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Strategies & Market Trends : Africa and its Issues- Why Have We Ignored Africa? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elsewhere who wrote (163)	7/14/2003 10:52:10 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1267

Back From Africa: Bush's Promises Will Be Watched By RICHARD W. STEVENSON ASHINGTON, July 13 — President Bush made a lot of promises to Africa over the past week. Now, back home again, he has to make good on them. As he visited five African countries, he pledged that the United States would play a leading role in combating AIDS, which is inflicting an almost unimaginable toll on the African continent. He promised to go all out to make sure that Congress fully financed his proposed five-year, $15 billion program to attack the disease in the world's poorest countries. Mr. Bush said he would help Africa gain a toehold in the global economy and begin clawing its way out of poverty by selling more goods around the world. African leaders told Mr. Bush they appreciated the money rich nations send them. But they said that what they really needed was more access to the American market and for the United States to end heavy subsidies to its own farmers that price African agricultural products like cotton out of world markets. He promised that the United States would play a role in resolving one of the many conflicts scarring Africa, in Liberia. He even left open the possibility of sending American troops to police a cease-fire, a use of the military of a sort that he derided during his presidential campaign. More generally, Mr. Bush gave hope to African leaders that he would not forget their nations once he returns to Washington and the press of other business. Mr. Bush had evinced little public interest in Africa until this year. But with the United States seen in many quarters as a global bully, and the need for an image makeover becoming obvious, his administration developed a national security rationale for helping the poorest countries avoid turning into breeding grounds or safe harbors for terrorists. Mr. Bush's associates say his religious and moral convictions led him to believe that the United States has an obligation to address the suffering that has defined Africa through a history of colonialism, brutal regional conflicts, dictatorships and disease. His AIDS proposal and his willingness to spend nearly a week there were significant practically and symbolically. But it is hard to assess the depth of his commitment. His trip had a dutiful, check-off-box quality that suggested a limit to his passion. He did not visit a single rural village. He stopped by no urban slums. Sticking to his AIDS and trade message, he did not focus on other, equally compelling issues, like the need to bring clean water to much of the population. Then there is the question of whether Mr. Bush's trip was really about domestic politics, about appealing to black voters who have spurned him or — more likely — to moderate white voters, especially women, who might respond to a message of compassion. Mr. Bush's closest advisers dismiss any suggestion that his engagement with Africa is temporary or for show. "The purpose of the trip was not a political exercise and was not designed to influence the election of next year," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "It was designed to deal with real problems facing people in need in Africa." Whatever his own feelings, and whatever other demands on his time and political capital, Mr. Bush's foreign policy is being shaped by advisers committed to helping Africa. Mr. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, are two of the most influential African-Americans to have served in any administration, and Dr. Rice said this trip made a deep impression on her. "I have found this an incredibly moving trip in a lot of ways," she said aboard Air Force One en route from South Africa to Uganda on Friday. She said she was especially struck upon visiting Gorée Island in Senegal, from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. "You can almost imagine these stolen people suddenly arriving on the shore of this absolutely beautiful place and being put in these horrible cells where large numbers of them would die," she said. "And when I think of the Gate of No Return, I still have a lump in my throat from thinking which one of my ancestors might have actually gone through that gate on their way to the United States." nytimes.com there is more to the story