31 May - 6 June 2001
Issue No.536
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 May - 6 June 2001 Issue No.536 |
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Tour de force
Money talks and the penniless are obliged to listen. That appears to be the main lesson drawn from the maiden African tour of the US secretary of state, writes Gamal Nkrumah
The tempo of Washington's Africa policy has picked up with the four-nation African tour of United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. The choice to visit Africa before venturing on other overseas journeys in vitally-important regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South Asia or South-East Asia is significant -- one that raises speculation about Washington's Africa policy. After all, US President George W Bush came to power on a ticket that ostensibly advocates curtailing US engagements overseas. It now appears that Africa would be a notable exception. The burning question is: why?
The first visit of the first African-American secretary of state to Africa could have been an immensely emotional affair. But Powell's aloof remoteness and undemonstrative manner failed to impress his African hosts, who, nevertheless, listened to him with polite attentiveness. "So good to see you but we think you ought not to meddle in our domestic affairs," was the message his hosts seemed to convey. But Powell made it abundantly clear that he was not particularly interested in what his hosts thought. He was far more interested in them receiving the message and obeying the orders.
Powell's arrogant attitude differed radically from former US President Bill Clinton's down-to-earth style. It is, however, important to keep in mind that the Bush administration's Africa policy does not constitute a dramatic departure from that of Clinton's, but a continuation of it. Powell knows he needs to fine-tune Clinton's Africa policy. In Africa, Powell stated categorically that he travelled to the continent "to speak out for democracy, the free enterprise system and America's role in Africa."
Powell, naturally, said nothing about African countries unable to access capital markets. Kicking off his maiden African tour this week with a visit to the impoverished West African nation of Mali, he held talks with Malian President Omar Alpha Konare. In addition to being the current chairman of the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Konare is a US favourite among the new breed of democratically-elected African leaders who have heartily instituted Washington's dubious directives of good governance, democratisation, privatisation and economic deregulation. He has emerged as one of the potent instruments of propagating Washington's political and economic agenda in Africa. Mali also holds a seat at the UN Security Council, and the US has taken a keen interest in the composition and voting patterns at that world forum. Last October, Washington lobbied hard to bar Sudan from winning a council seat, which went instead to the tiny Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. But last month, Sudan was vindicated when, in an unprecedented development, the US failed to win a seat at the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), while Sudan held on to its seat as a UNHRC member.
Powell is a passionate free-trader. He will no doubt find friends among the well-heeled African elites -- the main beneficiaries of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank privatisation and economic deregulation programmes. Mali and Uganda have witnessed sharp discrepancies in the distribution of income and an unprecedented widening of the income gap between rich and poor since their economies were liberalised. Evidently, Powell could not see the callous irony.
Powell's bellicose rhetoric about rogue states sounded the alarm bells in many quarters. He blasted Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, calling the treatment of non-Muslims and political opponents by the regime in Khartoum "disgraceful and uncivilised". In South Africa, misgivings about his trip broke into open hostilities. Students at the University of Witwatersrand violently protested Powell's visit, calling him the "Butcher of Baghdad." Powell received a rowdy reception by students, who chanted "Powell go home." The student protesters reminded Powell of his role during the 1991 Gulf War as chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. Powell reiterated the US commitment to a unilateral foreign policy, confessing he did not regret his actions against Iraq.
"America will be a friend to all Africans who seek peace, but we cannot make peace among Africans," Powell said. What he actually meant was that, after its 1996 debacle in Somalia when 37 US marines were killed after landing in the war-torn country, the US prefers to intervene militarily in Africa through trusted African accomplices. The main US contribution at present appears to be training and arming the troops of friendly African nations to wage war against those deemed to pose a threat to US interests in the region. They fight the US's battles by proxy. Such verbal trickery is obviously not beneath Washington' general-turned-top diplomat.
Meanwhile, a storm was brewing in the region over Powell's undiplomatic denunciation of individual African leaders, including some of South Africa's immediate neighbours. Powell reserved his harshest criticism for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has been in office since 1980. "The test of a true democracy is not the first election," Powell said. "Democracy takes root when leaders step down peacefully, when they are voted out of office or when their term expires."
Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF narrowly won last year's parliamentary election, but Powell insinuated that only by stepping down would Mugabe satisfy US foreign policy-makers. If former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's relinquishment of power is anything to go by, then even the abdication of power is not enough to appease Washington's vengeful castigation of those who dare stick by their own agendas. What Powell would evidently want to see is the installation in power of compliant African leaders presiding over friendly democracies that have absolutely no say in how their economies are run.
Powell's third stop was in Kenya, where he openly opposed a proposed constitutional amendment to extend Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi's term in office. Moi has been in power since the death in 1978 of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta. Powell officiated over a wreath-laying ceremony to honour the 224 victims, mainly Kenyan nationals, who died in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, which also injured over 5,000 people. One of the objects of his visit was to liaise with African governments to combat international terrorism. In this respect, Sudan and Libya are both blacklisted by Washington for aiding and abetting terrorist activities in Africa. But many African nations, even US special friends like Uganda, prefer to maintain close ties with Libya, in particular, and Sudan, in face of strong US opposition. Uganda recently resumed diplomatic relations with Khartoum.
Nevertheless, adhering to pluralist forms of democracy is not necessarily a meaningful criterion for the allotment of US largesse and political support. Powell, for instance, was quite happy to discuss HIV/AIDS and Sudan with Mugabe's arch-rival in the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Yoweri Museveni, in the Ugandan capital Kampala where he wrapped up his African tour. Museveni, who came to power in 1986 through the barrel of the gun, adamantly refuses to institute a multi-party political system opting instead for a "non-party" democracy. Powell took Museveni's permission to meet with Ugandan opposition figures and urged his host to permit a "free and open political discourse."
Powell was hardly on firmer ground when he stated that the war against HIV/AIDS is his most immediate African concern. He was conspicuously silent about the access of the 27 million Africans suffering from HIV/AIDS to cheaper generic anti-retroviral drugs, which the US vehemently opposes because it champions the patent rights of giant pharmaceutical corporations. Powell, however, announced that the US will give Uganda $50 million to combat HIV/AIDS, reminding his hosts that President Bush had pledged $200 million earmarked to enable the UN to launch its Global Health Trust. The US top diplomat did not specify whether his country will foot part of the estimated $8 billion bill needed annually for the prevention, treatment and care of HIV/AIDS sufferers in Africa. HIV/AIDS is not the only plague poor Africa must contend with. Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds.
Uganda, it seems, has emerged as the linchpin of US Africa policy, not least because the ex-US ambassador to Uganda, Nancy Powell (no relation to the US Secretary of State), is now US acting assistant for African Affairs. Small wonder, since Uganda is sandwiched between the two largest and war-torn African countries of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Powell declared in no uncertain terms that ending the conflicts in Sudan and Congo are the top priorities of the Bush administration in Africa.
Sudan featured prominently on Powell's agenda during his visit to two of Sudan's neighbours, Kenya and Uganda, who have in the past been among the staunchest supporters of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the main armed opposition force fighting the Sudanese government. On the eve of Powell's African tour, Sudan announced in a surprising move the halting of air strikes against SPLA strongholds in southern and western Sudan. In a separate and no less surprising development, southern Sudanese opposition leader Riek Machar announced that his organisation, the Sudan People's Democratic Forces, had dissolved itself and is joining, rank and file, the SPLA.
Powell said the US will sign a $3 million contract with the Sudanese umbrella opposition group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to supply communications equipment and other logistical support. The Bush administration had recently named Andrew Natsios, the new head of USAID, as "special humanitarian coordinator" for Sudan.
In the words of Randall Robinson, Powell's compatriot and fellow African-American, in his compelling The debt: What America Owes to Blacks, "America is the sun whose limitless wealth draws impoverished humankind obeisantly into its orbit for warmth and validity. They are, much of the black and brown world, bowing to an amoral money god that has deemed them irrelevant. Unrequited no matter what."
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