Wrapping Up Hillary's Trip To Africa

You would think that the Secretary of State’s arguably most important trip to date - Hillary Clinton’s seven-nation tour of Africa - would have gotten a little better news coverage given Africa’s growing role in US foreign policy. Keep in mind that the US now gets about as much oil from Western Africa as we do from the Persian Gulf, and that by the middle of the next decade, Africa should be our biggest supplier; and there’s always the threat of terrorism, recent intelligence indicates that al-Qaeda is hoping to make the Horn of Africa their new base of operations.

But Clinton had a hard time breaking through the wall-to-wall coverage of the health care debate (there’s some irony there, given that as First Lady Hillary tried to lead the Clinton Administration’s attempt at reforming that beast), so here’s a brief recap of her trip.

The big theme from her tour was one that echoed President Obama’s speech in Ghana back in July: that African governments need to be more responsible and transparent in their operations, and that Africans need to hold their elected leaders accountable, not just accept corruption and incompetence as the normal way of doing business. It was a theme she hit on a number of stops – in Kenya, where a power-sharing agreement has led to a year and a half of political stagnation; Nigeria, regarded as one of Africa’s most-corrupt states; and Angola, where there haven’t been presidential elections since 1992. She capped off her trip, like Obama did, by granting a state visit to one of Africa’s smaller, but best run states, the tiny island nation of Cape Verde – the clear message being that well-run places in Africa will get the benefit of America’s friendship.

Clinton also made a couple of other important stops – in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Hillary made a point of visiting women who were the victims of brutal crimes against them as part of the decade of warfare that has engulfed one of Africa’s largest countries (in the Congo rape is often used as a tool of war). Millions have been killed amid fighting between several neighboring countries, insurgents, tribal militias and the Congolese army in what’s sometimes called ‘Africa’s world war’. She also stopped off in Liberia, where another brutal civil war ended only a few years ago and where Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is facing calls to step down over support years ago for a Liberian warlord, despite her leading her country to several years of growth and peace.

It was good to see Sec. Clinton throw US support behind bringing people to justice for the horrible crimes being committed in the Congo and in backing Pres. Sirleaf in Liberia. The stopover in Cape Verde was a nice touch, to visit an often-overlooked part of Africa, promoting it as a model other countries will hopefully follow. It’s also nice to see Clinton continue the Obama message of good governance to Africa – lecturing not only those in power, but also telling African citizens they need to demand better of their leaders. What remains to be seen is how well those leaders listen. Kenya’s Raila Odinga and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma both seemed a little put off by her call to do a better job leading. And then there’s the China factor in Africa – while the US is calling for good government reforms, the message being that the US could withhold aid or trade agreements with faltering states, China doesn’t particularly care about how African leaders run their countries and has been throwing a lot of money in aid and trade around the continent.