President Clinton’s legacy to Africa

BY USMAN MAMA

Les than two years after President Clinton took office, his then-secretary of commerce, Ron Brown, addressed a Washington audience consisting primarily of American and African political and business leaders during the ceremony establishing the office of the African Business Round Table in the nation’s capital. In his speech, Brown said that the new administration not only knew where Africa was on the map, but also it was “time to believe in Africa.” Eventually, the president’s trips to nine African countries (in 1998 and 2000), his aid packages for Africa in various fields, and his unparalleled popularity among African Americans – Africa’s natural “lobby” in the United States – emphatically support Brown’s remarks.

Clinton’s best legacy to Africa is unquestionably his two trips to Africa. He visited South Africa, Senegal, Botswana, Uganda, Ghana and Rwanda from March 23 to April 2, 1998; and Nigeria, Tanzania and Egypt April 25-29, 2000. Thanks to these trips, the president demonstrated his commitment to Africa and helped focus America’s attention – if only for a few days – on the so-called dark continent which is wrongly perceived by most Americans as a region where almost everybody is stricken by AIDS, uneducated, starving, displaced by civil wars and ruled by brutal dictators.

African leaders and their people loved the attention the continent received from the leader of the developed world. Some of the African heads of state who hosted the American resident even treated him like a brother returning home from abroad. During the state dinner given in honor of President Clinton in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, on August 26, 2000, Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo stated: “The claim of being the first black president of the United States is most endearing, and I dare say, quite befitting. For us, on this visit, you have come home.” Obasanjo went on to name President Clinton Sodangi Okoro and Omowale, all of which mean “the son has come home.”

Clinton did not go to Africa empty-handed. In Rwanda, he announced that the United States would contribute $30 million to a crucial regional initiative, the Great Lakes Justice Initiative (GLJI). In Nigeria, the president announced a $20-million package to support the Nigerian government’s campaign to fight various diseases – HIV/AIDS, polio and malaria. But Clinton had done much more for Africa long before traveling to the continent.

One of the lowest points in U.S.-Africa relations in the past two decades is the Reagan administration’s veto of U.S. sanctions against the apartheid regime of South Africa, which it took a two-third majority vote to repeal. Contrary to this, the Clinton administration early on mobilized American resources to train South Africans so that they could acquire the skills necessary to contribute to the development of their country. Durng a Rose Garden ceremony for the then-new South African president, Nelson Mandela, Clinton pledged a $600 million aid package for South Africa.

Besides these aid packages, among many others, the Clinton administration put in motion a well-oiled cooperation machine with Africa in several areas.

Edward J. Caselle, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State for Market Access and Compliance in Clinton’s Department of Commerce, recently told The African during an exclusive interview at his office: “There is no other group of countries in the world where the American government apparatus has been focused to try to figure out ways to be helpful to improve lives and the economies more than it has in Africa. I sit around the table with people from the Department of Energy, the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, our Small Business Administration, and we think what programs do we have in our own departments that we can bring to bear to make a difference in Africa.” By the same token, during Clinton’s second term, almost all of his cabinet members have taken at least one trip to Africa.

The areas covered by these unprecedented efforts, which were inspired by the president’s own commitment to contribute to Africa’s development, were as diverse as education, trade, democratization, agriculture, manpower development, among others. These initiatives did not solve all of Africa’s problems, and they were not intended to do so. In fact, the Clinton administration has received some bad grades from Africans.

To avoid a tragedy and an embarrassment such as the disastrous U.S. Intervention in Somalia which, in October 1993, resulted in the death of 18 U.S. servicemen who were operating there under U.N. umbrella, the Clinton team at the United Nations blocked the organization’s response to the Rwandan genocide that killed an estimated one million people in 1994. Africans talked about racism when the West – led by Washington – drove Milosevic out of Kosovo but would not, at the early stage, intervene in Sierra Leone. U.S. spending to combat AIDS amounts to a little over $400 million, a contribution far below the $3 billion a year that the U.N. deems necessary to treat AIDS in Africa where 25 million people are said to be infected.

Clinton did not bring democracy to Africa, but he helped advance the process that Africans themselves began. During the president’s visit to Uganda, the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced that the U.S. Government would contribute $2 million for the training of female elected officials, clearly a significant support for democracy in that country.

But it is also true that despite the notable advance in democratization in Africa over the past decade, democracy, in several countries, amount to a mere window dressing, as quite a number of dictators now hide behind the “democratic” mask. One can argue that democratization is a long process, an argument well supported by the fact that after more than two centuries of democratic experiences and the election of 42 presidents, the largest democracy in the world – the United States – on January 20 swore in the candidate who apparently lost the presidential election. The contested winner took the oath of office amid unprecedented protests by thousands of demonstrators who were (undemocratically) kept at bay by a massive police force.

Many African leaders recently interviewed by The African would have voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore if they were U.S. Citizens, as they fear that the election of the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, would erase the gains of the Clinton administration as far as relations with Africa are concerned. However, some of them now consider the choice of two African Americans, Gen. Colin Powel and Condoleezza Rice, respectively as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, as a step in the right direction. This is because the African American community, especially in recent years, has acted as a powerful lobby for Africa, and, consequently, most Sub-Saharan Africans view good relations between the White House and the African American community as a positive sign.

Nonetheless, while no one is questioning the competence of these two African Americans, one must point out that neither of them has really shown the emotional attachment to Africa displayed by other African American leaders, the likes of the late Ron Brown, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Clinton’s former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, his Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater or Rosa Whitaker, his choice to fill the first ever position of U.S. Trade Representative for Africa.

Overall, many in Africa and in the African American community fear that Clinton’s legacy will not outlast the Clinton administration. But history is full of surprises. It may, therefore, be unwise to prejudge.