Editorial
The Boston Globe, USA
July 3, 2003

NEXT WEEK President Bush will embark on his first trip to Africa, a visit every bit as historic as his predecessor’s five years ago and occurring earlier in his presidency. He will visit many of the same countries as President Clinton, hold photo ops at some of the same sites, and promote a similar $40 million-a-year literacy initiative. On Africa, Bush has largely followed the Clinton script. Now would be a good time for him to write his own, especially given the crisis point the continent has reached.

Bush’s five-day tour, which begins in Senegal on July 8, bypasses the African nations with the thorniest political problems: Congo, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. Even so, the president may not be able to avoid dealing with them when he goes to Senegal and Nigeria, where leaders are likely to give him an earful about growing instability in the region. Before he arrives, Bush should heed the calls of some members of the UN Security Council and some West African leaders to help resolve those conflicts – particularly in Liberia – just as the French have responded to the crisis in the Ivory Coast and the British in Sierra Leone.

Given the historic ties between the United States and Liberia, which was founded by freed America slaves, Bush ought to involve himself more; his call for the Liberian president, Charles Taylor, to step down is only a beginning. He should combine diplomatic pressure with US participation in an international peacekeeping force in the country, where 500 civilians were killed last week alone.

Bush should also think twice before snubbing Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, when he visits that country for the longest part of his Africa stay. Mandela said last week that he had not been told whether Bush planned to meet with him and implied that his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq may be to blame. Bush should be bigger than that and use his visit to give meaning to the words he spoke last week: ”With the friendship of the United States and other nations, Africa will rise and Africa will prosper.”

More than one in eight people on earth lives in Africa, yet the continent accounts for less than 1 percent of world trade. The Commission on Capital Flows to Africa, a group of high-powered economists, business and nonprofit leaders, former government officials, and diplomats, has developed a 10-year plan to attract sustainable investment to the continent.

But the group’s effort, outlined in a June report, will be seriously impeded if the AIDS pandemic continues to ravage the continent unchecked. Twenty-eight million Africans are infected with the AIDS virus, a serious bar to attracting business. This demands that Bush make sure that Congress fully funds the $3 billion it authorized for next year to prevent and treat AIDS in poor countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Earlier this year Bush shortchanged his own five-year, $15 billion pledge to fight AIDS worldwide by budgeting only $1.7 billion.

Africa can’t fight AIDS with one hand behind its back, which occurs when badly needed funds are siphoned off to pay down foreign debt. It makes no sense for Washington to give poor African nations millions to fight AIDS and then require them to give it back to pay down their debts. This also limits Africa’s ability to attract businesses, which don’t look favorably on investing in countries burdened with huge debt. If the United States can forgive Iraq’s debt because of Saddam Hussein’s actions, it ought to forgive the debt that Nigeria, for instance, amassed under its former military dictator, the late Sani Abacha.

Last week Bush proposed $100 million in new aid over the next 15 months to combat terrorism at airports and seaports and to beef up coastal and border patrols in such countries as Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. It’s not nearly enough money given the size of the continent, but it’s a positive step.

If Bush were serious about moving Africa to Washington’s counterterrorism agenda, Kenya would have been a stop on his tour, which will take him to Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria. Kenya is the African country that has most keenly felt the damage inflicted by hostility toward the West and has seen its prized tourism industry crippled by the closing of the US and British embassies.

Bush deserves credit for putting Africa on his foreign itinerary. But a fly-over and symbolic gestures will not be enough. It’s what he does after Air Force One touches down at Andrews Air Force Base on July 12 that will show Africans – and Americans – how much Africa really matters.