Washington, DC — J. Peter Pham, a foreign policy and national security advisor to the campaign to elect Senator John McCain as President of the United States, outlines McCain’s approach to Africa.
While the many challenges faced by Africa—political instability and violent conflict, economic stagnation and poverty, disease and malnutrition—are well-known, Senator McCain has long believed that the continent also holds incredible promise, reminding his audience earlier this year in his speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, for example, that “we must refocus on the bright promise offered by many countries on that continent,” rather than being fixated on its problems. And he has repeatedly pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in Africa who share our faith in the God-given dignity of our common humanity, the liberating power of human freedom, and the uplifting wealth-producing potential of free markets.
Republicans believe that, together in partnership, Americans and Africans can promote a true renaissance of liberty, security, and prosperity that can be shared by all the nations from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope and from the Gulf of Guinea to the Horn of Africa. We acknowledge, however, that the problems confronting Africa can only be overcome in partnership with Africans.
We therefore applaud the historic steps which President George W. Bush has taken to engage the nations and leaders of the continent. Not only has the President visited South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Botswana, Uganda, Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia—becoming the first President of the United States travel to sub-Saharan Africa twice during his presidency—but the current administration, working with Congress, launched a number of significant initiatives whose impact will be felt for years to come.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), established in 2004, is perhaps the most important innovation in foreign assistance in a generation. Access to the MCC’s Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) is premised upon the recognition that generous grants of development aid are for naught if the recipients lack a democratic polity and basic capacity for good governance.
By linking eligibility for MCA funds to demonstrated commitment to policies that promote political and economic freedom, investments in education and health, control of corruption, and respect for civil liberties and the rule of law by performing well on seventeen different policy indicators, the MCC reaffirms our belief that nurturing freedom is an essential component of the process of development.
We are greatly encouraged at the number of African nations which, by embracing economic, political, and social reform, have become eligible for MCA funding, either as “threshold countries” or full-fledged “compact countries,” including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Republicans believe that over the long term the path to prosperity for Africa lies in Africans becoming full participants in the global marketplace. Thus we also applaud the Bush administration for working with Congress to consolidate the comprehensive trade and investment policy for Africa introduced in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of 2000, which substantially lowered commercial barriers with the United States and allowed sub-Saharan African countries to qualify for trade benefits such as having goods from their nascent manufacturing sectors imported into the United States tariff-free.
As a direct result of AGOA, for example, trade between the United States and Africa has increased several times over since 2001. A McCain Administration would not stop there, however, but also work to help Africans better utilize and more broadly benefit from the opportunities offered by AGOA with renewed emphasis on fostering those small-to-medium-sized enterprises that best empower economies of all sizes.
We would also look to go beyond AGOA, opening up additional trade opportunities for African economies, calling for a concerted effort to mobilize the private sector to invest in Africa, creating new opportunities not only for American business, but also for Africans to achieve their own dreams. In this regard, we also call for an intensified effort by African governments to eliminate unnecessary barriers and disincentives that continue to discourage both African and foreign private investors.
On the question of economic opportunities, Senator McCain strongly believes that it is not only in our national interest, but also the right thing to do, if we put an end to subsidy-ridden U.S. agricultural policies—including some which were unfortunately continued in the farm bill legislated earlier this year, which Senator McCain voted against—which benefit a wealthy minority of American farmers at the expense of American consumers and African farmers.
In contrast to his Democratic opponent, who has not articulated a consistent position on the question of these wasteful subsidies, Senator John McCain has a longstanding and principled opposition to the payments which he repeated this year—in a campaign swing through Des Moines, no less—when it made it clear that he would have vetoed the farm bill if he were president “because I believe that subsidies are unnecessary.”
Moving away from just the cotton subsidy, for example, would have a direct impact on global welfare, including some of the poorest countries in Africa where the fiber accounts for at least two-thirds of agricultural revenues—places like Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali, which stand at the precipice because of the current inflation of prices. Were this subsidy, which costs American taxpayers between $3-5 billion annually, to be eliminated, world cotton prices would increase by six to 14 percent, while West African cotton farmers in particular would see a five to 12 percent increase in their incomes, substantially increasing the living standards of some 10 million people.
While the absolute numbers involved—$46 to $114 per family annually—seem paltry, in the sub-region that much money is the equivalent of school tuition for two children as well as ordinary healthcare for an entire family. It should be added that the cotton subsidy makes a special mockery of American foreign assistance: last year, for example, Burkina Faso received approximately $18 million in aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), while the economic impact of the federal cotton subsidy actually drained at least $40 million from the country’s economy.
Republicans strongly support pursuing the ultimate goal of energy independence for the United States. However, in the meantime we must seek to diversify sources for such resources as we must import. To this end, we recognize the importance of Africa’s vast natural wealth to our own national security and endeavor to work with Africans both to protect access to it and to ensure that Africa benefits from its contribution to the world economy.
We view any third party efforts to impose monopolistic and other unfair trade regimes as distinctly unfavorable actions, prejudicial not only to Africans, but also to relations with the United States. While we are prepared to engage with all who would join us in contributing to a freer, more peaceful, and more prosperous Africa, we also serve notice that those who would exploit their ties to unaccountable regimes for profit or who would enable such regimes to oppress their people will find that such actions will affect not only their standing in the court of global public opinion, but also their relations with the United States.
Africa faces many problems which are beyond its capacity to deal with alone. HIV/Aids and malaria are but two of the health challenges which disproportionately affect Africans and which America’s interests and ideals compel us to act energetically to help overcome. President Bush made fighting HIV/Aids a major priority, with 12 of the 15 focus countries in the $15 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) being in Africa, including Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
The signing into law in July of the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008, which dedicates another $48 billion to fight those diseases over the next five years, is truly a landmark of which all Americans can be proud. As no less a figure than Senator Joseph Biden affirmed just three weeks before getting the Democratic vice presidential nomination, the decision to launch PEPFAR by President Bush and what was then a Republican Congress was not only “bold and unexpected,” but would be regarded by history as one of their finest hours.
Republicans today rally behind the promise made by Senator John McCain last year to make eradicating malaria—the number one killer of African children under the age of five—a priority during his presidency. In addition to saving millions of lives, these efforts will also, as the Senator has noted, add luster to America’s image around the world.
Even as we celebrate the fact that freedom is gaining ground in Africa with democratic progress occurring in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Botswana, Angola, and other places, we deplore the fact that it has been brutally repressed in other countries. The violent disregard of the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe for the will of the people, for example, underscores its lack of legitimacy. Senator McCain has been a leader on this issue. After the first round of the Zimbabwean elections on March 29—two days before Senator Clinton and three days before Senator Obama responded—Senator McCain stood firmly and unambiguously on the side of freedom, issuing a statement declaring:
“Our ideals must animate our foreign policy and that includes support for democratic forces in closed societies. The opposition in Zimbabwe has endured repression, hardship, beatings and imprisonment. At this time we cannot turn our back on the brave men and women who have struggled peacefully for their freedom.
“The situation in Zimbabwe has reached a decisive moment. After the years in which the repressive regime of President Robert Mugabe has made a mockery of law while turning what was once southern Africa's breadbasket into a literal economic basket case, the people of Zimbabwe nonetheless bravely went to the polls. The delay in publishing the results of the election raise serious doubts about what is happening. It is now time for the international community, especially Zimbabwe's immediate neighbors, to stand up and be heard in support of Zimbabwe's people, demanding that their votes be respected.
“This is not only the principled course of action; it is also the only one that will assure everyone’s best interests by not allowing the situation to deteriorate further. The United States has and will continue to support the [view that it is] democracy and rule of law that alone can secure Africa's future development, and should be prepared to provide assistance to support a transition to democracy in Zimbabwe.”
After Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the second round of the elections, Senator McCain was once again prepared to lead, with an unambiguous declaration:
“The Robert Mugabe regime and its armed forces have created a vicious climate of fear in order to defy the will of the people and manipulate the outcome of the June 27 presidential run-off. I fully support the decision of Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to withdraw from the elections. I agree with the assessment of UN Secretary General Moon that conditions do not exist for free and fair elections right now.
“That is an understatement. Human rights monitors have documented the killing of more than 60 opposition political activists, the beating and torture of 2,000 others, the displacement of tens of thousands, and the suspension of nongovernmental aid programs that provide nutrition to an already vulnerable population. These are the actions of a desperate regime that has lost all legitimacy.
“I believe the international community must act to impose sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies and thereby hasten the end of that regime. We should consider expelling Mugabe’s diplomats from Washington and explore options with our friends in Africa and beyond, including suspending Zimbabwe’s participation in regional organizations as long a Mugabe clings to power. The results of the March 29 election must form the basis of a post-Mugabe resolution in Zimbabwe.”
Today, we have some hope that perhaps a way forward may be found which acknowledges the will of the Zimbabwean people in according the Movement for Democratic Change a clear edge despite the obstacles which it faced.
We will work together with our European allies and African partners to provide appropriate emergency assistance to help the civil government led by Prime Minister Tsvangirai start Zimbabwe on the road to recovery, ensuring that the chance for freedom and a better future won at so great a price is indeed secure against any relapses. This will, of course, require the rejuvenation of the long-atrophied political and other institutions in that Southern African country, but, as chairman since 1993 of the International Republican Institute (IRI), an organization dedicated to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide (and which has done so in dozens of African countries) by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance, and the rule of law, Senator McCain knows well the importance of this work and is committed to it.
As Senator McCain affirmed with what I believe to be greater clarity and specificity than his opponent in his responses to the candidates’ questionnaire on Sudan submitted by the Enough Action Fund, the Genocide Prevention Network and the Save Darfur Coalition, his administration would work with both the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to bring an end to decades of civil war between the central government in Khartoum and the peoples of South Sudan, a conflict which has taken the lives more than two million people, mostly South Sudanese.
The United Nations Security Council-endorsed Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is the basis for a sustainable peace, but only if all of its terms are honored, including the holding of the free and fair elections in 2009 and the right of South Sudanese to determine for themselves whether or not to remain part of Sudan. Given the history of the country, we believe that the only way to avoid renewed bloody conflict is if the South Sudanese possess a credible self-defense capability as permitted under the CPA.
As not only a challenge to our moral sensibilities, but also a potential threat to our strategic interests through its destabilization of a vast swathe across the African continent, the ongoing crisis in Darfur calls out for American leadership. Senator McCain has been very clear on this issue, writing in a Foreign Affairs essay last year:
“With respect to the Darfur region of Sudan, I fear that the United States is once again repeating the mistakes it made in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Bosnia, we acted late but eventually saved countless lives. In Rwanda, we stood by and watched the slaughter and later pledged that we would not do so again. The genocide in Darfur demands U.S. leadership. My administration will consider the use of all elements of American power to stop the outrageous acts of human destruction that have unfolded there.”
While the United States has been in the forefront of denouncing the genocide for what it is and providing assistance to the victims—among other things, the invaluable mediation of the successive special envoys for Sudan, two of whom, former Senator Jack Danforth of Missouri and Ambassador Richard Williamson, are playing leadership roles in the McCain campaign—we will need act more aggressively, in close coordination with all responsible members of the international community, to end the slaughter and secure a just and sustainable resolution to the conflict.
Several years ago, before many others were on to the issue, Senator McCain, in a Washington Post op-ed co-authored with former Senator Bob Dole, proposed that the UN Security Council’s demand that the regime in Khartoum end its offensive military flights and bombing raids in Darfur be backed by a no-fly zone over the region, enforced, if necessary, by NATO. As president, Senator McCain is committed to seeking a Security Council resolution endorsing such a mission and will work to persuade our allies to join us in its implementation. The continuing bombing of civilian targets in Darfur by the Khartoum regime underscores the urgent need for such action.
The United States has generously funded UNAMID, the hybrid African Union/United Nations mission in Darfur, spending more than $100 million to assist with training and equipment to African nations willing to contribute to the mission. That is in addition to the approximately one-quarter of the bill which we pay through UN assessments for peacekeeping. While we can and, in a McCain administration, will do more to aid in the stand-up of a force capable of protecting the people of Darfur, the international community needs recognize that the major reason why UNAMID is presently barely at one-third of the strength authorized by the UN Security Council is that the force has been hamstrung by the obstacles which the Sudanese government has been allowed to place in its way, including the requirement that the force be composed primarily of Africans when it knows well enough that the capacity of Africa’s militaries is not up to the task.
Senator McCain has repeatedly emphasized that the responsibility to protect civilians is one that arises out of our common humanity and no government complicit in the underlying atrocities should be allowed to set the terms whereby the international community acts to defend the most vulnerable, especially when those conditions are poorly-disguised obstructions to delay the alleviation of the plight of those displaced by the violence. This is nothing short of genocide in slow motion.
We have to acknowledge that in the ongoing global war on terrorism, there is potential for Africa’s poorly-governed spaces being exploited to provide facilitating environments, recruits, and eventual targets for Islamist terrorists. The attacks by al-Qaeda on the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, and on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and, simultaneously, on an Israeli commercial airliner in 2002, only reinforced the analysis of Africa’s susceptibility to terrorism, as have the more recent “rebranding” of the Algerian Islamist terrorist organization, Salafist Group for Call and Combat (usually known by its French acronym GSPC), as “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQIM), and the ongoing activities of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in Somalia. In facing these challenges, we acknowledge the value of the security partnerships which governments like those of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tanzania, Uganda and others have forged with us.
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The decision to establish a unified combatant command, AFRICOM, was motivated by a desire to better focus defense resources, previously divided across three different commands, to support American initiatives to help African governments and regional organizations to enhance their own capacities to provide security and respond to emergencies as well as to carry out the responsibilities of peacekeeping. A McCain administration will secure for AFRICOM the resources it will need as it begins its mission, in partnership with other agencies of the U.S. government as well as international partners, to contribute to a more peaceful and secure Africa.
Establishing a unified command for Africa is a useful step in better cooperating with African governments. The new command’s emphasis needs to be on working with African and other partners to build up security capabilities and develop, in conjunction with various agencies across the U.S. government, those countries’ capacity for securing essential services, a viable market economy, rule of law, democratic institutions and a robust civil society. While traditional “hard power” operations will also be a responsibility of AFRICOM, “soft power” instruments, including diplomatic outreach, political persuasion, and economic programs should be part of our total national strategy of engagement. Senator McCain has said:
“In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone… Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.”
To this end, the upcoming political transitions in both Washington and Pretoria offer the opportunity for the United States to engage anew with the Republic of South Africa, a country whose importance to Africa and the world economically and diplomatically is recognized by all. We need to also strengthen ties with other democracies in Africa so that, harnessing our political and moral strengths within the worldwide “League of Democracies” which Senator McCain has championed, we might support struggling democracies on the continent and elsewhere. We must work with partners, not only because, realistically speaking, our resources, especially in these times of economic uncertainty, may be limited, but because such openness to dialogue and collaboration is the right thing to do.
Let me conclude by noting that discussions of national security and diplomacy must lead us back to questions of governance. Even as we celebrate the fact that freedom is gaining ground in Africa with democratic elections taking place in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Botswana, and other countries, we deplore the fact that it has been brutally repressed in other countries.
Across Africa, it is clear from the experience of recent years in building up the practices and institutions of democratic governance and in bringing about sustainable, broad-based economic development, that not only can these priorities be pursued, but they must be if we want peace and stability. Senator McCain, Governor Sarah Palin and the Republican team believe that the progress we have seen in recent years ought to impel us to renew our commitment to supporting the democracy and rule of law—and consequent prosperity—that alone can guarantee a bright future which Americans and Africans alike can share. I hope you will join us in pursuing those noble objectives.
J. Peter Pham is a foreign policy and national security advisor to the McCain campaign. This article is excerpted from remarks to the Constituency for Africa 2008 Ronald H. Brown African Affairs Series forum on “U.S.-Africa Policy Agenda and the Next Administration” at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
