The Foreign Service Journal, May 2004

decentralizing power. All these characteristics can be applied to more and more African states. It was also in Ethiopia that I experienced one of the most encouraging moments of my 25- year career in Africa. Shortly before concluding my tour as ambassador, I accompanied then- Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and well-known entertainer (and humanitarian) Bono to meet the Ethiopian leadership. During our very frank and lively discussion, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi forcefully advocated some of the same themes that have for years been such a hard sell for the U.S. gov- ernment in Africa: the importance of the private sector in promoting economic progress; the necessity for a gov- ernment to be accountable to its own people; the idea that food security does not necessarily come from food self-sufficiency, but from people having money to buy food; and, that the effectiveness of development funding must be evaluated constantly by results-based outcomes. Listening to the prime minister, I reflected on how stark- ly his views contrasted with so much of what I’d heard from Africans during most of my tenure there, going back to the late 1970s. A Brief Retrospective Until about 1990, representing official U.S. govern- ment positions in Africa was anything but fun. African “progressives” bitterly criticized us for pursuing “imperi- alist” or unwise policies — such as “constructive engage- ment” with apartheid South Africa. In addition, we main- tained cozy and cordial relations with a number of unsa- vory leaders (some in power, some trying to fight their way in) because of their willingness, real or perceived, to stymie communism or provide stability in areas we con- sidered geopolitically important. Aside from egregious human rights violations (which I believe most embassies did try to faithfully record in the annual reports), a leader’s commit- ment to democracy, or bettering the state of his own people (and it was always a “he”) were not key concerns for the U.S.; overcoming the threat posed by the Soviet Union was. I remember discussing a 1990 election in Togo with a jour- nalist who questioned how the out- come — 99-plus percent for President Gnassingbe Eyadema — could have any democratic aspects; clearly it didn’t, but I couldn’t say that on the record. It was certainly not U.S. policy to promote Africa’s suf- fering, or even to acquiesce in it. It just happened that we overlooked the deepening misery there while con- centrating on defeating communism. Helping the conti- nent develop was very much an auxiliary activity to this primary objective — and our generosity was limited to our “pro-West” partners. Development aid was haphaz- ard and ad hoc, with few long-term objectives and no sys- tematic approach — the term “sustainable development” had not yet been invented. That there were successes is largely a credit to individual USAID mission directors and program officers dedicated to overcoming a culture that (in my view, at least) was focused on process, not out- comes, and tied up in a Gordian knot of congressional restrictions. Our allies’ approaches to continental development were just as limited, and even more self-serving; i.e., France’s impetus to maintain hegemony throughout Francophone Africa, and Britain’s efforts to protect busi- ness interests in Anglophone states. Even Japan, which had no cultural or historical ties to Africa, pursued a proactive policy to supplant other nations’ products with its own. For example, in 1990 I attended a ceremony in Togo celebrating the “gift” of hundreds of Japanese trucks; as the French defense attaché remarked to me during the festivities, “guess where all the spares and replacement trucks will be purchased!” To be fair, when we did become aware of cataclysmic events — like the 1984 Ethiopian famine — we reacted immediately and generously, even if the country was one of the most hostile to us. When asked why we should help Marxist Ethiopia, President Ronald Reagan replied that “a hungry child knows no politics.” I recall a deeply M A Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 Western donors have come to the realization that for Africa to truly develop, economic and political liberalization have to move in tandem. Ambassador Tibor Nagy’s 25-year Foreign Service career (1978-2003) included tours as ambassador to Ethiopia and Guinea, and as DCM in the Seychelles, Togo, Cameroon and Nigeria. He is currently Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. F O C U S