Bush Begins Six-Day Tour of Africa

16 Feb 2008
New York Times

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Opening a six-day tour of Africa, President Bush defended on Saturday his decision not to visit violence-stricken nations like Kenya and Sudan, saying he wanted to focus on “success stories” like his programs to fight AIDS and malaria instead.

“This is a large place with a lot of nations, and no question everything is not perfect,” Mr. Bush said in a brief visit to Benin, before arriving Saturday evening here in the Tanzanian capital. “On the other hand, there’s a lot of great success stories, and the United States is pleased to be involved with those success stories.”

The stop in Benin makes Mr. Bush the first American president to visit that tiny West African nation of 7.86 million people. It was on his itinerary because it represents the kind of success stories Mr. Bush wants to highlight — how American foreign aid has helped improve water, schools, infrastructure and health care in some of the poorest nations in the world.

In 2006, Benin signed a five-year, $307 million agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, created by Mr. Bush to assist nations that embrace democracy and free markets and commit to fighting corruption. Benin also benefits from America’s anti-malaria programs, as well as an education initiative that provides money to train teachers, build schools and buy textbooks.

So it was no surprise that Benin’s president, Thomas Yayi Bon, had high praise for Mr. Bush when the two appeared together for a short news conference at the airport in Cotonou, the country’s economic capital, while Air Force One refueled. Vowing that “everything that would stain democracy will be suppressed” under his leadership, the Benin president said Mr. Bush’s visit was an important symbol.

“Perhaps it’s a signal to us,” he said, adding of Mr. Bush, “Virtue means a lot to him.”

The White House is hoping that the Africa trip will remind not only Africans, but also Americans, that Mr. Bush has done more during his presidency than fight a controversial war with Iraq. Dar es Salaam was festooned with billboards bearing Mr. Bush’s likeness, including one on the road from the airport to downtown that blared, “We Cherish Democracy,” and another outside his hotel, the Kempinski, that announced, “Feel at Home.”

There were some undercurrents of resentment. Two thousand people protested here on Friday in advance of Mr. Bush’s arrival, waving signs that suggested he was a terrorist. And he cannot seem to avoid crisis elsewhere on the continent.

Before he left Washington, Mr. Bush said he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya, where post-election violence has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people since late December. But at Saturday’s news conference, he was peppered with questions about why his administration was not taking a more active role, not only in Kenya but also Darfur, where 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes in an ethnic conflict that Mr. Bush has termed a genocide.

He said he had “a tough decision to make early on” about whether to send troops into Darfur, but had decided against doing so in favor of allowing African Union and United Nations peacekeeping troops to intervene. He also said he intended to bring up Darfur during his visit to Rwanda, where he planned to thank that country’s president for sending in peacekeeping troops — and remind Americans that the peacekeepers were trained by United States soldiers.

As to Kenya, Mr. Bush said Secretary Rice’s visit was “aimed at having a clear message that there be no violence and that there ought to be a power-sharing agreement.”

The former United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, has been in Kenya trying to negotiate a peace agreement between the two sides. Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen G. Hadley, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that Mr. Annan appeared to be “making incremental progress.”

Mr. Hadley said that Ms. Rice, who is traveling with the president, would spend only a few hours in Kenya. He described the visit as an opportunity “to show the president’s concern — but also get on the ground and help support Kofi Annan and maybe move things forward a little further and a little faster.”