Bush Turns His Attention to Africa

DAKAR, Senegal -- President Bush’s five-nation swing through Africa, beginning today in Senegal, underscores how the region has climbed higher on the administration’s agenda as growing political instability and staggering humanitarian problems threaten U.S. interests.

The AIDS pandemic and the gradual spread of democracy, two issues that are gripping the continent and driving the president’s trip, have become more important considerations in the Bush administration’s foreign policy since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

“The Bush administration’s new strategic vision is trying to identify the areas where terrorism can take root or hide,” or receive financial or operational assistance, said Pauline Baker, president of the Washington-based Fund for Peace. “And Africa is wide open because there are so many failed or failing states without an ability to control borders, monitor financial transactions or control resources like diamonds or timber that is used for money laundering.”

Other issues -- Iraq, the Arab-Israeli peace process and nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula -- still top Bush’s crowded list of foreign policy priorities. But the administration’s pre-Sept. 11 interest in Africa as a region that offers new promise as a market for American goods and an oil supplier -- and a potential source of terrible threats -- has returned.

Hours before the president’s departure Monday night, the administration was still working out details for deploying a small number of troops to war-torn Liberia. The United Nations and West African countries have pushed hard for U.S. involvement in a military mission there to help ensure that a temporary cease-fire produces a political transition and eventual peace. Fourteen years of civil war in Liberia have spawned instability or conflict in neighboring Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

A 32-member U.S. military assessment team landed by helicopter at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, on Monday to assess the security situation and humanitarian needs. It will be followed today by a U.S. aid mission. About one-third of Liberia’s 3 million people have been displaced since rebels took up arms against President Charles Taylor in the latest round of fighting in 1999.

Intensive diplomatic contacts continued Monday as well, with U.S. officials talking with the United Nations and members of the Economic Community of West African States, the two organizations that would take the lead in any military deployment in Liberia.

“The United States is willing to participate with them in that effort to bring stability and peace to the people of Liberia,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.

“Our goal in helping with this effort is to bring peace, to facilitate the departure of Taylor, to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian goods, but also to make it possible [to] create the conditions for the West Africans and the United Nations to handle, to manage that political transition,” Boucher said.

In two interviews with Associated Press on Monday, Taylor said he would fulfill his pledge to leave Liberia and accept asylum in Nigeria upon the arrival of an international force. He also said the United States “owes” it to the Liberian people to commit a force and facilitate an orderly transition. Liberia was founded in the mid-1800s by freed American slaves, and the two nations have had close relations.

“If one U.S. Marine stood on Broad Street and blew a whistle, ‘Time out,’ then there would be peace,” Taylor told AP. “When they arrive, bingo.... I would be out of here in a jiffy.”

The status of a war crimes indictment against Taylor by a U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone remains undetermined. The Liberian leader has sought guarantees that he would not be tried on charges of fomenting civil war if he leaves.

U.S. officials said Monday that Taylor eventually needs to be held accountable for his actions but that the process would be sorted out by the court, Nigeria and Taylor.

Liberia is likely to remain a subtext -- and could steal the headlines -- throughout Bush’s five-day tour of Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria.

“This trip and other initiatives were conceived as an attempt by Bush to show the compassionate side of the administration, that foreign policy is not dictated by the protection of narrow U.S. interests but is shaped by broader concerns about humanity,” said Marina Ottaway, an Africa expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But the crisis in Liberia threatens to destroy the impact of the trip.”

Bush hopes to emphasize unfolding success stories on a troubled continent, while offering aid and preaching a message of hope through political and economic change.

Bush also intends to show U.S. commitment to fostering economic development and democracy, a combination that he believes would stem the poverty and despair that can help breed terrorists.

The president plans to tout a $15-billion global AIDS initiative, along with a $10-billion Millennium Challenge Account to provide aid to developing nations that take specific actions to combat poverty and corruption while promoting human rights and a free society.

Bush also will cite a $100-million counterterrorism program for East Africa. And he wants to build on the successes of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a Clinton-era initiative that has liberalized U.S. trade and investment with 38 sub-Saharan nations. Since its enactment, clothing imports from Africa have leapt from $600 million in 1999 to $1.1 billion last year.

“We believe that growth and prosperity in Africa will contribute to the growth and prosperity of the world,” Bush said in a speech last month in Washington. “My trip to Africa should signal that I am optimistic about the future of the continent.”

Despite many pledges of help, Bush will bring few, if any, “deliverables,” in the diplomatic parlance for largess. Congress has yet to appropriate funds for the AIDS initiative and the Millennium account is still unfunded altogether.

“If you listen to Bush, we have billions already in the pipeline. But in fact, there are a lot of reservations on Capital Hill about authorizing all these funds,” Baker said.

Still, Bush’s trip to Africa signals a significant shift in his views. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush declared that Africa would rank low on his list of international priorities.

The elevation of Africa on the presidential agenda is testament to the influence of Bush’s top two foreign policy advisors, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Rice. Both have been strong advocates within the administration of developing African initiatives. Powell made his second trip as secretary of State a tour of Africa focusing on AIDS.

Bush’s itinerary reflects the revived agenda. Senegal is among the countries that pioneered democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. Having gained independence in 1960, the nation of 10.5 million has maintained a relatively stable political and social environment.

Bush’s next two stops, South Africa and Botswana, are among the continent’s economic powerhouses. In South Africa, an estimated 13% of its 43.2 million people live in “First World” conditions. Botswana’s economic growth rate has averaged over 7% in the past two decades, among the highest in the developing world. Yet both nations are being ravaged by AIDS.

In Uganda, Bush plans to hail that nation’s social and human rights progress since the dark days of dictator Idi Amin. Today, Uganda’s war on AIDS is widely celebrated as a model.

Bush’s final stop is Nigeria, a large, oil-rich nation that has been ruled by a succession of military governments for 28 of its 40 years of independence. President Olusegun Obasanjo has just begun his second term as the nation’s elected president, although the elections had serious problems.

Wright reported from Washington and Chen from Senegal.