The Foreign Service Journal, September 2005

With these caveats in mind, Can God & Caesar Coexist? deserves readership, if only because of the dearth of literature on the question of religious freedom in international law and rights. Drinan has launched a worthwhile conversation. It needs continuation. JohnM. Grondelski, an FSO since 1998, has served in London and Warsaw. He is now a Russia desk officer in the European Bureau. Reporting Worthy of the Name A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa Howard W. French, Vintage Books, 2005, $15, paperback, 280 pages. R EVIEWED BY H ERMAN J. C OHEN Calling all Foreign Service veter- ans of Congo-Zaire service! For the thousands of our col- leagues who rotated through Kinshasa between 1960 and 2005, Howard French’s play-by-play narrative of the fall of dictator Mobutu, followed by the arrival of Laurent Kabila at the head of a Rwandan-sponsored inva- sion in 1997, is the most exciting and accurate ever written. French was the New York Times correspondent in West and Central Africa from 1993 to 1998. It was a time of great turmoil, and French, who was based in Abidjan, was there to cover every crisis. He was quite willing to dodge bullets and risk being taken hostage in order to get the story on the ground. At the same time as he was reporting on the military state of play, he was doing outstanding analysis about U.S. policy, the geno- cide in the eastern Congo where Rwandan Tutsis were exterminating Hutu refugees with impunity, and the disagreements between Embassies Kigali and Kinshasa about what was really going on in the forests around Kisangani. His description of what went on in Liberia during the transition in 1997 that brought Charles Taylor to power is almost as gripping as his narrative about Zaire. Where he found Wash- ington somewhat passive about Zaire, he found it hopelessly indifferent to the political challenge in Liberia. Both Republican and Democratic administrations refused even to con- template any moral responsibility for the country founded by former American slaves. French is right on the mark in sev- eral of his analytical conclusions. In Liberia, the U.S. could have brought the crisis to a halt on any number of occasions with a small mil- itary intervention. But there was an almost pathological fear in Washing- ton of having Liberia as a permanent burden. French correctly calls atten- tion to the disgraceful difference between U.S. policies toward Bosnia and Liberia. French is the only journalist I have read who correctly describes the con- flict in Zaire between 1996 and 2003 as a proxy war directed by the tiny Rwandan government that was deter- mined to control power and resources in its giant neighbor. In contrast, most journalists, many academics and the clueless State Africa Bureau during Clinton’s second term all naively believed that Zaire was undergoing a real civil war. French also provides a touching description of Mali’s efforts to estab- lish a real democracy, and correctly deplores the absence of any special “democracy dividend” from the inter- national community. Where I part company with French is in his explanation for the fact that most of Africa has moved backward since 1960. He blames the colonial powers for alienating African peoples from their original cultures and forms of government. Why is it then that most African governments are nowmoving back toward the same democratic systems bequeathed to them by the Europeans, after experi- menting disastrously with one-party states, Marxist economic systems and heavy corruption? The U.K. left Nigeria with one of the best indigenous civil services in the British Commonwealth. It was not London’s fault that corrupt Nigerian military generals took power through coups and then proceeded to destroy their civil service. French also blames the United States for propping up human rights violators like Mobutu in Zaire and Samuel Doe in Liberia for Cold War reasons, and for maintaining correct relations with undemocratic govern- ments in Nigeria and Angola because we needed their crude oil. Well, the last time I looked, strategic necessity trumps human rights and democracy every time (check out China and Saudi Arabia today). Let’s face it. The original crop of African leaders chose the worst options for political and economic policy, and their nations suffered dearly. Colonialism had nothing to do with it. But analytical differences aside, French keeps the action moving and the descriptions exciting. This book is a great read for Africanists and gener- alists alike. Herman J. Cohen, a retired FSO, was Assistant Secretary of State for Africa during the George H. W. Bush admin- istration. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 81 B O O K S u