On July 30, 2012 the White House Office of Public Engagement hosted a panel discussion on President Obama’s Policy Directive on sub-Saharan Africa. The panel members included Grant Harris, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs; Ambassador Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; Florizelle Liser, Assistant U. S. Trade Representative for Africa; Earl Gast, Assistant Administrator for Africa-USAID; Joseph McMillan, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-International Security Affairs.
The event was presented to the audience as the new U. S. Strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa, listing as its pillars: strengthen democratic institutions; spur economic growth, trade, and investment; advance peace and security; and promote opportunity and development. These were similar core objectives when I served as U. S. Ambassador from 2002-2005. As a matter of fact these were some of the goals in 1970, when I visited sub-Saharan Africa to review humanitarian aid programs, shortly after independence. Closing my eyes and listening to the panel discussion was like déjà vu, taking me back to all my visits to the African continent.
President Obama has been to sub-Saharan Africa once, with a visit to the country of Ghana in 2009. In the February 27, 2012, All-Africa article “Understanding U. S.-Africa Relations During Obama’s Presidency” writer Mwangi S. Kimenyi stated, “The limited U. S. interest in Africa remain(s) very low. What seemed to have been missed is that Africa does not have any constituents who deliver votes and thus there are no substantive political returns for focusing on the region. For a president keen to be re-elected, a focus on Africa is hardly an optimal political investment”, noting further ”There has been little change in U. S.-Africa relations during the Obama administration, contrary to what many Africans had hoped”. “The support of democratic transitions and improved governance are at the core of Obama’s administration’s stated relations with Africa”, Kimenyi remarked.
President Obama announced on June 14, 2012 his new strategy to engage sub- Saharan Africa. In the June 15, 2012 Christian Science Monitor article, “United States’ new sub-Saharan African plan: trade not aid”, writer Tom Murphy noted: “Two efforts that will be critical to the future of Africa: strengthening democratic institutions and boosting broad-based economic growth, including through trade and investment”, referencing the new strategy announcement.
The President’s Policy Directive for sub-Saharan Africa, has already been weakened by the recent events in the Republic of Mali, a West African nation. The United States failed to press the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for action to support the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in their efforts to underpin Mali’s government, after the March 22, 2012 coup that destabilized a country that had “democratic institutions” in place for twenty years.
Mali is now caught between the road to democracy, ruthless power seekers, and radical Islamists fighting for the same turf. With the destabilization in Mali it opened the door to al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups joining forces with the Tuareg rebels, to control the vast northern desert regions, and beyond. Such instability across the Sahel can only benefit the jihadist movement that wants to take control of the African countries, in their quest to create a Pan-African caliphate.
Mali was a democratic country that was destabilized by the Arab Spring, and now is on the verge of being overrun by Islamists wanting to institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic law. The instability in northern Mali is out of control with the towns of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao being overrun by well-armed Islamists, leaving Malians no choice but fleeing to safety. People are just walking away from their homes leaving everything behind, with only the clothes on their backs and bewildered children clinging to their side, heading to Mauritania where the UN has set up refugee camps in the border town of Fassala. This desert enclave has swelled to more than 100,000 Malians. In the refugee camps Islamists are starting to indoctrinate young men to become jihadists and take revenge, saying that the Mali government had killed their relatives. Such Islamist influence can only cease when stability is brought back to Mali. Reports indicate there are an additional two hundred thousand Malians who have fled to Niger, Burkina Faso and Algeria.
The Tuareg rebels have been seeking to establish an independent nation for many years. With the flow of weapons from Libya, they were able to challenge Mali’s military. The Mali government was not able to supply enough arms to fight the Tuareg rebels, which led to a military coup on March 22, 2012. In the destabilization that took place the Tuareg rebels had associated with the Ansar Dine Islamists, taking control of large areas of northern Mali. Had the U. S. pressed the UNSC to empower the ECOWAS countries to send in troops to help fight the Tuareg rebels and Ansar Dine, the northern region could have been stabilized. In addition the Ansar Dine fighters now have associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and radical Islamists from Southern Asia. I was on the phone the day of the coup with the State Department and U. S. Embassy in Bamako, trying to find safety for two University of Utah interns who were caught in the cross-fire in Bamako. Luckily they were brought to a safe place, and allowed to leave the country a few days later. In talking with country leaders immediate action after the coup could have brought the crisis under control.
Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou on June 7, 2012 told Reuters that Islamists and terrorist groups had infiltrated the region, and “That Afghan and Pakistani jihadis were training recruits for Islamist groups in northern Mali, the latest sign it is slipping into terrorist hands”. He proffered “The necessity for a U. N. Security Council resolution on the Mali situation to allow the use of force to restore integrity of Mali’s territory” noting, “I am optimistic because Western powers are aware of the danger that threatens them in the Sahel”. Issoufou’s angst should have been a wake-up call for the United States to act post-haste.
The ECOWAS countries continue to offer military support to stabilize the northern region of Mali. Instead such action lacks approval by the UNSC. In the July 5, 2012 UNSC Resolution 2056 on Mali, the State Department noted that the international community had grave concern about the serious threat to the stability there, but offered no solution for immediate action to restore the democracy back to civilian governance. The added rhetoric to voluntarily ask “the rebel groups in northern Mali to renounce any connection with terrorist groups and enter into legitimate political negotiations” only emboldened the Islamists to further chaotic acts against Malians. The United States should have pressed the UNSC for immediate action which would have saved many lives and prevented the displacement of thousands of Malians. The UNSC Resolution calling for more fact finding data, while the human atrocities and destruction of irreplaceable shrines continues unabated, is irresponsible.
On July 20, 2012 Reuters reported that “The United States has called on Mali’s authorities to accept offers by African states to send a military force to stabilize the country and help retake control of its vast northern desert, now in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists”, and noted “The ECOWAS bloc has said for months it wants to send a 3,000-strong force to tackle instability but it has so far not received backing from the United Nations, and met resistance from politicians and soldiers in Mali”. Political insiders have told me they would support whatever it takes to establish stability in Mali’s northern region, by marginalizing the Islamists and expelling the foreign jihadis who have infiltrated the region.
During a visit to Bamako on July 19, 2012 Ambassador Carson, said that “Mali should accept the force, whether they are soldiers, police or gendarmes, which have been generously offered by ECOWAS”. However the U. S. still needs to press the UNSC for such action, which to date they have been reluctant support. I believe any further inaction will become a stain on the Obama administration’s new strategy for sub-Saharan Africa of supporting and strengthen democratic institutions; conflict prevention, mitigation, and resolution; free, fair, and transparent elections.
President Obama’s new strategy for sub-Saharan Africa was also to “spur economic growth, trade, investment”. Congress failed to pass the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) “third-country fabric provision”, prior to the 2012 AGOA Forum held in Washington on June 14-15, 2012, with over forty African ministerial delegations attending. The renewal of the AGOA third-country fabric provision was a top issue on the agenda, and had been stuck in the Senate for over a year, and now Senate Bill 2007 had attracted unrelated amendments. The inaction of its passage has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in Africa. The Forum was viewed by many as a failure, and economic relations with Africa have been undermined. As of this writing, the Senate has approved an extension of the AGOA “third-country fabric provision” which was set to expire on September 30, 2012. The Obama Administration needs to press for its permanent passage without a sunset date.
The Senate’s inaction had led to a thirty-five percent reduction in new apparel orders over the same period last year. Continuation of the AGOA third-country fabric provision is essential to Africa’s economic survival. U.S. apparel importers have begun shifting orders out of Africa due to the delay in renewing the third- country fabric provision, which accounts for 95% of the apparel imports from Africa.
In my meetings with sub-Saharan African leaders, I heard repeatedly that the United States is considered a “fair-weather friend. ” We need to have a consistent foreign policy to help lead the countries out of their abject poverty. We need to “actively” engage the sub-Saharan African countries, embrace their cultures, and understand their hundreds of years of tribal history.
The U. S. needs to win back the respect and friendship we enjoyed in Africa for over fifty years. We also need to understand that our form of democracy may not take hold everywhere, so we must listen to what the countries want to achieve and work with them, rather than lecture to them, and exclude them from economically beneficial programs for not complying with our standards. At the same time we need a focused public diplomacy message, to reach out to the people living in the villages. Congressional Delegations (CODEL) need to spend time in the sub- Saharan Africa, to better understand the multicultural and ethnically diverse tribal society. Members of Congress, in my opinion, have a myopic view of this faraway continent, and a limited understanding of its importance to our national security. The U. S. must support trade, open markets and economic expansion, which are the cornerstone for sub-Saharan Africa’s growth and prosperity.