Inter Press Service - June 26, 2001
Jim Lobe

In a joint statement after Bush had lunch at the White House with South African President Thabo Mbeki, the two men characterised bilateral ties as "excellent" and agreed to create a "joint secretariat" to coordinate bilateral policy discussions. It will take the place of a higher-level Binational Commission chaired by Mbeki and former Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration.

The meeting was used primarily by Mbeki to brief Bush on a series of initiatives undertaken by South Africa and other African countries, including the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP), and peace and mediation efforts affecting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola, and Zimbabwe, according to a US official who briefed reporters.

The official said they also discussed the human rights situation in Sudan. The 18-year-old civil war there between the Muslim-led central government in the North and the largely Christian and animist southern population has become a major political headache for the Bush administration, which has come under pressure from a coalition of Christian Right activists, human rights groups, and the Black Congressional Caucus to harden the US line against Khartoum.

Tuesday's meeting was the first of four this week between Bush and visiting African leaders. The presidents of Senegal, Mali, and Ghana are scheduled to visit after addressing the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV-AIDS in New York, which ends Wednesday.

The fact that Mbeki, like Bush, decided to bypass the special session prompted criticism here and in South Africa, where the UN estimates one in every five adults either has AIDS or the virus that causes it, one of the highest rates in the world.

"Mbeki's absence from the special session is probably more important than his presence in Washington," said Salih Booker, the director of the non-governmental Africa Action.

"Both he and Bush should be in New York this week, telling the world what they're going to do to lead the fight against the worst plague in human history," added Booker, who noted that Mbeki has been shy about speaking out on the subject since he was assailed by public health experts for questioning the causal link between AIDS and HIV. "They're both squandering an important opportunity."

The Bush-Mbeki statement said the two leaders "support the establishment and funding of the global trust fund for HIV-AIDS," the focus of this week's UN meeting.

Bush has pledged 200 million dollars to the fund, a contribution derided by AIDS activists as far too little given the size of the US economy. Washington has indicated it might commit more but specific amounts remain to be announced. After Bush secured the Republican presidential nomination last year, he invited the South African leader to his ranch in Texas for a get-together. Mbeki, who was close to Vice President Al Gore and met with him at least once each year as co-chair of the Binational Commission, traveled there in May 2000.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met Mbeki in Johannesburg last month, has described South Africa as one of two "pillars" of Washington's Africa policy, the other being Nigeria. Another senior State Department official recently described South Africa as "the critical bilateral relationship in Africa."

The economic relationship is considered especially important. Two- way trade amounted to seven billion dollars last year, making South Africa Washington's largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa. US companies exported three billion dollars in goods, more than they sold to Russia.

US foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Africa came to 1.4 billion dollars in 1999, more than any other country and almost three times what US companies invested in 1998. One of Mbeki's top goals on this trip was to attract more US business interest.

He was to speak at the Corporate Council on Africa Tuesday evening and to travel to Philadelphia Wednesday to meet executives at the Merck pharmaceutical company, a potential foreign investor as well as a producer of anti-AIDS drugs. Washington is eager to help him on this quest. "Mbeki's economic policies have been terrific," said one senior official who briefed reporters here last week.

"We want more investment to go to South Africa."

On other regional issues, Washington sees Pretoria as the major guarantor of political stability in southern Africa and thus wants to ensure its involvement and cooperation in peace efforts, especially in the civil war-wracked countries of Angola, where US companies have major investments in the oil sector, and the DRC. In their joint statement, Mbeki and Bush called for "dialogue" and progress in both countries.

On Zimbabwe, where violence and growing economic crisis have caused increasing concern among US officials, Mbeki reported to Bush on efforts by Commonwealth foreign ministers to help resolve conflicts over next year's elections and land reform, according to a senior US official.

Mbeki has been criticised here for not pressing Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe harder on halting land seizures and the intimidation by his loyalists of opposition figures and independent media. Indeed, Powell himself, in a speech at South Africa's Witwatersrand University last month, assailed Mugabe by name and warned that continued political crisis in Zimbabwe would eventually hurt Pretoria as well.

Tuesday's joint statement, however, was much milder in tone. "We affirmed our mutual desire for a peaceful, democratic, prosperous Zimbabwe, in which human rights and rule of law are respected," the two leaders said. (END/IPS/NA/AF/IP/jl/aa/01)
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