Jendayi Frazer, who currently teaches at Carnegie Mellon and who was assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2005-2009 has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal laying out “Four Ways to Help Africa.” I’ll briefly address each in turn:
1) Place Eritrea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Eritrea does indeed support terrorists. But it seems pretty nakedly American-centered to say that of all of the things the United States should “help Africa,” the number one among these just happens to cohere with the Bush administration’s view of the world. Africans suffer from the effects of this terrorism, but I cannot help but wonder if Frazer has not revealed priorities in which African interests are second to American ones.
2) Oppose congressional legislation to extend the trade preferences in the African Growth and Opportunity Act to all developing countries. Better yet, though, would be eliminating support for the various protections and subsidies for American producers that serve to punish African exporters. I’m not sure that allowing Africans to beggar developing nations elsewhere in the world does anything other than create a race to the top of the bottom.
3) Hold a summit at the White House with the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Sure — engage with African leaders whenever there is an opportunity. But also do not be afraid to meet with them in Africa — meet in Kinshasa or Kampala or Kigali (or Bujumbura or Cape Town or Accra . . .) as well. African leaders come to the United States as supplicants. Meeting in Africa might well allow them to meet as equals, or at least as close to it as can be approximated.
4) Move the headquarters of the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) from Germany to Liberia. If there is going to be an AFRICOM, yeah, it probably ought to be based in AFRICA. More importantly, though, let’s make sure that AFRICOM is a partnership with Africans and not merely an extension of American military desires. In other words, let’s don’t let Americans determine that AFRICOM should be dealing with proposal number one (Eritrea) first and foremost. Let’s allow Africans to determine their military and strategic priorities and hope the Americans fall in line and not vice versa.
Here is the mantra: American policy toward Africa should be geared at partnership, and not coercion. An extension of the desires of the United States independent of a mutuality of interests is not an acceptable approach.
