The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

“While many in the U.S. fear that Republican John McCain would continue with Pres. George Bush’s hawkish style, the people of South- ern Sudan fully support the Repub- lican contender,” the Daily Nation reported in May. “The Democrats did nothing for us,” says Juk Lang- juk, editor-in-chief of South Sudan’s BusinessWeek . “They were not in- terested.” “McCain would be better for us,” Dr. Loi Cingoth, a columnist with the Sudan Tribune , said last December. Indeed, the worst phase of Sudan’s 21-year civil war, which left 2.5 million dead, took place during the Clinton administration. But according to the newspaper report, everything changed when George W. Bush became pres- ident. In just four years, he did more to bring about peace in Sudan than the Clinton administration did in eight years, endearing the Republicans to the southern Sudanese. John Danforth, a former U.S. special envoy to Khartoum, put a great deal of pressure on the govern- ment, forcing it to sign a peace agreement with the south in 2005. Notably, the treaty gave the region much more than it had sought during a series of inconclusive peace talks back in the 1990s. This is perhaps the reason why Obama, as part of his foreign policy plan for Africa, promises to stop the killing in Darfur if elected. “The U.S. needs to lead the world in ending this genocide, including by imposing much tougher sanctions that target Sudan’s oil revenue, implementing and helping to enforce a no-fly zone, and engaging in more intense, effective diplomacy to devel- op a political roadmap to peace,” his Web site declares. Obama also wants to help end the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict began. And he supports efforts to bring for- mer Liberian President Charles Taylor, a brutal warlord, to justice for war crimes. As for John McCain, his Web site says he would ensure that the U.S. will continue to promote democ- racy in Africa. In a March speech, the senator declared that “The United States must strongly engage on a political, economic and security level with friendly gov- ernments across Africa, but insist on improvements in transparency and the rule of law.” Looking for a Friend Still, many Africans think that the Bush administration’s overall foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq, has not been good for the continent. The U.S. intervention in Iraq is widely seen as a useless distraction that has kept it from doing even more to tackle poverty, disease and internal conflicts in Africa. There is also suspicion that America is only interested in African countries that offer some value for its interests, such as oil-rich Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia — all nations with economic or security potential. Except for South Africa and Kenya, these countries are also among the top 10 Islamic centers in the continent. Thus, when Kenya, hitherto one of Africa’s most stable nations, experienced a crisis following the disputed Dec. 27, 2007, general elections, the Bush administration got deeply involved in getting President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, now prime minister, to form a coalition government. Key U.S. government offi- cials visited Kenya to participate in brokering peace. (On the other hand, Washington has strongly criti- cized Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for using massive repression and violence to force his opponent out of a run-off and then declaring himself duly elected, extending his 28-year reign.) It is estimated that countries in Africa that already supply about 16 percent of American fuel, will increase their output to 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports by 2015. That factor alone is a major reason why African countries want America to remain a dependable trading partner. When he visited Benin, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana and Liberia early this year, Pres. Bush highlighted America’s commitment to improved health and econom- ic development on the continent, an aspect of his foreign policy that has so far sadly been overshadowed by the war in Iraq. Although America’s elections will never be won or lost based on the feelings of Africa, people in the region await their results with anxiety. Whatever the result, they hope the new leader will, in Pres. Kikwete’s words, “be as good a friend of Africa as Pres. Bush has been.” n F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 Africans want the leading superpower to take the continent’s interests to heart, and to ask other donor countries to help as well.