Image of the Day

celebrated a “new generation” of African leaders, many of whom were exrebel
commanders; among these leaders were Mr. Meles, Isaias Afewerki
of Eritrea, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Jerry J. Rawlings of Ghana, Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa and Yoweri K. Museveni of Uganda.
“One hundred years from now your grandchildren and mine will look
back and say this was the beginning of an African renaissance,” Mr.
Clinton said in Accra, Ghana, in March 1998.
In remarks to a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations that year, Ms. Rice was equally breathless about the continent’s
future. “There is a new interest in individual freedom and a movement
away from repressive, one-party systems,” she said. “It is with this new
generation of Africans that we seek a dynamic, long-term partnership for
the 21st century.”
Her optimism was misplaced. In the 14 years since, many of these
leaders have tried on the strongman’s cloak and found that it fit nicely. Mr.
Meles dismantled the rule of law, silenced political opponents and forged a
single-party state. Mr. Isaias, Mr. Kagame and Mr. Museveni cling to their
autocratic power. Only Mr. Rawlings and Mr. Mbeki left office willingly.
Ms. Rice’s enthusiasm for these leaders might have blinded her to
some of their more questionable activities. Critics, including Howard W.
French, a former correspondent for The New York Times, say that in the
late 1990s, Ms. Rice tacitly approved of an invasion of the Democratic
Republic of Congo that was orchestrated by Mr. Kagame of Rwanda and
supported by Mr. Museveni of Uganda. In The New York Review of
Books in 2009, Mr. French reported that witnesses had heard Ms. Rice
describe the two men as the best insurance against genocide in the region.
“They know how to deal with that,” he reported her as having said. “The
only thing we have to do is look the other way.” Ms. Rice has denied
supporting the invasion.
More recently, according to Jason K. Stearns, a scholar of the region,
Ms. Rice temporarily blocked a United Nations report documenting
Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebel group now operating in eastern
Congo, and later moved to delete language critical of Rwanda and Uganda
from a Security Council resolution. “According to former colleagues, she