Bush may not care about Black people, as famous rapper Kanye West put it, but never let it be said that he paid no attention to the African continent and its strategic value to U.S. imperialism.
 Protests took place in Tanzania |
While the media has focused heavily on the “legacy” and goodwill aspects of the story, one issue often left out—and rarely mentioned by Bush himself—is China. China has recently come on as the biggest economic player in Africa, increasing its trade with African countries tenfold to $55.5 billion between 1999 and 2006.
African countries are eager to trade with China, which puts less onerous restrictions on loans than the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. China also commits to more projects related to infrastructure than Western multinational corporations ever entertain.
Intensifying U.S. engagement in Africa has been a hallmark of the last decade. President Bill Clinton undertook one of the most extensive and well-publicized trips to the continent by a U.S. president in 1998. Earlier in the Clinton presidency, Washington helped install a pro-U.S. government in Rwanda. When the U.S.-backed dictator Mobutu was overthrown in Zaire (now Congo), U.S. officials went into a frenzy trying to prevent the formation of a stable government that was seen as an obstacle to U.S. domination in Central Africa.
The U.S. engagement strategy is driven by a complex set of interests. Increased competition between U.S. corporate interests and those of China is one. The desire to control the Horn of Africa is premised on larger geo-strategic objectives pertaining to the oil-rich Middle East.
The U.S. “war on terror” has been a pretext but not the actual goal for deepening U.S. influence in eastern Africa. The desire to improve the United States’ strategic position vis-?-vis China was an important feature of Bush’s trip.
On his five-day tour, Bush focused on visiting the closest U.S. allies on the continent: Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. At every tour stop, Bush touted some of his overall initiatives in Africa, including a $1.2 billion malaria program and his call for $30 billion in HIV/AIDS funding. To portray the visits in a positive light, he made sure to discuss what they were spending money on locally. He also signed various trade agreements in each country.
Bush also flaunted local initiatives such as a $698 million for development goals based on the Millennium Challenge and his promise to provide one million new textbooks and desks to Liberian schoolchildren.
Although Bush tried to downplay the political nature of his trip, he attacked opponents of U.S. African policy at every opportunity. Continuing to perpetuate the fraud of “genocide” in Sudan or assailing the government of Robert Mugabe, Bush felt no need to comment on the human rights records of U.S. allies such as Ethiopia, whose leader Meles Zenawi has imprisoned and murdered thousands of his political opponents.
While crowing about U.S. aid programs, Bush conveniently glossed over the fact that most of the money in his AIDS programs is tied to abstinence-only sex education. Programs are often headed by evangelical missionaries more intent on religious conversion then development.
Looming over George Bush’s Africa tour was the issue of AFRICOM, the new U.S. military command for Africa. The attempt to beef up U.S. military presence in Africa has drawn criticism from the two most powerful Sub-Saharan states, Nigeria and South Africa, which have campaigned against the idea of new U.S. bases in the continent.
Bush’s claims that no bases would be built were less than convincing. Bush was quoted as saying that even though they were not planning bases, “that doesn’t mean we won’t develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa.” The euphemism, likely crafted by his advisors, clearly indicates the intent of increased military force in some form or another. The countries Bush visited are the ones most open to military cooperation with the United States.
U.S.-backed military officers overthrew progressive governments of Salvador Allende in Chile and Patrice Lumumba in the Republic of the Congo. Allende’s and Lumumba’s governments had shown concern with the living standard of the population, but the military leaders that took over proceeded to enrich themselves by colluding with imperialist powers. Western countries often nurture close relationships with the military top brass of oppressed nations to safeguard their own economic and strategic interests.
Tying aid to various American cultural norms or religious organizations, as well as attempting to increase the U.S. military presence in African states, are not gestures of benevolence. Rather, these are simply the means to the end imperialists have always pursued in Africa: colonialism.
