6A
NEWS/Ole Ct«i[«nt
Thursday, December 15, 2005
JUrica uges U.& to achnowiedge MNMili
Continued from page 1A
concerts to pressure the
Group of Eight (G-8) sununit
to double aid to Africa - is
not suffrdent to maintain
the kind of commitment to
the continent that is consis
tent with its more hard-
headed interests
"Recent assistance and
humanitarian initiatives
will likely sufler without a
more comprehensive elabo
ration of U.S. interests in
Africa, both to Congress and
the public,” according to the
report, titled ‘"More Than
Humanitarianism: A
Strategic U.S, Approach
toward Africa’
"The United States must
recognize and act on its ris
ing national interests on the
continent through a far higgl
er mobilization of leadership
and focused resources that
target Africa’s new realities,”
said the report, the product
of a bipartisan task force
headed by Anthony Lake,
President Bill Clinton’s first
national security adviser,
and former New Jersey
Governor Christine Tbdd
Whitman, who headed the
Environmental Protection
Agency during Bush’s frrst
two years as president
The report drew sharp crit
icism from a former CFR
director for Africa studies,
Salih Booker, who now
heads a grassroots lobby
group, Africa Action. He
objected in particular to its
dichotomy between “human
itarian” interests, such as
debt relief and anti-AIDS
efforts, and economic and
political imperatives, like
Africa’s oil reserves and
Washington’s pursuit of
allies in the "war on terror”.
"They think they need to
take this approach because
the establishment is pre
sumed to believe that we
don’t have any interests in
Africa other than humani
tarian interests,” he said
"Ihis approach establishes
a hierarchy of U.S. national
interests where the tc^ pri
orities are fitting terrorism
and securing access to oil,
and African people’s hiunan
rights are near the bottom,”
he said “This is how Africa
was viewed during the Cdid
War, and it’s likely to have
similar negative conse
quences.”
Indeed in presenting U.S.
interests, the report lists
Africa’s status as an increas
ingly important source of cdl
and gas; growing competi
tion with China; and the war
on terrorism; the HTV/AIDS
pandemic; conflict resolution
and peacekeeping, democra
cy and human rights; and
long-term economic develop
ment in that order.
The report commends the
administration for launching
two major Africa-related aid
programs - the Millennium
Challenge Account and the
five-year, 15-billion-dollar
President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief - as well as
Bush’s commitment earlier
this year to double U.S. aid
to Africa by 2010 and his
offer to eliminate all tariff
and subsidy barriers in agri
cultural trade is the
European Union agrees to
do the same.
Altogether, U.S. aid to
Africa has increased five-fold
over the past decade, accord
ing to the report, which
argued that the public con
stituency for Africa has
broadened from traditional
humanitarian groups and
the African-American com
munity to include evangeli
cal Christians, the public-
health community, and “U.S.
military commands in
Europe and the Middle East”
focused on the “war on ter
rorism.”
At the same time, however,
there have been disappoint
ments Congress, for exam
ple, has fallen far short of
Bush’s requests to fund the
MCA, and the administra
tion’s reluctance to support
the Global Fund to Fi^t
AIDS, TB, and Malaria has
discouraged other donors
from contributing more to
that agency
In addition, almost all
increases in U.S. aid to
Africa in recent years have
been devoted to emergency
assistance, as opposed to
long-term programs, such as
infrastructure and rural
development, that "could lift
Africa out of poverty”
Moreover, Africa too often
gets the short end of the
stick when it comes to key
development and democra-
cy-buUding programs, par
ticularly when it is competi
tion for regions that are con
sidered more strategic, cur
rently the Middle East,
South Asia, and the Gulf
human ri^ts, or economic
policy”.
In fact, the Bush adminis
tration has begun to engage
China on its policies in
Africa, according to
Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs Jendaye
Frazier, who just returned
from two days of "very pro
ductive and quite construc
tive” talks with her counter
parts in Beijing late last
week "I don’t agree with the
report that China’s interests
are in direct competition
with the U.S ,” she said.
On the war on terrorism,
the report complained that
Africa "does not receive suffi
cient political attention to
the threat nor sufficient
funding to combat it,” despite
the large and growing
Pentagon and intelligence
coimter-inteUigence initia
tives for the Horn and the
Thans-Sahelian regions. The
report calls for the State
Department to exert more
oversi^t over those initia
tives to ensure that they do
not provide "coUusion or
unintended support for
repressive regimes,” such as
the military junta that
seized power in Mauritania
earlier this year.
Banker interim Ivory Coast leader
Tfension over the naming of a transitional
prime minister was broken recently when
mediators appointed a central banker to lead
war-ravaged Cote dlvoire into elections.
"The prime minister for the transition peri
od is Mr Charles Konan Barmy” said a state
ment signed by South African President
Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo and Niger President Mamadu
Thndja. They said Banny 63, would be given
broad powers specified by the United Nations
Security Council, including financial and
human resources, control over security and
defense forces and oversight of the electoral
process.
Banny is governor of the Central Bank of
West African States.
Global Information Network
regions.
It is in this context, the
report argues, that policy
makers should offer a more
comprehensive elaboration
of U.S. interests in Africa
In particular, Africa’s grow
ing importance as an energy
producer needs to be given
greater prominence. West
African producers currently
provide about 15 percent of
U.S. oil imports, but that is
expected to rise to 25 percent
by 2015.
At the same time, however,
Washington faces much
greater competition for those
energy resources, as well as
other raw materials, particu
larly from China, which,
according to the task force,
"does not share U.S. concern
for issues of governance.
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