Chicago Tribune - July 3, 2003
Salih Booker*

In fact, the Bush administration is on a collision course with Africa because its policies are simply antithetical to Africa's interests. The White House's few new Africa policy initiatives that seem compassionate are actually fictitious because they are left underfunded.

The U.S. defines the most urgent international priorities as weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. The G-7 club of wealthy countries concurs. Yet the rest of the world, the global majority, is concerned less with these potential threats than with the more immediate threats to human security and global stability--AIDS, poverty and civil conflicts. The divergent priorities of the Bush administration and the people of Africa should be apparent when President Bush travels to Africa for his first official visit next week.

In West Africa, Bush will be confronted with the crisis in Liberia, amid growing calls from within that country for U.S. intervention to stop the latest violence. Bush has called for the removal of Liberian President Charles Taylor, but so far has been unwilling to take action to ensure a peaceful transition in that country and stability in the larger region. Despite America's unique historic ties with Liberia, the "hands-off" approach of the U.S. is undermining African peacemaking initiatives so important to Africa's people. This also is true in Sudan and in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bush also will visit Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and the fifth largest supplier of oil to the U.S. Washington's interests in West African oil have not translated into a commitment to Nigeria's democracy or to its economic development. Nigeria's efforts at poverty reduction are impossible under the burden of the $30 billion it owes in foreign debt. The refusal of the U.S. to support the cancellation of these debts reveals the absence of a real partnership between the U.S. and Africa's superpower.

In South Africa, Bush will visit ground zero of the global AIDS crisis, home to almost 5 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

While Bush has made much of his commitment to fighting AIDS in Africa, this is becoming a cruel hoax at the expense of those on the frontlines fighting AIDS in Africa. The president requested no new money to fight AIDS in Africa this year, and only $450 million in new money for 2004. He has virtually sidestepped the Global Fund to fight AIDS, thus undermining the most important vehicle in the war on AIDS in Africa. Despite his declarations--that he is committing $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean--Bush's failure to take action now is tantamount to breaking his promise.

Far more significant to the Bush administration is the so-called war on terrorism. The military footprint of the U.S. has been growing, particularly in East Africa where military bases and access to ports and airfields are of increasing strategic importance. U.S. military concerns run counter to the efforts of Kenyans, Ugandans and others to combat poverty, HIV/AIDS and broader insecurity. The new $100 million anti-terrorism initiative announced by Bush last week will not even offset the money being lost by the tourist industry in Kenya as a result of frequent terror warnings from Washington.

As Bush travels to Africa, we must recognize the dichotomy between U.S. global priorities and those of Africa's people, and we must work to bridge the deadly gap. A failure to demand more of U.S. policies toward Africa will ensure a continuation of America's historic disdain for Africa, with all of its terrible consequences.

* Salih Booker is executive director of Africa Action

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