Clinton tour to Africa seen as move forward
Donna Bryson
The Associated Press via The Philadelphia Inquirer
Aug 14, 2009
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - In Liberia, Hillary Rodham Clinton brought out the crowds despite torrential rain. In Congo, she came away deeply shaken from a meeting with rape victims. In Kenya, the prime minister said Africa didn't need lectures from the West about democracy, but Africa got one anyway.
At home, the U.S. secretary of state's visit may have been overshadowed by the aftermath of her husband's mission to North Korea to bring home two imprisoned U.S. journalists. But on her seven-nation Africa tour, ending today, with a stopover in the West African island republic of Cape Verde, she made one splash after another.
Coupled with Barack Obama's visit last month, the two trips to Africa were the earliest into an administration by any secretary of state or president, underlining Washington's pledges to pay more attention to the continent.
In the United States, the headline-making moment of the trip was her testy response to a question about Bill Clinton. But in Africa, it quickly became a footnote. What people wanted to hear was support for democracy, clean government, and ending its many civil wars.
Clinton confronted the sticky issues head-on. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, speaking hours before Clinton arrived, said Africa did not need to be lectured about democracy. After they met, she did just that.
"The absence of strong and effective democratic institutions has permitted ongoing corruption, impunity, politically motivated violence and a lack of respect for a rule of law," Clinton said. "These conditions . . . are continuing to hold Kenya back."
Odinga switched to a more conciliatory tone, saying African countries could learn from Clinton's example when she conceded defeat to Obama during the U.S. presidential primaries. "That is a lesson Africa needs to learn seriously," he said. "In Africa, in many countries, elections are never won, they are only rigged. The losers never accept that they lost."
In Angola, she told Foreign Minister Assuncao Afonso dos Anjos that his country needed to write a new constitution, prosecute human-rights crimes, and hold a proper presidential election. "So, Mr. Minister, we have our work cut out for us," she said.
And in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, she said "the disconnect between Nigeria's wealth and its poverty is a failure of governance at the federal, state, and local level."
To Africa's reformers, often an embattled minority, these were heartening words.
Tiseke Kasambala, a Johannesburg-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, commended her grasp of human-rights abuses in Africa, not just the headline-makers, like Zimbabwe and Congo, but the lesser publicized offenders such as Angola.
In Goma, a Congo town in a region ravaged by gang rapes amid continuing fighting between army and rebels, Clinton announced $17 million in American aid to help the victims. She toured a squalid camp of 18,000 refugees and heard one of them tell her, "We really want to return home."
"That's why I'm here," Clinton replied. "I want you to be able to go home."
Nancy Kachingwe, a Malawian with the development group ActionAid, applauded Clinton's "very strong emphasis around women's rights."
But there are still many problems to solve - AIDS, world trade, global warming, and instability among nations.
"There will be a positive impact" from Clinton's trip, Kachingwe said. "But somewhere along the way, we do need to see . . . what's going to come to keep the momentum going."
