Obama?s Ghana Visit Highlights Scarce Stability in Africa »
Posted By Eagle_Eye 4 months ago in News
NIAMEY, Niger — Amid the fever of excitement over President Obama’s first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, the debate over why he chose Ghana has been almost as prevalent as the many bars, stores and barbershops bearing his name across the region.
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Times Topics: Ghana
Was it a not-so-subtle snub of Kenya, his father’s homeland? Even more broadly, was he giving short shrift to other African governments and citizens by visiting a single country on such a diverse continent?
Mr. Obama says he chose Ghana to “highlight” its adherence to democratic principles and institutions, ensuring the kind of stability that brings prosperity. “This isn’t just some abstract notion that we’re trying to impose on Africa,” he told AllAfrica.com. He added: “The African continent is a place of extraordinary promise as well as challenges. We’re not going to be able to fulfill those promises unless we see better governance.”
With that as his objective, a harsh reality emerged: Mr. Obama did not have too many options. From one end of the continent to the other, the sort of peaceful, transparent election that Ghana held last December is still an exception rather than the norm, analysts said. The same is true for the country’s comparatively well-managed economy.
“The choice was, in fact, quite limited,” said Philippe Hugon, an Africa expert at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques in Paris. “It wasn’t huge.”
Countries like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa have consistently received better-than-average global scores for their governance in recent years, according to rankings based on World Bank research.
But a cartoon in this week’s Jeune Afrique, the French magazine widely followed on the continent, seemed to sum up Mr. Obama’s dilemma: John Atta-Mills, Ghana’s president, is depicted holding back the door of a hut labeled “West Africa” from which blood, a grenade and explosions with the names of various countries in the region are bursting.
The list of exploding countries, unstable countries, corrupt countries, is long. Military coups still break out with regularity, as in Guinea and Mauritania within the last year. Journalists in a number of countries continue to be killed, jailed, tortured, forced into exile or otherwise muzzled. A day after Mr. Obama’s visit to Ghana, the Congo Republic will hold elections that have already been attacked as flawed, after the country’s constitutional court recently rejected the candidacies of opponents to incumbent Denis Sassou-Nguesso, leaving the president as a heavy favorite.
Mr. Obama seemed to acknowledge as much in his interview, saying that the democratic progress in recent years had been accompanied by “some backsliding.” He even singled out Kenya as a worrisome example, noting the political paralysis that had plagued the country since its bout of postelection violence last year.
Despite the obvious wincing such criticism may cause, many Kenyans not only seem to understand Mr. Obama’s choice to visit Ghana, but endorse it. Kenyans often follow politics like a sport, so it was not uncommon to hear them in recent weeks describing Mr. Obama’s choice as a savvy one, insulating him from any accusations that he was favoring his father’s country.
That said, the gulf separating the West and many African leaders on fundamental issues like human rights was on display just last week. The African Union announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in its attempt to prosecute the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity, over the mass killings in Darfur. Even Mr. Atta-Mills was reported to back the refusal as “best for Africa.”
Human rights groups denounced the decision, as did some African leaders on Friday, when a smaller African Union panel headed by South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki, backed the court’s indictment and called on the accused to appear in court, news agencies reported.
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Eagle_Eye
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TheeeExclusiveOne3 months, 4 weeks ago
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To tell you the truth,Eye think Obama is wanting to try something with my cute kitty blonde,Eye was going to bed with,her name is Libabatu Ali ,5th Airport Street,Accra,Ghana 00233. **** off Obama,she MY babe,not yours.By the way Kitty,Email me baby,Eye really do miss you.I'm Your blue eyed white man. Signed Hephaestus God Of Fire,One Of MY White Gods
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ONEMEMPHISDUDE3 months, 4 weeks ago
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President Obama: “The African continent is a place of extraordinary promise as well as challenges. We’re not going to be able to fulfill those promises unless we see better governance.”
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Poor, misguided soul. He actually wasted time and taxpayer funds on a trip to Africa. Sorry dude. These people and governments have been killing and eating each other for centuries. Why do you think they call it "the dark continent?"
You sir, are not the king of the world. Being President of these United States, may I suggest you concern yourself more with our economy and domestic issues rather than with that miserable excuse for a continent called Africa? -
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svivar90873 months, 4 weeks ago
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I think the Prez needs some time off, first he forgets where he met his wife and now this trip to a welfare country, riddled with corruption....he's getting sloppy. But what surprises me the most is that with all those high IQ's surrounding him, they didn't stop him.
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lfergie8123 months, 4 weeks ago
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Georgia503 months, 4 weeks ago
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At first blush, some of Obama's comments do resonate. Africa has been and remains the cause of many of its problems, and Africans cannot continue to blame the West.
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All well and good.
But to mislead his daughters about slavery was a bit over the top. Sure there's a legacy to understand, one that unfortunately involves the United States. But to suggest as he seemed to be doing--by visiting an old slave dungeon--that slavery is a thing of the past is false and misleading. Sure, 150 years ago his daughters might have known a much different America. But this very day others young girls like them know that other reality in Africa, and others have been sold into sexual slavery in UN-administered refugee camps in Africa.
It's not enough to highlight corruption in Africa. It's the entire continent-wide refusal to abandon the most primitive tribal customs and vices that needs to be addressed.
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