“Africa's most valuable resource is
the talent and creativity of its people"
With less than a year left of his mandate president George W. Bush goes on a tour of select Africa states to restate America's commitment to Africa's well being. Contributing Editor Muyiwa Akintunde periscopes what many commentators have dubbed a face-saving, reputation
In the twilight of his maximum two terms of eight years as President of the United States of America, Mr George W. Bush was back in Africa with a message of hope. Five years earlier, he had gone on a week-long tour covering Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Uganda. This second and final time, he made it a six-day visit to the continent, involving the Republic of Benin, Rwanda, Tanzania, Liberia and Ghana.
At home, Bush's policies have made him the most unpopular president in recent American history. In most Islamic states, he is regarded as the Great Satan himself, while he is vilified in many parts of the world. Mr Bush therefore needed to assert his place in history and show that his leadership is indeed compassionate.
In choosing to visit Africa in his last year as US President, Mr Bush was careful and deliberate. The tour was packaged to celebrate countries that have been shinning examples of democratic rule and good governance. Kenya, Africa's leading light in democratic governance, has recently declined into political turmoil. So it was sidestepped in the itinerary. President Bush picked Republic of Benin, Rwanda, Tanzania, Liberia and Ghana to deliver his message for Africa.
Africa, remarkable for its hospitality, granted Mr Bush a resounding welcome. In Arusha, he was greeted at the airport by Massai dancers in traditional garb. To welcome Bush to Liberia, the country's pop diva Juli Endee was made to compose a song, titled “Thank You” which was released on vinyl and CD a day before his arrival. Mr Bush not only revelled in the entertainment at every stop, he managed a smattering of native dialects at some points.
As he moved on his whistle-stop tour, Bush dwelled on democratic reforms, economic and military assistance, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. He particularly spent time to allay concerns about a new military command he wants to base in Africa.
To President Bush's credit, he has gone on to package a better policy on Africa. In the last eight years, US development aid to Africa has tripled; funding for HIV programmes went from $1 billion to over $6 billion per year; imports from just garments increased sevenfold; nine of the 16 countries drawing grants from his Millennium Challenge Corporation are from the continent; a fifth of total crude imports to the US come from a single African country Nigeria; and 12 out of 15 focus countries receiving funding from the $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief are in Africa.
America has spent $15 billion fighting AIDS overseas since 2003, and Bush has recently asked Congress to double that amount. More than one million people in sub-Saharan Africa have life-saving anti-retroviral drugs thanks to the policy.
Ahead of his African tour, Bush had urged the US Congress to renew his global AIDS programme and preserve a requirement that steers money into abstinence efforts. While the Congress strongly backs the programme, which is credited with getting medicine and preventive treatment to millions of people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, its renewal has got hung up over ideology and political debate about disease prevention. Some Democrats want to eliminate a provision in the Bill that requires one-third of all prevention spending go to abstinence-until-marriage programmes. Critics say that while they don't oppose abstinence programmes, the inflexible requirement hampers the effort.
Malaria, which kills at least one million infants and children under age five in sub-Saharan Africa each year, drew President Bush's attention during his Africa visit. In June 2005, he had launched a $1.2 billion five-year plan to reduce deaths caused by malaria by 50 per cent in 15 African countries. He was therefore on familiar terrain discussing the issue and dispensing relief.
While discussing with President Thomas Boni Yayi in Cotonou, Bush renewed a US pledge to apply mosquito nets to tackle malaria. In Tanzania, he travelled to a northern Tanzanian city in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro to focus attention on the mosquito-borne disease and announced a plan, in partnership with the World Bank, to distribute 5.2 million insecticide-treated bed nets to protect Tanzanian children from the deadly disease. In addition to providing bed nets to protect against mosquitoes, the malaria initiative supports indoor spraying of insecticide as well as anti-malaria drugs and medicine to treat the disease.
“For years, malaria has been a health crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease keeps sick workers home, schools yards quiet, [and] communities in mourning,” he said during a visit to Meru District Hospital. “The suffering caused by malaria is needless and every death caused by malaria is unacceptable.”
Bush's visit to Rwanda provoked emotion. Speaking on the soil once soiled with the blood of Rwanda's genocide, Bush called on all nations to step up efforts to end “once and for all” the ethnic slaughter still continuing in Sudan's western Darfur region, where at least 200,000 people have died and two million been displaced in a five-year conflict. He said the US is using sanctions, pressure and money to help resolve the Darfur crisis, which he called genocide.
At some other forum before his Africa tour, Bush had said he had not wanted to send US troops into another Muslim country, in defence of his Darfur stance. He would however remind the Chinese President “that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur.”
“The Rwanda people know the horrors of genocide,” he said after meeting the President Paul Kagame. “My message to other nations is 'join with the president and help us get this problem solved once and for all. And we will help.”
Rwanda was the first to deploy peacekeepers to the violent Darfur region in a joint African Union-UN mission. The US has trained nearly 7,000 Rwandan troops and spent more than $17 million to equip and airlift them into the region. The US has committed $100 to train and provide equipment for peacekeepers from several African nations deploying troops to Darfur.
While in Liberia, President Bush attempted to douse the controversy surrounding the US African Command (AFRICOM), which was reportedly set up to give Africa as high a priority as the US Central Command does for the Middle East and the Pacific Command gives to Asia. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf had earlier stated her interest in hosting a permanent US military base on Liberian soil.
Bush dismissed fears that the US is trying to expand its military influence through AFRICOM by building new military bases on the continent. The clarification came as spokesman for AFRICOM, Vince Crawley said the command's headquarters would remain in Stuttgart, Germany rather than move to Africa, following reservations from Africans over its creation. |
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