Posted on 07/12/2003 12:50:11 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Bush Vows to Stop Terrorists Using Africa as Base
Sat July 12, 2003 02:11 PM ET
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ABUJA (Reuters) - President Bush warned on Saturday he would not allow terrorists to use Africa as a springboard to threaten the world as he ended a five-nation African trip that underlined a major U.S. policy shift.
Bush, wrapping up his trip in Nigeria -- a major U.S. oil supplier -- issued fresh vows to help restore peace to war-ruined Liberia, provide funds for Africa to fight its AIDS scourge and promote economic development on the world's poorest continent.
"We will not allow terrorists to threaten African people or to use Africa as a base to threaten the world," Bush said in a speech in Abuja, capital of West Africa's powerhouse state, on the last stop of his first trip to black Africa.
Bush has reassessed Africa's strategic importance because of growing U.S. reliance on its oil and fears its porous borders and swathes of lawless territory could prove attractive to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
The U.S. president, who visited five African states in a whirlwind five days, has pledged a $100 million package to help East African nations bolster their security following recent attacks in the region widely blamed on al Qaeda.
Bush praised Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose country is the fifth largest crude oil exporter to the United States, for his leadership on issues such as Liberia.
But he reiterated he had made no decision yet on whether to answer growing calls across Africa for him to contribute U.S. troops to a peacekeeping mission to enforce a fragile cease-fire in Liberia's almost non-stop 14 years of civil war.
"I told the president (Obasanjo) we'd be active (in Liberian peace efforts). The definition of that will be when we understand all the parameters," said Bush, who has sent military experts to Liberia to make assessments.
Obasanjo has played a major role in the peace drive over Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, and is ready to commit troops to a planned mainly African peacekeeping force.
Bush repeated demands for Liberian President Charles Taylor to step down as a key part of efforts to end the bloodletting. Taylor has accepted a Nigerian offer of asylum but says peacekeepers, including U.S. troops, must be in place first.
LIBERIAN DANGERS UNDERSCORED
The troops issue is a tough one for Bush. The United States already has tens of thousands of troops tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington's last African foray ended with its soldiers making a bloody exit from Somalia 10 years ago.
The dangers of any mission were underscored on Friday when Liberia's main rebel faction threatened to fight any peacekeepers deployed before steps down. The rebels fear such a deployment would merely prop up Taylor.
A U.S. official said discussion on oil was a "very limited" part of Bush's talks with Obasanjo, but Washington no longer hides the importance it attaches to Nigeria and other African producers so it can lessen dependence on the Middle East.
U.S. oil imports from Africa, mostly Nigerian crude, have grown to some 17 percent and oil industry analysts say they may climb to 25 percent.
While Washington is concerned about volatility in the Middle East disrupting oil supplies, a week-long and sometimes violent Nigerian general strike over fuel prices that ended on Tuesday underscored tensions in Africa's most populous state.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in ethnic, religious and political clashes since Obasanjo's election in 1999 ended 15 years of military rule in the former British colony of 120 million people.
For Obasanjo, Bush's visit was a show of support after political opponents alleged massive vote-rigging in his re-election in April.
The Bush administration, which has placed great store in countries showing good governance, was slow to congratulate Obasanjo on his re-election as the opposition cried foul.
But in June, Bush said Nigeria was "a multi-ethnic society that is consolidating civilian rule."
Bush, pledging $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, visited an Abuja hospital where he shook hands with HIV-infected women and their children, who were not infected.
Nigeria has the second-largest economy in Africa after South Africa, but about two-thirds of Nigerians live below the poverty line of about one U.S. dollar a day because the benefits of oil have not filtered through due to mismanagement and corruption.
Obasanjo, a former military ruler himself, has vowed to battle corruption, crime and poverty.
Bush, who dismissed Africa as outside U.S. security interests during his 2000 campaign for the presidency, also visited Senegal, South Africa, Botswana and Uganda on his trip.
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South America is another locale where things are happening!
Oh and Cuba, where interference with satellite broadcasts may be originating!
Total speculation on the part of this reporter.
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