Closer US-African relationships are about to take an abrupt about turn with the election of George W. Bush as America’s 43rd President. Republican, conservative and singularly disinterested in foreign affairs, the new President’s message of ?no strong commitment to Africa? is evident with the appointment of highly respected General Colin L. Powell as US Secretary of State.

Well known for his aversion to American involvement on the African continent as espoused in his autobiography My American Journey, General Powell referred to Somalia as ?a place we can’t make a country off?.

In a further reference he advised President Clinton that ?we’ve got to find a way to get out, and soon?. Such thinking is expected to colour America’s relationship with the African continent during the new administration’s tenure in office.

President Bush’s appointment of Colin Powell and National security adviser Condaleezza Rice to senior cabinet positions is hailed in the US as proof of America’s diversity. African-Americans both, they view the world through the prism of big power politics rather than through affinity with their roots. Their stated priority is to strengthen US relations with traditional Western allies Britain and Germany. Improved interaction with Russia, China, Japan and South America also feature high on their agenda. Africa is well down due to its scant military or trading importance

Eight years of a Clinton administration and two visits by the former President himself have resulted in a more activist approach by the United States to Africa’s myriad problems. From AIDS to trade, the Clinton administration took more specific interest in a continent beset by problems, many of its own making.

The results have been the re-classification of Africa’s HIV-AIDS pandemic as a US security issue, the passing of the African Growth and Opportunity Bill opening American markets to more of the continent’s manufactured goods and the granting of $435m of debt relief. Nations like Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia were favoured as faces of the ?new Africa’ while UN intervention in the continent, though reluctantly endorsed, received at least lukewarm support.

A hostile Republican party with a mindset that Africa’s conflicts are chronic and beyond solution changes all that. Financial appropriations for both debt relief and development aid are expected to dry up in the next four years. With Vice-President Dick Cheney - who opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa and cast a ?No? vote against a 1986 US Congressional proposal calling for the release of Nelson Mandela - the principle architect of President George W. Bush’s foreign agenda, Africa’s problems will receive even less consideration.

No knowledge or interest of Africa

While two African-Americans are set for key roles in the new administration, Salih Booker, Director of the Africa Policy Information Center in Washington says, ?neither secretary of state Colin Powell nor national security advisor Condoleezza Rice have shown any particular interest or special knowledge of African issues.?

The arrival of George W. Bush at the White House is likely to leave Africa marginalised even further, most US analysts agree. The new administration’s attention will focus on Europe and America’s increasingly important relationship with China.

This lack of attention will almost certainly result in US debt relief and aid programs to Africa being watered down, while specific programs of particular interest to American audiences - anti-drug efforts and money laundering operations - will almost certainly be beefed up.

Many among the outgoing Democratic Party consider this a horror scenario with their hard won efforts to generate African awareness over the last eight years abruptly negated. Surprisingly not all observers agree however. A tougher attitude towards Africa’s excesses is finding favour, even amongst some African intellectuals back home.

?We’ve had 30 years of aid to Africa and very little to show for it,? Moustafa Hassouna, lecturer of diplomacy at the University of Nairobi points out. ?The watering down of debt relief is not necessarily a bad thing for a continent whose leaders have too often pursued a ?diplomacy of dependence’ policy.?

?One thing is certain,? in-coming state department officials confirm, ?with Colin Powell at the helm, corrupt African governments will receive short shrift pleading for increased aid.?

Telegraphing such strong intentions, the respectable ex-general has already stated that: ?Failed, oppressive governments will receive no help from the incoming Bush administration, and may even find that we actively encourage their removal, such as in Iraq.?

In expressing such sentiments Colin Powell enjoys the solid backing of the American public at large, particularly with the first signs of recession biting hard. Opposition critics in Zimbabwe, Angola and Kenya also favour a tougher US attitude towards their repressive governments, with the Kenya clergy opposition looking to increased support from American religious organizations in their struggle against the dictatorial Moi government.

Kenya’s cavalier reaction to the murder of American activist Father John Kaiser (67) has raised the ire of Democratic and Republican congressional members alike. Calls for action against President Moi’s government are gathering pace and Kenya’s plea to be treated as ?a special African circumstance’ is sure to fall on deaf ears in a Republican administration mindful of Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms’ intention to cut off all aid, if not to impose sanctions, against governments acting contrary to American interests.

Licence for economic exploitation?

So what can Africa expect from the George W. Bush administration over the next four years, and possibly eight?

?Trade, not aid? insists Douglas Brooks of the Institute of International Studies, South Africa. ?This will become the driving force. Encouraged under Bill Clinton, accelerated under George W. Bush, trade will replace aid, with American businessmen increasingly in the driving seat. ?

But what trade? Will it be bilateral or one way?

The sale of American manufactured goods to Africa is considered by many economists as modern colonialist subjugation, a new form of high priced economic exploitation: ?A dumping of rejected pharmaceuticals, obsolete telecom equipment and highly sophisticated transportation equipment,? they argue. Requiring ever more expensive upkeep through vast outlays of foreign exchange, American manufactured aircraft, locomotives and capital goods are far too sophisticated for Africa’s infrastructure requirements, they contend.

Lacking cash however, African nations have no option but to accept such purchases through high interest Import-Export Bank financing.

And the quid pro quo exchange?

Nigeria’s oil, South Africa’s and the Congo’s dwindling diamond, gold and platinum production; raw materials to be processed in western countries for the gratification of western consumers?

?If the past is anything to go by, this expected trade push by American industry heralds a new form of economic exploitation supported by the State Department and the Import-Export Bank,? old guard African nationalists claim, particularly those still stuck in the time warp of the 1950’s such as President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

?Africa will miss Clinton,? Kenyan journalist Gitau Warigi writes, lamenting Vice-President Al Gore’s loss. ?It is a sad farewell from all those in Africa who cling to the conviction that candidates of the Democratic Party are somewhat better attuned to the world beyond America, and therefore, a little more sympathetic to African issues.?

Myopia or a fresh pair of eyes?

Many see the new administration’s pragmatic approach as being more realistic with trade the driving force, businessmen the new ambassadors.

?A more balanced review of Africa’s problems is what we can hope for,? Elizabeth Sidiropoulos of the South African Institute of International affairs claims. ?A fresh pair of eyes.?

Elaborating further she opinions: ?Clinton chose as his African allies a group called the ?new breed’, men like Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isayas Afwerki of Eritrea - and see how they turned out! No better then the old corrupt generation of leaders. At least under George W. Bush we can expect a pragmatic review of the conflict in the Congo and the civil war in Angola. Under Clinton it was ?all carrot’ to the corrupt Angolan government and ?all the stick’ to the Unita rebel movement.?

?Bible Belt’ to call the tune

Questions as to the Bush administration’s intentions remain. As a friend of big oil interests will the new administration simply allow the major multi-nationals to ride rough shod over Africa’s environmental concerns in their pursuit of cheap energy supplies? And with the ex-Texas governor’s interest in ?Fast Track’ economic development with Mexico and South America well documented, will Africa’s trade concern’s even get a fair hearing?

Outgoing Democrats think not.

?George W. Bush referred to Nigeria as a continent,? they contend. ?How can he ever grasp Africa’s post colonial problems??

The incoming Bush administration has a further problem to come to grips with. The growth of Islam as a political reality in Africa is gathering pace, an anathema to the right wing of his Republican party. The rise of Muslim activism in Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and even Kenya is a source of discomfort to many of the President’s powerful ?Bible Belt’ supporters. Christian coalition groups view Islam as the arch enemy and are expected to pressure the Bush administration to limit its support for Africa’s Muslim regimes. Growing support among Africa’s legions of disenfranchised Muslim youth for terrorists like Osama bin Laden only compound the problem.

President Bush can ill afford to ignore such right wing Christian organizations. Groups like Pat Robertson’s 700 Club with its legions of voters are vital to the Republican party’s showing in the 2002 congressional and senate races. The traumatic bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam have only added to the Christian fundamentalist viewpoint that nations like the Sudan and the Comores are de facto enemy states, and should be treated as such.

Islamic African countries can expect cool relationships with the new administration, at the worst being labelled as having policies against US interests. One has only to recall Colin Powell’s words that ?the purpose of going to war against your enemy is to locate him and then to kill him!? to realise that anti-American actions will almost certainly bring down the wrath of the new administration against any country perceived to be supporting such actions.

?Carry the big stick and use it!? is definitely the Republican motto for the next four years.

Military training programs - popular in the Clinton regime for their use as a democratisation tool in emerging nations - are also expected to be reviewed under the new administration. President Bush has categorically stated that Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld is expected to cut back on the extended military doctrine espoused by his Democratic predecessor.

CIA activity to increase

?Our fighting forces are over stretched,? Bush insisted during televised debates. ?My administration will limit US military involvement unless it has a direct bearing on American security interests.? Under such a doctrine African nations will see the supply of military hardware dry up, unless paid for.

The Uganda army for one can expect no more Armored Personnel Carriers (APC’s) which it used for offensive operations in the Congo, much to the chagrin of Clinton state department officials who had expected their use to be restricted against the Sudanese army to the north.

CIA operations in Africa will receive increased funding, as will FBI counter terrorism measures designed to prevent tragedies such as the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbour and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Drug enforcement efforts are also expected to be better funded with Nigerian cartels now considered to be as big a menace as the Colombian drug gangs of the past decade, their distribution networks in the US can expect to be targeted.

Unhinged by dancer

In 1990, incoming US President George W. Bush undertook a trip to Gambia to represent his President father at Gambia’s 25th independence celebration. One of just a handful of overseas trips ever undertaken by the new President, it proved conspicuous by events surrounding a tribal dancing display.

Seated on a dais with Gambia’s President Yahya Jemmah and Britain’s Princess Anne, George W. Bush was being treated to a traditional West African masquerade, a whirling dance by a figure dressed as a haystack representing powerful supernatural forces which - if offended - can cause serious harm to the offender.

As the dance reached its climax, the masqueraded figure hurled itself at Bush in a display of bestowing its favours upon the important gues - only to be wrestled away by a phalanx of US Secret service personnel hurling themselves into a human shield while others hustled the embarrassed and bewildered Bush away.

Africa can only hope that this event did not colour the new President’s view of a continent where Johannesburg’s glinting skyscrapers, Zambia’s huge modern copper mines and Tanzania’s bustling port city of Dar es Salaam, are far more representative of peoples seeking partnership with the world’s only financial and military superpower.

Africa’s hope is that George W. Bush the ?consensus’ politician will somehow steer a middle course in African affairs, giving strong support to democratic governments while shunning those still holding onto power through corrupt and repressive means. As such he offers a new prospect to African ?progressives’ who believe that Africa itself must institute change to more democratic principles, while strengthening its own economic base through judicious control over its own financial affairs.

A kind of tough love

?After all,? they point out, ?this was the direction envisioned for the continent by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the father of Kenyan independence whose self help motto of ?Harambee - let us all pull together’ is even more true today.?

?The new US administration should be looked upon by African nations as a partner, not as a prop,? incoming state department officials contend. ?It is up to Africa itself to initiate the changes necessary for its people to take their rightful place in the 21st century.?

Under such a scenario the new George W. Bush administration may have a far more positive effect on Africa than simply that of developing window dressing relationships whose substance is still to be proved.

?Africa must stand on its own two feet,? an incoming official under Secretary Powell agrees. ?We will be there with a helping hand but no more hand outs will be the order of the day.?

?Africa does not fit into America’s strategic interest? - but its well being is of concern to the United States as a whole. The new administration’s realism may be exactly the kind of ?tough love’ that the continent requires.

Under President George W. Bush a new generation of African leaders concerned with past aid abuses are sure to find a willing ear. More self sufficiency and an about turn in largesse may be just what the doctor ordered. Africa’s modern youth still labouring under oppressive post colonial regimes can only hope this to be true.

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