*EPF302 07/09/2003
Bush Talks Democracy, Terrorism with Leaders on First Visit to Africa
(Former Special Envoy Jesse Jackson comments on value of trip) (640)

By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Correspondent

Dakar, Senegal -- President Bush began his first official trip to sub-Saharan Africa on July 8 telling West African leaders the best way to fight terrorism is "to support the habits of freedom,"

During his first stop on a five-day, five-nation visit to Africa, Bush met with Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and seven other West African heads of states who face the destabilizing violence that Liberian President Charles Taylor has brought to his own country -- and to the region.

Before he returns to Washington on July 12, Bush will have visited Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria. His priorities in discussions with African leaders are HIV/AIDS, destabilizing conflict, and trade-led economic growth, according to officials who are accompanying Bush on the trip.

One of the administration officials who attended the meetings at the Presidential Palace in Dakar, but who wished to remain unnamed, later briefed journalists traveling with the President.

In Bush's conversation with Wade, the official said, Bush focused on counterterrorism and the spillover effects that continued violence in Liberia posed to the region. "The President restated the need for Charles Taylor to leave Liberia in order to return the country to stability. He also spoke about [how] the United States will participate with the regional leaders in trying to bring about that stability, but the nature of that participation will be based on an assessment that our EUCOM [European Command, which is responsible for related military affairs in most of Africa] teams are doing now in the region."

Wade and Bush also discussed trade between their two nations, the official said, as well as the benefits of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). President Bush "expressed a real concern about African countries reducing trade-distorting subsidies. ... and also about the need for Africans to work with him in the forum of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce all agricultural subsidies, and the requirement for Europe to join in that proposal to reduce agricultural subsidies."

The two heads of state also discussed the scourge of HIV/AIDS and President Bush's $10,000 million development initiative for Africa called the Millennium Challenge Account, the official said.

In his later talk with the eight African heads of state, the official said, President Bush reiterated many of the same points he made during his talk with President Wade. In addition, "an underlying theme was that all of the leaders emphasized the importance of their taking the leadership, the self-responsibility for addressing these problems in strong partnership with the United States."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, President Bill Clinton's former Special Envoy for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa, told a CNN interviewer that the trip was a "plus" because of the attention it brings to the political and economic challenges facing the continent, but he questioned whether the United States would look at African policy more seriously. According Jackson, a former civil rights activist turned diplomat, Bush is perhaps taking an overly cautious approach to the civil war in Liberia, especially in terms of a direct U.S. involvement in the crisis.

"We're in Africa's debt," Jackson pointed out, citing the supply to America of African raw materials and energy exports. "We've never been a fair trading partner with Africa.

"In Liberia, all of our Firestone rubber came from there," and many American companies were headquartered in Liberia. Yet, when its government was overthrown by Charles Taylor "nothing was there to protect that democracy," he said. "We left them there to go into a shambles, so maybe some plan to stabilize Liberia and undertake their restoration could be a first step in the direction of real, meaningful relations."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents