Bush African Itinerary Reflects Administration Priorities, Cohen Says

Free markets, AIDS, terrorism will dominate talks

Washington -- President Bush's decision to visit Africa's economic powerhouses as well as nations valiantly battling HIV/AIDS and terrorism speaks clearly about the President's vision of and for Africa, says former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen.

"Those planned stops certainly underscore the Bush Administration's focus on business as the engine for change in Africa as well as its commitment to helping Africans battle deadly diseases with programs like the $15,000 million AIDS/infectious diseases initiative just passed by Congress," Cohen explained. "It also sends a signal to repressive regimes in countries like Togo and Zimbabwe that we value our development partnerships with governments committed to open political and economic reforms."

"I'm particularly glad the President is visiting Botswana," Cohen said, "because everyone takes it for granted. It's the one country in Africa that has not misused its natural resources, which in its case are diamonds. It has used its diamond revenues wonderfully -- for education, infrastructure development, and health -- to uplift the people.

"It deserves the type of recognition for its accomplishments that a Bush visit will confer."

But for Africans of all stripes, "a presidential visit is always a very big event," the retired diplomat told the Washington File by phone June 24. The White House announced June 20 that President Bush will travel to Senegal, Nigeria, Botswana, South Africa and Uganda July 7-12.

With the $10,000 million Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), Cohen said, "Bush has pledged development funds to countries that are doing the right thing toward good governance and open economic policies and most of the countries he's visiting are on that track. They are all pushing the private sector instead of expecting the government to do everything as was the custom 30 years ago."

At the same time, "over the last 10 or 15 years, Africa has made some major strides in democracy, and Bush should point out that there are some countries that are not practicing democracy while holding up countries he visits, like South Africa, as models," Cohen suggested.

For Americans, he said the Bush trip is historic because it will be his first visit to the continent since being elected President more than two years ago. President Bill Clinton made two trips to Africa promoting democracy and free market economies. Cohen said, "I think those have pretty much remained on the top of the White House policy agenda for Africa."

Certainly democracy and business are major priorities in Nigeria, where because of its economy -- the second largest in sub-Saharan Africa -- "a Bush visit is a natural move," Cohen said.

Politically, he suggested, "Now that President Obasanjo has won a second term, Bush should push the Nigerians to break the web of entrenched corruption and vested interests and move into a more open economy where oil money is used to uplift the people instead of uplifting the elites -- so that's the tough message he should take to Nigeria."

The diplomat predicted terrorism would also top the Bush agenda in conversations with African officials. Some observers say Uganda was included as a stop, in part, because of President Yoweri Museveni's forthright support of the United States on the issue as well as his innovative AIDS education and prevention programs.

Cohen said, "I believe most of the African countries feel they are more vulnerable to the terrorist threat," he said, "because they have porous borders, their security forces are greatly undermanned and under funded. What Africans are especially concerned with is that terrorists will use their countries as bases to attack big targets like the U.S. and U.K. through their embassies overseas.

He added, "They're also afraid of money laundering because their central banks aren't that well audited. So, what they're saying to us is: 'The war on terrorism concerns us because it could ruin us financially and economically; so we want to cooperate with the U.S.'"

Cohen said one successful partnership on the war on terrorism is the U.S. Defense Department's Pan Sahel Anti-Terrorist Training initiative helping to train the security forces of Senegal, Mali, Niger and Mauritania "to stop the infiltration of terrorist groups across their borders."

Basically, "you see a lot of cooperation not because they necessarily agree with all our foreign policy," Cohen said, "but because they find that international terrorism is powerful -- it has a lot of money and it could implicate in ways that are very dangerous to them. And the best way to stop that is to work in close cooperation with the United States, Britain and France on things like intelligence sharing and controlling the transfer of money."