Africans not falling for Bush's charity

[Little95]

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...2745794C140434

Africans not falling for Bush's charity
October 27 2004 at 06:41AM

Nairobi - United States President George Bush's administration boasts that no other American presidency has done more for Africa than his, and many on the world's poorest continent agree.

But despite Bush's championing of a $15-billion (about R95-billion) anti-Aids programme and efforts to drop trade barriers, sub-Saharan Africa appears to want to see his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, in the White House for the next four years.

Though many Africans are preoccupied with crushing poverty, disease or conflict, the continent - like the world - is keenly interested in the outcome of the November 2 contest.

"If Africa was to vote, Kerry would get a landslide," said Robert Kabushenga, a political analyst and journalist in Uganda.

'The publics of the world don't know Kerry but they don't like Bush'
But it is not so much of because who Kerry is, but who he is not: George Bush.

"The publics of the world don't know Kerry but they don't like Bush," said John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand .

Even Kerry's African connection seems not to have raised his profile on the continent, outside of Mozambique. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, was raised under a dictatorship there and marched against apartheid as a university student in South Africa.

Kerry's credentials - personal and professional - seem not to matter because there is a seed of mistrust in Africa about Bush based on his go-it-alone approach, demonstrated in Iraq.

Analysts say that is anathema to a continent full of mostly weak states that rely on multilateralism to solve problems.

More to do with helping African oil producers feed America's appetite for crude oil
"The way Bush took on the United Nations and rubbished the United Nations - which still has a high profile in Africa - gave him very bad press," said former Nigerian Foreign Minister Bolaji Akinyemi.

Nelson Mandela called Bush "a danger to the world" and a leader who "cannot think properly".

Observers say the Iraq fallout has overshadowed the goodwill Bush built up in 2003, after he signed the Aids package - a major gesture to a continent where an estimated 30 million people have the disease.

But critics say the Aids programme has still not been fully funded by the US Congress and that the Bush administration imposes on Africa the values of its religious-right supporters by favouring prevention programmes that focus on abstinence rather than condom use.

Stremlau said Bush had kept his promises from the trip to widen African access to American markets and provide US troops to help quell unrest in Liberia after the ouster of dictator Charles Taylor in 2003.

"Bush has done far more for Africa than anyone of us ever predicted. He has delivered on pledges," he said.

Sceptics say the Bush administration's newfound interest in Africa has more to do with helping African oil producers feed America's appetite for crude oil and its concern that terrorism may take root in the continent.

In oil-rich West Africa, massive crude oil supplies sought by the United States mean the countries there can afford to be apolitical when it comes to the White House, analysts said.

In Angola, for example, production slated to reach two million barrels per day by 2008 means the country will be in a good position whether it is Kerry or oil-friendly Bush in charge.