promote your business ideas, be it in Brazzaville or in Kinshasa, and I will put you under my own protection, and you will see that your activities will be a great success.
