Los Angeles Times - February 14, 2008
James Gerstenzang, james.gerstenzang@latimes.com

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said today that he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya to try to bring an end to postelection violence, as he laid out a U.S. agenda in Africa to promote economic and political development and expand a massive campaign against HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Bush delivered the twin announcements on the eve of his second presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa. The president is scheduled to leave Friday afternoon for a six-day trip to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.

Rice will split off from Bush's party Monday and fly to Nairobi to meet with Kenyan leaders and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is trying to mediate a dispute between the country's two dominant political groups.

Bush, whose itinerary across the continent's midsection skirts its most troubled states and highlights instead its success stories, has come under pressure to involve his administration in efforts to stem the violence in Kenya, until weeks ago considered one of the most stable examples of democratic progress in Africa.

Rice, Bush said, will "deliver a message directly to Kenya's leaders and people: There must be an immediate halt to violence, there must be justice for the victims of abuse, and there must be a full return to democracy."

Annan is seeking to mediate a crisis that has left more than 1,000 people dead since the disputed Dec. 27 presidential election. He hopes to complete a power-sharing agreement between the two sides by the end of this week.

In a speech at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art, Bush sought to assure Africans that "the United States is committed to them today, tomorrow and long into their continent's bright future," and he declared Africa "increasingly vital to our strategic interests."

Bush outlined a broadened U.S. role in Africa well beyond the end of his administration and promised that the so-called Dark Continent would enjoy "the light of liberty. "Africa in the 21st century is a continent of potential," he said, "where democracy is advancing, where economies are growing, and leaders are meeting challenges with purpose and determination."

Bush presented both a religious and a security underpinning to the U.S. commitment.

"Our brothers and sisters in Africa have dignity and value, because they bear the mark of our Creator," he said, while also recognizing that a declining Africa "would be more likely to produce failed states, foster ideologies of radicalism and spread violence across borders."

Bush's first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president, in 2003, took him to two of the continent's economic heavyweights, South Africa and Nigeria, among other stops.

The five countries he will visit now were chosen to highlight economic and political successes and, in the examples set by Rwanda and Liberia, recent histories of overcoming genocide, civil war and political corruption.

But the president is sidestepping some of the continent's most troublesome locales not far from the signs of stability on which he is focusing: warfare in Sudan's Darfur region and in Congo, the rule of warlords in Somalia, turmoil on the Chad-Sudan border, and even the competition China poses as it seeks an increasingly deep hold on the continent's natural resources.

Bush said the United States remained committed to U.N. efforts to deploy a peacekeeping force in Darfur but that he was "a little frustrated by how slow things are moving."

But Gayle Smith, who oversaw National Security Council work on Africa during the final years of the Clinton administration, said that "this growing arc of crisis" was missing from the trip. She estimated peacekeeping operations were underfunded by as much as $600 million.

"The administration wants to focus on a number of relative success stories -- countries that have been working hard to resolve their internal problems, to overcome corruption and governance issues, to institutionalize democracy, to liberalize their economies," said J. Anthony Holmes, an expert on Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of 28 years in the U.S. Foreign Service.

"The focus of this trip is legacy, legacy, legacy. They really want to highlight and enshrine what the president has accomplished," Holmes said in a telephone conference call with reporters, adding that the trip would allow Bush to score "some political points" because it would show the U.S. domestic audience "that the U.S. is engaged in helping Africa."

The administration's primary health initiative in Africa, the anti-AIDS and malaria program, is widely seen as the largest international health campaign in history.

"He has put his money where his mouth is," Holmes said, but, in a reference to the need for even greater aid programs, added that "there is much more the United States could do."

The $15-billion emergency program for AIDS relief will be one of the central themes of the trip. Bush is seeking a new five-year outlay of $30 billion for the program; some critics have said at least $50 billion is needed.

Bush said that five years ago when he visited Africa, 50,000 people were receiving medicine to treat HIV/AIDS. Now, he said, more than 1.3 million people are being treated, and the program has benefited tens of millions of people on the continent.

"Some call this a remarkable success," he said. "I call it a good start."

He is also calling attention to his administration's refocusing of foreign aid, under the Millennium Challenge Account, built around rewarding efforts to build democracy and cut corruption in the developing world. Bush noted that two-thirds of the program's $5.5 billion was being spent in Africa, on programs intended to promote economic development, and that he would sign a compact for the largest project, worth $700 million, in Tanzania.

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