Into Africa
Negar Azimi explores US President George W Bush's sudden interest in Africa
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A young Nigerian girl who is AIDS-free holds the arm of her HIV-infected mother as US President George W Bush takes her hand during his visit to the Abuja National Hospital in the Nigerian capital Abuja
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George W Bush has shown precious little interest in Africa during his tenure as president of the United States. Why then, sceptics ask, has he placed AIDS, poverty and free trade at the top of his agenda at the end of a whirlwind five-day, five-nation tour? Somehow, the image of the compassionate conservative touted by the White House this week is a jarring one, particularly given the president's past indifference to things African.
A closer look, nevertheless, can be revealing. The evening before the president's departure, General James Jones, the commander of the US European command with responsibility for African operations, announced that the US was considering the establishment of a string of long- term military bases across the continent.
Djibouti is already home to roughly 1,500 marines and special forces, making the US one of the African Horn nation's biggest employers, and perhaps more importantly, placing US troops within close proximity of Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- traditional havens for terrorist cells, Al-Qa'eda among them.
The proposed bases would be established in Algeria, where terrorist groups are known to operate, as well as in sub-Saharan nations such as Mali. General Jones also predicted an enlarged role for the navy and marines in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
The US imports 1.5 million barrels a day of oil from West Africa, nearly the equivalent of the amount it imports from Saudi Arabia, and to date US investments in West African oil fields amount to $10 billion. Those numbers are anticipated to grow in the next decade.
In states such as Nigeria, the most populous nation on the continent, both oil and terrorism may be driving the administration's interests.
A taped message purported to be the voice of Osama Bin Laden, which was released in February, singles out Nigeria as a potential theatre for Al-Qa'eda operations. With a population that is 60 per cent Muslim and the often contentious observance of Shari'a law in 12 of its northern states, the nation is fertile ground for an Islamist challenge.
Meanwhile, State Department figures indicate that the US is Nigeria's largest customer for crude oil, accounting for 40 per cent of the country's total oil exports. Nigeria provides about 10 per cent of overall US oil imports and ranks as the fifth-largest source for US imported oil.
And this is to say nothing of Africa's vast holdings of the copper, bauxite, chrome, uranium and gold.
It seems that consolidating potential economic interests, as well as the fight against an encroaching terrorist threat, are twin concerns for this administration.
But to his credit, President Bush did not fail to raise pressing human rights issues such as AIDS while en route to the continent. Bush, a longtime foe of AIDS activists, used the trip as an opportunity to fashion himself as an unlikely humanitarian by vigorously publicising his five- year, $15 billion commitment to HIV/AIDS. Signed into law this spring, the measure authorises up to $3 billion a year for AIDS programmes in 14 countries -- 12 of which are in Africa.
While the new legislation will triple the amount the US currently has earmarked for AIDS, critics point out that the plan is outmoded given its emphasis on abstinence rather than proven safe-sex education techniques.
Some ponder if Bush's new AIDS czar Randall Tobias will transfer the bulk of the designated funds to US pharmaceutical interests in the region rather than companies who produce cheap generic versions of life-extending medicines. Tobias is the former chairman of American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
Others are quick to point out that the $15 billion figure is a mere symbolic benchmark; actual funding levels are subject to congressional whim, while, at the moment, there is not enough money in the 2004 foreign aid budget to fund the AIDS bill. Bush has made holding down federal spending on nearly all non-military programmes a cornerstone of his agenda.
Today, an estimated 30 million people in sub- Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, a disproportionate 70 per cent of the global total. Only a tiny fraction have access to the life- extending medicines that are making HIV and AIDS in the West a largely manageable chronic illness.
Beyond the AIDS epidemic, civil wars stretching from Liberia to the Congo continue to plague the continent. Famines such as Ethiopia's have put populations on edge; according to Save the Children, nearly 12 million Ethiopians are in urgent need of food aid, while poverty continues to grip the majority of the continent.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), over one half the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than one dollar a day, while a report issued by the same agency on the eve of President Bush's visit found that 20 African countries ranked dead last on a list of economic development indicators for the world's nations.
Whatever his interests, and however brisk the visit (President Bush spent just over three hours in Uganda and a whopping six hours in Botswana), his gesture remains an important one, for Africa's fate will doubtless be tied to that of the rest of the world in the ensuing decade. American presidents do not often pay state visits to Africa, while this particular one, combined with US gesturing towards keeping a fragile peace in a fractured Liberia, may be a first step towards bringing the continent, nearly forgotten, back into the collective consciousness.
