Bush off to Africa
2008-02-14 13:01
Washington - President George W Bush will find violent conflicts threatening nearly every corner of Africa when he begins a six-day visit on Saturday.
But the continent's turmoil and trouble were not expected to be Topic A for the president.
Fighting disease and poverty and promoting growth, development and security would be Bush's main themes as he travelled with his wife, Laura, to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.
"There's a preference in these trips ... to put the emphasis on things that make you happy and to avoid talking about things that make you sad," said Stephen Morrison, the co-director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies' Africa programme. "This is not a conflict resolution trip."
'Africa's world war'
It would be Bush's second trip to Africa. When he last visited in 2003, he focused mainly on showcasing democratic advances and his administration's commitment to tackling Aids.
In Congo, five years of fighting that came to be called Africa's world war appeared to have ended after claiming, it was now estimated, more than five million lives - more than any war since World War II.
But the peace was fragile and the country in ruins. In Sudan, a 21-year civil war between the Muslim-dominated government in the north and the mostly Christian and animist south was grinding on despite some strides toward peace.
In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule was impoverishing the population and causing deadly unrest. Talk of a brutal civil war in Liberia, led then by dictator Charles Taylor, intruded the most on Bush's travels.
Of all those nations, the president went back to Africa now with only Liberia emerged - though not healed - from its strife. There also were a host of new problems.
Of particular concern was Kenya, once viewed as one of Africa's most stable countries, but now possibly on the brink of disaster.
'Great tragedy on continent'
Disputed elections in December ignited fighting between supporters of the government and main opposition party that was fuelled by fierce ethnic tensions.
"It's a great tragedy on the continent," Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said on Wednesday. He said about a half-dozen of the conflicts in Africa were on the way toward resolution but, "unfortunately, what's happening in Kenya is a step backwards"
Hadley called for an end to violence in Kenya accompanied by a wave of humanitarian assistance and a power-sharing arrangement. "That obvious means, at some point, free and fair elections," Hadley said.
He said Bush would discuss Kenya with all the leaders he meets. Congo was threatening to explode yet again, with government forces battling those of a rebel warlord.
Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis continued to deepen.
The 2005 peace accord that ended Sudan's north-south conflict was feared to be in danger of collapsing, while the western Darfur region had seen five years of atrocities by government-supported militias against black African communities that Bush called genocide.
- AP