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Africa: Albright Trip, 1
Africa: Albright Trip, 1
Date distributed (ymd): 971217
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+ +security/peace+
+US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
This posting and the next contain a speech by US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright in Addis Ababa and a briefing released before her 7-nation Africa
trip by Human Rights Watch/Africa, as well as references to additional
documentation on the trip.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to seven African countries
(December 8-15)met with mixed reactions, from praise for the attention
given to new African realities to criticism for her failure to highlight
human rights abuses in several of the countries visited. Albright visited
Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, Congo (Kinshasa), Zimbabwe and South
Africa. In one US press comment, The New York Times acknowledged that the
new leaders of host countries such as Congo (Kinshasa), Uganda, and Rwanda
were undoubtedly improvements on the previous regimes, but criticized the
Secretary of State for "allowing some of her hosts to use her presence
as an advertisement for American endorsement of their undemocratic regimes."
The Washington Post noted that "Africans who have seen U.S. initiatives
come and go also may be forgiven for wondering how long this one will last.
It's fine to talk about trade and investment, but many African economies
start from so low that they can't get anywhere without some aid and debt
relief. Yet world and U.S. aid to Africa's poorest nations has been dropping
... No sympathetic speech or diplomatic strategy can overcome that kind
of failing."
Additional documentation on the trip, including US government documents
and comments from selected African press, can be found at:
http://www.africanews.org/usaf/albright97.html
Albright's Remarks at the Economic Commission for Africa
December 9, 1997
Washington - Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright's Remarks at the
Economic Commission for Africa December 9, 1997, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
As released by the Office of the Spokesman U.S. Department of State (As
Delivered):
Good morning. Thank you, Dr. Amoako, for making this beautiful and historic
hall available.
And thank you, Secretary-General Salim, for your introduction and for
all you have done to make the Organization for African Unity a force for
peace, democracy and development in Africa. I was glad to have the opportunity
to greet the representatives of the Great Lakes states and of this sub-region
earlier this morning. And I am pleased to have with me this morning Ambassador
David Shinn, America's very capable ambassador to Ethiopia.
On my first visit to the continent as America's Secretary of State,
I do not come with a ready-made sermon, a long list of requests or a sack
full of promises. I come rather to open a dialogue with you, and with people
from all parts of Africa --whether they are powerful or impoverished, high
officials or refugees.
This is my first visit as Secretary, but it will not be my last. And
our dialogue will reach new heights when President Clinton makes his planned
trip to Africa.
I have come because it is time for the people of the United States to
open a new chapter in our relations with the people of this continent.
It is time because Africa's best new leaders have brought a new spirit
of hope and accomplishment to your countries--and that spirit is sweeping
across the continent. They know that the greatest authority any leader
can claim is the consent of the governed. They know that the greatest challenges
to their plans are the twin threats of corruption and cynicism. And they
know the value of cooperation--within their own societies, with their neighbors,
across the continent and throughout the international community.
Africa's new leaders come from varied backgrounds. They are as diverse
as the continent itself. But they share a common vision of empowerment--for
all their citizens, for their nations, and for their continent. They share
an energy, a self-reliance, and a determination to shape their own destinies.
They are moving boldly to change the way their countries work -- and
the way we work with them. They are challenging the United States and the
international community to get over the paternalism of the past; to stop
thinking of its Africa policy as a none-too-successful rescue service;
and to begin seizing opportunities to work with Africans to transform their
continent.
The United States and the international community have not always worked
together with Africa and Africans as well as we might. In my view, if we
are all more ready to listen, if we all push ourselves to understand, and
if we are ready to work as true partners, we can do better. And we must
do better.
We must do better because Africa matters. And right now, no place matters
more in Africa than the Great Lakes.
Achieving lasting peace in this region will be as difficult as implementing
the Camp David agreement and as complex as sustaining the Dayton accords.
Yet the rewards are surely as great--and success no less important to us.
The region's natural and human resources as well as its strategic location
make it either a catalyst or a stumbling-block to African unity. Central
Africa can steady or destabilize half a continent; it can inspire or retard
economic growth from Kampala to Cape Town.
I have begun my trip here at the OAU because I want the people of Africa
to know that the people of the United States care about what happens in
Africa. We care because we have our own important interests--economic,
political, humanitarian. And we care for the sake of Africans.
But we also care because Africa's leaders have embarked on one of the
great projects of our time. Can viable democratic societies be built to
withstand the challenges of our times, such as globalization, environmental
degradation, overpopulation? That enterprise demands the ideas and energy
of people everywhere.
I will travel to the Great Lakes region to say that building an enduring
peace will require more than words of concern, and more than a few visits.
We must make the effort to know each other well, to learn from each other
and eventually to trust each other.
I will seek out the region's young people, in schools and hospitals,
clubs and refugee camps, because Africa's youth have been for too long
the victims of our failures. They must instead be the foundation of our
success.
In the Great Lakes today, we have an opportunity, unprecedented since
African states gained their independence, to build a true partnership.
A successful effort will support peace and the rule of law; promote good
governance and democracy; and encourage economic development and integration.
The United States is prepared to engage deeply in this shared effort--and
to act as a catalyst to gain the support of others.
Together we must break the cycle of violence within and between societies.
For decades, Central Africa has been the scene of multiple conflicts fueled
by the tragic legacy of colonialism, by de-stabilizing Cold War rivalries,
and by a recent history of international neglect.
In too many places, those conflicts continue--driven by ethnic rivalries,
long-held grievances or simply lust for power.
We must put an end to the culture of impunity that has claimed so many
lives and done so much to discredit legitimate authority throughout the
region. To do our part in addressing this challenge, the United States
hopes to work with leaders across the region in a Great Lakes Justice Initiative,
to develop judicial systems that are impartial, credible and effective.
We are working to make $30 million available to support national initiatives
to train court and police officials, re-build legal machinery where it
has fallen into disrepair, and assist programs that promote reconciliation
and healing after conflict.
But justice is only part of the answer in the Great Lakes. Although
the states of the region are making important strides toward stability,
we must also admit that Central Africa's peace is partial at best, and
threatened both within and across borders--a situation none of us can afford
to ignore.
Neither can we stand by when we have the opportunity to help Africans
who are bringing new vigor and determination to the task of rebuilding
their societies.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the end of Mobutu's repressive
reign has opened a historic opportunity for the Congolese people to achieve
the democracy, prosperity and peace they have been so long been denied.
The new government, under President Kabila, has expressed a commitment
to constitutional reform, democratic elections and economic recovery. The
Kabila government has a great distance to travel to meet these goals and
overcome justified skepticism. We want to do all we can to help. We all
owe the Congolese people our support as they work toward those goals.
Clearly, there is no simple blueprint for success. Overcoming the distrust
and fragmentation that are legacies of the Mobutu years is essential.
Securing the rule of law and the observance of human rights for all
the country's inhabitants will be a critical step toward enabling them
to transform their own lives and build better futures.
The Constitution Drafting Commission that President Kabila has established
can, if it operates openly and inclusively, help create a government that
works, that is representative, and that earns the respect of its citizens.
If fulfilled, President Kabila's commitment to holding elections will
be a first step toward invigorating the democratic process; and his government's
cooperation with the work of the UN human rights groups is a necessary
step to end the culture of lawlessness under which the Congo's people have
suffered for so long.
Unlocking the Congo's vast potential will be essential to any long-term
strategy for peace and prosperity in the Great Lakes. As African leaders
apply their energy and creativity to that challenge, the United States
is prepared to make a substantial commitment to supporting them.
I am pleased to announce today that the United States will contribute
$10 million dollars to the World Bank trust fund that the Friends of the
Congo have pledged to establish. Through it, the international community
will support reconstruction projects that reflect Congolese priorities.
I can also announce today that the United States intends to work with
our Congress to enable us to expand our aid to the Congo significantly.
Through financial and technical assistance programs in health, sanitation,
finance, infrastructure and other areas, this money aids the Congolese
people in their struggle to rebuild their lives and renew their country.
We are also looking at the possibility of debt relief: we encourage
the Government of the Congo to work with the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund to develop an economic reform program. When an appropriate
program is in place, the United States will cooperate with other creditors
to provide relief.
But the cycle of violence will not be broken until citizens can pursue
their goals more successfully with ballots than with bullets, and until
investors replace insurgents as forces for social transformation.
The commitment of regional leaders to the social, political and economic
empowerment of all their citizens is fundamental. It is through such empowerment
that citizens gain a meaningful stake in their societies.
Those who would build democratic institutions and market-based economies
in the Great Lakes face tremendous obstacles: societies weakened by protracted
and brutal conflicts; devastated government institutions; and the legacies
of authoritarian rule.
The process will be long. And there will be setbacks.
Democracy is always and everywhere a work in progress.
But in all its forms--and there are many--democracy has universal qualities
that transcend institutional choices. The primacy of the will of the people.
Respect for the rule of law.
Openness and transparency in government will also help release the region's
economic potential. Some of the region's governments are already making
important progress in reforming their economies--and their growth rates
show it.
Through debt relief and President Clinton's Partnership for Economic
Growth and Opportunity, we are committed to helping countries that undertake
economic reforms find capital to develop their industries and markets to
sell their products. A Presidential delegation of businesspeople, members
of Congress and U.S. government officials was in Addis Ababa just yesterday,
as the Secretary General mentioned looking at ways that this initiative
can reinforce reforms already in place.
Whether economically, politically, or socially, we know that regional
integration has worked wonders for peace around the world, from Europe
to South America to Southeast Asia. None of us has all the answers. Could
it be that, for peace to take hold in the Great Lakes, the barriers must
come down and the region must open up--to free trade, to free travel, to
free exchange of ideas?
In this and other areas, I want to work with the region's leaders to
ask the right questions. And one subject on which you are asking very legitimate
questions, and where we must help provide answers, is the responsibility
of donor countries, international organizations and African nations to
learn from our successes and failures:
to ensure that humanitarian aid is not used to sustain armed camps or
to support genocidal killers; to find more effective ways of preventing
conflict and reconciling former adversaries; to achieve justice and accountability
in the aftermath of large-scale human right violations; and to resist the
emergence of new tyrannies.
Let me be totally clear on where we stand. The United States has made
a strong commitment to supervise our refugee assistance far more closely;
and to work to keep humanitarian aid from falling into the wrong hands.
Prime Minister Meles and the OAU have taken an important step toward
learning from past mistakes, by proposing that an international panel of
eminent persons be convened to study the recent genocidal violence; to
examine the international community's response; and to consider how such
humanitarian disasters might be prevented in future.
The United States strongly supports your proposal. We will cooperate
with you in every way possible to help such a commission do its work. Let
me begin that process here today by acknowledging that we--the international
community -- should have been more active in the early stages of the atrocities
in Rwanda in 1994, and called them what they were -- genocide.
We also welcome the joint initiative the OAU and UNHCR have undertaken
to promote respect for humanitarian principles.
In this as in so many other areas, the OAU is at the forefront of the
search for African solutions to African problems.
But even more important than these steps toward a new chapter in our
relations is the tone in which our partnership is conducted.
It must rest on shared responsibility, mutual respect, and mutual self-interest.
It must allow us to speak frankly and disagree openly, without putting
into question the principles we share.
And it must contain a long-term commitment to meet formidable challenges--by
promoting peace, building democracy and supporting economic growth.
Today we have a choice. We can pursue short-sighted rivalries, seek
short-term gains, and make only commitments of short duration.
Or we can decide to move forward from the failures and recriminations
of the past, and begin to forge pragmatic, enduring responses to the immense
challenges we face.
We have reached a point in history when no nation need be left out of
the global system, and every nation that seeks to participate and is willing
to do all it can to aid itself will have America's help in finding the
right path.
This view is not based on any illusions. Africa, and its friends, have
seen far too much of poverty and suffering to indulge in sentimentalism.
But we live in a world that has been enriched immeasurably by those who
have emerged from the ravages of war to rebuild their lives, recreate their
communities and renew the progress of their nations.
It is from the best efforts of those citizens that a new Africa can
be built. It is my belief that we are seeing just that from Africa's ground-breaking
leaders--and people. And we pledge our best efforts to nurturing a new
partnership that will work to the benefit of Africans and Americans alike.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the Africa
Policy Information Center (APIC), the educational affiliate of the Washington
Office on Africa. APIC's primary objective is to widen the policy debate
in the United States around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa,
by concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant information and
analysis usable by a wide range of groups and individuals.
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