Obama Rediscovers Africa

The president did make a one-week trip to three African countries last year. But it was Barack Obama’s only trip to Africa since becoming the president four years earlier — aside from spending a few hours in South Africa at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

Despite the White House’s claims otherwise, Africa does not seem to have ever been a priority for the Obama administration. It is not the president’s, but his secretaries of state’s absences that are symbolic of this indifference.

John Kerry devoted himself to restarting negotiations between Israel and Palestine while the president decided that Asia was his main strategic interest. Various crises forced themselves onto the presidential agenda (Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.), leaving little time to devote to Africa.

Since several of these dossiers are either going smoothly or hitting a roadblock, top-level American diplomacy has shown renewed interest in Africa with a highly symbolic visit by John Kerry. He made a surprise visit to South Sudan, where an ethnic war that could likely turn genocidal is being fought; he gave an important speech in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to the diplomatic corps and the Young African Leaders Network; he visited Congo, a mining giant that has been plundered by neighboring countries and various internal rebel groups; finally, he stopped in Angola, a country once known for its unending war but that has now become a crucial player in the stabilization of Middle Africa. The secretary of state’s itinerary certainly led him to the heart of the real challenges that the continent faces.

Filled with the (sometimes naive) enthusiasm of American diplomacy under Obama, Kerry hopes to see rapid, concrete results. Democracy, human rights, economic development: everything must progress quickly and efficiently. But disenchantment will set in just as fast.

In South Sudan, Kerry said he had guarantees that President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, Kiir’s former vice president and the current rebel leader, would begin direct talks. Twenty-four hours later, people close to Machar said that he was reluctant to participate in face-to-face discussions with his enemy.

In Congo, Kerry and his team said they were sure that the young President Joseph Kabila (42 years old) would respect the constitution and relinquish power in 2016; they pointed to Kabila’s defeat of one of the biggest rebel groups ravaging the eastern part of the country. Here again, the U.S. will likely be disappointed — the temptation to remain in power has become a disease that has spread across Africa.

Should we be skeptical about America’s renewed interest in Africa? Of course not! The United States is not just confirming the potential for economic growth that experts have continuously discussed. It is also the only real alternative to Chinese influence on the entire continent. China has over-invested in the economy and infrastructure without considering governance or democracy.

More than ever, Africa needs to be told that good governance and democracy are the solutions to the problems it faces.