Bush era heralds marginalisation for Africa
REUTERS

NAIROBI, DEC 18: The arrival of George W Bush at the White House is likely to leave Africa marginalised even further, as he puts together an administration with little interest in the continent, analysts said on Monday.

Bush is expected to rely heavily on his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, for advice on foreign policy issues -- many Africans remember Cheney as a man who consistently opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa, and who voted in Congress in 1986 against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela.

Two African-Americans are set for key roles in the new administration, yet neither prospective Secretary of State Colin Powell nor Condoleezza Rice, nominated as Bush's National Security Adviser, is expected to champion African issues.

``(They) will probably not deviate from the Bush-Cheney exclusion of Africa from the global agenda,'' said Salih Booker, director of the Africa Policy Information Center in Washington.

``Neither Powell nor Rice has shown any particular interest in or special knowledge of African issues.''

One of the last acts of George Bush's presidency in 1992 was to send American troops into Somalia. Neither his son -- nor Colin Powell, who was then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff -- will have forgotten the nightmare of `Operation Restore Hope' and deaths of more than 20 American soldiers.

Partly as a result, no one expects Americans to send peacekeeping troops to Africa these days. Instead, Bush and the cautious Powell are likely to favour the idea of African peacekeepers to resolve African wars.

But will a Republican-controlled Congress, with its visceral distrust of the United Nations, stump up a share of the cash needed to support those kind of interventions?

``If the mindset of the new Administration is that conflict in Africa is something that is chronic...We will see a lot less interest,'' said John Githongo, Kenyan newspaper columnist and a director of corruption watchdog Transparency International.

``The Republicans are generally more hostile to the UN and intervention in foreign conflicts, particularly African conflicts, so the purse-strings should become tighter for this kind of thing,'' he added.

Bill Clinton made two high-profile visits to Africa, reclassified the HIV-AIDS epidemic as a security issue, and pushed through bills opening US markets to African goods and granting the Third World $435 million in debt relief.

Bush, who said in February that Africa did not fit into US strategic interests, often gives the impression he will pay less attention to the continent than his predecessor.

That means American support for vitally-needed debt relief for Africa could be watered down under a Bush Administration, some analysts say.

There might be more money for specific programmes -- especially to stamp out drug-running and money-laundering on the continent, but aid flows are also likely to come under further pressure under the Republicans, they say.

Moustafa Hassouna, a lecturer on diplomacy at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, argues that is not necessarily a bad thing for a continent whose leaders have too often ``pursued the diplomacy of dependency''.

``We've had 30 years of aid to Africa and very little to show for it,'' he added.

Douglas Brooks at the Institute of International Studies in South Africa says aid will increasingly be replaced by trade as the driving force behind American interest in Africa. It is a trend encouraged by Clinton, which could be accelerated under Bush.

``In the long run, this is what will really pay off for Africa,'' he said. ``But that policy will be driven by businessmen not politicians.''

Clinton chose as his allies a group he called the `new breed' of African leaders -- men like Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isayas Afewerki of Eritrea.

But the people in whom Clinton put so much faith arguably let him down, with Uganda and Rwanda invading the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia and Eritrea fighting a brutal two-year border war.

``They're not much better than the old generation of leaders,'' said Elizabeth Sidiropoulos at South Africa's Institute for International Affairs.

Sidiropoulos says she hopes those alliances might come under fresh scrutiny in a new Administration, leading to a more balanced approach to the conflict in the Congo and especially to the civil war in Angola.

Clinton, she says, gave ``all the carrot'' to the Angolan Government and ``all the stick'' to the UNITA rebel movement.

``I would like to think this approach might change somewhat under Bush,'' she said.

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.