Africa and U.S. National Interests: Remarks

Africa and U.S. National Interests: Remarks

Benjamin A. Gilman
Chair, American Assembly

March 1997

Thank you for your invitation to Mrs. Gilman and myself and for your kind introduction. It is a distinct honor and privilege to participate with such a distinguished gathering this evening as part of the Ninetieth American Assembly.

The relationship between Africa and the United States and our national interests are particularly appropriate today as we witness changes of enormous magnitude that range from the potential disintegration of Zaire, the giant of Central Africa, to the emergence of South Africa as a major new economic world player.

I was dismayed to read a recent article in the March 2nd New York Times Magazine in which author Jeffrey Goldberg implied that Africa is important to our national interests primarily because of its exotic viruses.

While it is true that Ebola and HIV and malaria are significant public health threats, particularly since no borders can contain the spread of these and other serious diseases, however, America's interest in Africa is not confined to preventing deaths of our citizens from exotic diseases.

The subtle message of the Times Magazine article is that only African issues that are immediately threatening to our way-of-life merit our national attention and resources. That argument is an echo of the Cold War mentality that Africa itself isn't important to the United States, but only in terms of the threat it potentially poses to us.

During the Cold War, America saw Africa through the prism of our ideological, political, and economic struggle with the Soviet Union.

Many U.S. policy makers supported the UNITA rebels in Angola less because of the legitimate desire to provide democracy to the Angolian people, than because of Soviet weapons and Cuban troops supporting the Angolian government.

In Ethiopia, the United States supported the government of the late Emperor Haile Selassie until its overthrow by a Soviet-backed Marxist military cabal. We subsequently supported Ethiopia's regional arch-rival, Somalia, after that nation expelled the Soviets. Once the Cold War was over, America lost interest in its ally Somalia, which has regressed back into the stateless society in which it existed in centuries past.

Africa has been relevant to America since the days when American clipper ships brought cloth from this country to sell in Africa.

American missionaries and businessmen were joined in Africa at the beginning of this century by foundations such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, which provided technical assistance.

This American connection to Africa has waned but has never been severed. There are numerous reasons why Africa is important to America.

First , millions of Americans trace their roots to Africa, and American society--politically, intellectually, and culturally--has been profoundly influenced by our African roots.
In 1847, freed slaves from America, with the help of abolitionists, returned home and founded the African nation of Liberia. African-Americans historically have been at the forefront of African issues such as the protest against the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the liberation movement struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and, more recently, the anti-apartheid movement.
Second , the United States has a long-term interest in strong economic ties with Africa. American trade with Africa totaled $7 million at the onset of the Civil War.
U.S.-African trade blossomed after World War I to about $150 million. Following the end of World War II, American trade with Africa exceeded $1 billion.
Today, our trade with Africa is nearly $10 billion dollars--more than our level of trade with either Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union.
Third , Africa has strategic importance to the United States. We depend on Africa for nearly 80 percent of our strategic minerals. In addition to our oil dependency on Nigeria and Angola--and the diamond and gold trade with nations such as South Africa, Botswana, and Ghana--we rely on Africa for colbalt, platinum, chromium and manganese.
Substances used in the construction of jet aircraft and automobile catalytic converters often come from Africa and almost nowhere else on Earth.
Fourth , the United States has a long-standing concern over the humanitarian crises that plague Africa. Since U.S. vessels were empowered to turn back slave vessels leaving Africa in the 1800s, Americans have maintained some level of interest in humanitarian responses to African crises.
In addition to the official U.S. response to suffering in such nations as Ethiopia, Somalia, and Rwanda, America was poised to enter Eastern Zaire to respond to disaster situations even though U.S. national security interests were not directly at risk.
Fifth , America is a model for Africans searching for workable electoral and governing models. With bravery and patience that belies the imagination, African democrats--with a small d--have used our assistance and sacrificed greatly to develop their own political systems.
South Africa's President Nelson Mandela once said, "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Sixth , there are several situations in Africa where American national security interests are at risk. Sudan, for example, is second only to Iran in its support for international terrorism.
Sudan, facilitated the terrorists who were responsible for the World Trade Center bombing and the assassination attempt on President Mubarak in Ethiopia two years ago.
Our struggle against illegal narcotics has touch points in Africa.
Nigerian drug trafficking rings are making inroads around the world. In Thailand, Nigerians arrested for drug trafficking possess an average of $250,000 in cash on their person. A large share of the cocaine and heroin in the United States is brought in by Nigerians.
Now southern African sites such as South Africa are being developed by international drug cartels as launching pads for the importation of illegal drugs into the United States.
The spread of Islamic Fundamentalism is also an concern in Africa. President Rafsanjani of Iran recently spent several weeks visiting Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
Imams in West African nations such as Guinea have sent their young men to Iran and Iraq and found them returning home radicalized and no longer willing to submit to their authority.
Finally , and most important, we must be engaged in Africa because our position in the world demands it. As the world's only superpower, American ideas and American policy matter to Africa. The United States helped broker peace processes in Angola, Ethiopia, and Namibia.
We are looked to for assistance on issues as varied as technical training to election support.
President Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, Harlod Ickes, said the following a few months before Pearl Harbor was bombed:

"We Americans know the freedom, like peace, is indivisible. We cannot retain our liberty if three-fourths of the world is enslaved. Brutality, injustice, and slavery ... in the long run would destroy us as surely as a fire raging in our neighbor's house would burn ours."

Secretary Ickes spoke of a different type of threat, but his words are still true today. In Africa, the threat is not fascism or communism, but chaos, strife, and poverty.
What are the consequences to the world community if Zaire goes the way of Liberia? Forty-five million people live in Zaire, and another 130 million live in its nine neighboring countries.
Already the civil war in Zaire is threatening the success of Angola's fragile peace process--a peace process, by the way in which there has been an investment of more than $350 million dollars.
Thousands of refugees have already fled from Zaire to Zambia, further destabilizing a promising nation in Southern Africa--the region that many hope will lead the rest of the continent toward peace and prosperity.
Our nation cannot afford to ignore Africa. We must exercise leadership along the full spectrum of international affairs, even on those issues that do not directly affect our national security interests.
Many in Congress, myself included, were highly critical of the administration's failed policy in Somalia.
President Clinton compounded his error, however, by approaching the African crises that followed Somalia with great timidity.
In Rwanda, the world community failed to respond to genocide and more than half a million people died.
Genocide in Rwanda begat the refugee crisis in eastern Zaire, which fueled a civil war there. That war may beget renewed turmoil in Angola.
President Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, had it right when he wrote in the June 1992 issue of Foreign Service Journal that:

"Neither economic growth nor democracy can take root until government becomes relevant to people and gains the capacity to sustain the minimum functions of the state."

Crocker went on to say that, "The logical implication is that Africa's top priority--and ours--is to deal with the problem of collapsing states and civil wars so that they do not infect more promising places."
Humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping are the most difficult of undertakings. So far, easy solutions have eluded us. "Assertive multilaterlism" was not the answer in 1993. The very term "nation-building" reveals profound hubris.

How do we address such difficult problems successfully? We must learn from our mistakes and not overestimate what we can accomplish.

The Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal has proven how very costly and difficult it can be for the international community to provide solutions for complex societal ills.

On the other hand, the administration's proposal for an African Crisis Response Force is a good idea that can provide greater flexibility in the long term.

Africa is emerging into the twenty-first century. While its cultures are rich and ancient, its nation-states are very young. We must be patient and look to the long term to judge its successes and failures.

This patience can only come with confidence. The confidence of many Africa policy-makers may well have been shaken in the last two years by the budget cuts enacted by Congress and the Clinton administration.

This is regrettable, because in my view, Africa has emerged from the tribulations of the last two years in Washington as a clear priority for both Congress and the Clinton administration.

Outside of the Middle East, development aid to Africa was cut less than any other region. There exists a recognition on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue that, in many respects, Africa needs out attention more than ever.

In a world of diminished resources, Africa must and will receive it share. However, we must end the habit of seeing Africa largely as a recipient of assistance and begin envisioning African nations as trading partners.

In the Congress, we are seriously examining The End of African Dependency Act, which is designed to expand U.S. trade with Africa so that assistance can be reduced.

The administration need to reconsider its opposition to this trade and investment promotion legislation. While not a perfect document, it moves U.S. policy towards building a more coherent and successful trading relationship with African nations.

Moving from aid to trade is a concept that not only is supported by Americans concerned about the level of aid to Africa, but also Africans interested in expanding their economies.

Last year, thirty African nations experienced positive economic growth--the largest number in a decade. We can build on this in a joint effort to help Africa become less dependent and more self-sufficient.

There are a number of other issues that affect Africa that must be resolved. For example, the State Department needs to reconsider its opposition to very small embassies.

In African nations like Equatorial Guinea, which will be of increasing relevance to the United States as its oil potential is developed, dipolmatic representation is to be reduced to a traveling officer from another post.

As our presence is reduced, so will our influence, because, in diplomacy, it is true that, as the saying goes, "out of sight, out of mind." We must find a better solution.

In conclusion, Africa matters to the United States because the world matters to the United States. For better or worse, the fate of Africa is tied to the fate of the rest of the world.

An Africa that lags behind the rest of the world in social conditions, political systems and economic development will be a problem for the entire world. This need not be the case, and it is in the American national interest that it not be so. Thank you.