Five years ago, an American president traveled to Africa and predicted a renaissance of peace and prosperity. Yet still persistent are crushing debt loads, a devastating HIV/AIDS crisis, underdeveloped economies and bloody civil strife.
US President George W. Bush, who leaves today on a five-day tour of five African nations, is carrying a new promise to help foster growth and democracy and to end the human suffering.
Africa advocates do not expect any major new policies or programs as a result of the trip or overnight improvement in the lives of everyday Africans. Several Bush initiatives were announced well before the trip, such as a five-year program to spend US$15 billion to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean.
But the advocates say the trip and its accompanying pomp are important because of the much-needed attention it will focus on the continent and its intractable problems.
The visit "provokes debate, and it may impact on policies down the road," said Salih Booker, who runs the group Africa Action.
Added George Ayittey, an American University economist and Africa expert: "Africa still has a role to play in a global economy, and a trip like this will help cement that kind of view."
Bush's first presidential visit to Africa will take him to Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria. Only three other US presidents have been to sub-Saharan Africa.
"Why am I going now? I though it was important to go before my first term was over to show the importance of Africa to my administration's foreign policy," Bush said in an interview last week with CNN's Inside Africa that aired Saturday.
"Trips are fine," he said, "but what's more important is policy."
Former president Jimmy Carter made the first state visit to the region in March 1978 when he met with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Two decades later, Bill Clinton made in 1998 the first of two widely publicized tours. He returned in 2000. Franklin Roosevelt made an informal visit to Liberia in 1943.
Clinton said he hoped future generations would look back on his travels as "the beginning of a new African renaissance." He said the US "is ready to help you."
Booker said Clinton raised the bar for presidential travel to Africa, suggesting that Bush had no choice but to go, too. Bush's trip, originally planned for January, was postponed because of the looming Iraq war.
"Never again will an American president be allowed to spend four years in office without going to Africa," Booker said.
For decades, US policy toward Africa was rooted in the Cold War and based on which countries opposed the Soviet Union, said Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum.
Carter visited in 1978 as part of a tour to strengthen US relations with poor countries. The trip, which included stops in South America, produced no breakthroughs, but administration officials said Carter had helped ease tensions in Brazil and Nigeria.
But "with the end of the Cold War there really was no real policy toward Africa," Fletcher said.
Relations with Africa were not a priority for Washington because none of Africa's countries came close to being an economic or military superpower.
"US presidents first and foremost are going to deal with those countries that they see as powerhouses ... and that has not been in evidence in Africa," Fletcher said.
He also suggested race was partly to blame for the lack of interest in the continent, which is home to one-eighth of the world's population, most of whom are black.
But Africa has always had a way of imposing itself on the US, particularly during a crisis: the movement to end apartheid in South Africa; the military operation in Somalia that eventually killed 18 Americans; famine in Ethiopia; the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Today, pressure is growing on Bush to send troops to Liberia to lead a peacekeeping force in that West African nation, which was founded by freed American slaves. Bush said Friday the US is sending military experts to Africa to assess whether US troops should help enforce a ceasefire in Liberia.
Others say Bush's trip comes at a time of renewed interest in Africa that stems in part from the need to help its leaders take on terrorism after the embassy bombings and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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