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America and Africa
Hillary (not Bill) on safari
Aug 13th 2009 | JOHANNESBURG AND NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition
The secretary of state tries to walk all that mellifluous Barack Obama talk
DOUBLE-acts are more common in light entertainment than high politics. But if Barack Obama delivered the
punchline of his administration’s vision of Africa on his triumphant, albeit very brief, visit to Ghana last month—
declaring that “Africa’s future is up to Africans”—Hillary Clinton has been trying to put the meat of detail on to
the bones of his oratory.
Journeying to seven countries in 11 days, her tour of the continent (the earliest point in any administration that a
president and secretary of state have both visited Africa) took in America’s varying, and sometimes competing,
priorities. Security and the dangers of Islamist terrorism were highlighted in east Africa, democracy in Kenya and
Angola, trade in South Africa, oil in Angola and Nigeria, conflict in Congo and HIV/AIDS almost everywhere.
It is a contradictory mix to manage. In Ghana, Mr Obama had spoken of the importance of democracy, of how
“governments that respect the will of their own people...are more successful than governments that do not”, and
the risks of concentrating wealth in the hands of an elite few. His presence in Ghana, rather than in Kenya, where
his father was born, was a recognition of the country’s peaceful changes of power at the ballot box.
However, given the realities of America’s interests, Mrs Clinton could not afford such gestures. Angola has not
held a presidential poll since 1992, when the second round was cancelled as the country’s civil war restarted.
Last month the government, largely composed of former Marxist guerrillas, delayed the next such election for an
18th year when it extended work on its new constitution. Yet America has been investing a lot of diplomatic and
political effort in Angola, not one of its traditional allies on the continent, because of its oil. Angola’s vast natural
resources have seen it boom, with growth averaging 18% in recent years, even though many of its people still
live in dire poverty. It is now the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
As such, it has become one of the most keenly contested diplomatic battlegrounds on the continent. Mrs Clinton
arrived in the wake of a visit by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in June and a steady stream of guests
from Beijing. Unlike her Asian rivals, who never publicly criticise African regimes, Mrs Clinton at least spoke of
the need for a “timely” presidential election to follow last year’s parliamentary vote. But otherwise it will be
business as usual. Francis Kornegay of the Institute for Global Dialogue, a think-tank based in South Africa,
describes the Obama administration’s approach in Africa as “progressive realism”. “There’s no such thing as a
human-rights foreign policy, we are in an age of competitive economic diplomacy in areas of the world where we
have major concentrations of resources,” he says.
In Kenya, with less at stake commercially, Mrs Clinton scolded the government for its failure to bring charges
against any politician for inciting violence during the disputed election in December 2007. But she was short on
specifics as to what Kenya should do next.
She was also worryingly vague on Somalia, a perennial problem for America. A meeting with Somalia’s embattled
transitional president, Sharif Ahmed, in Kenya ended with a photo-opportunity in which a nervous Mr Ahmed
shook hands with Mrs Clinton in front of the Stars and Stripes. Mrs Clinton hinted that drones would return to the
skies over Somalia if the Islamist radicals who now control most of the country launch suicide attacks against
Kenya and elsewhere. American officials privately suggested that they would increase the supply of weapons to
Mr Ahmed’s feeble government.
However, whereas that might be just enough to provoke those who see Mr Ahmed as nothing more than an
American lackey and a turncoat, it won’t be nearly enough to stop Somalia’s further descent into chaos and selfdestruction.
Away from Mr Obama’s rhetoric, such are the real dilemmas and difficult choices for America in
Africa.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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