Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Zimbabwe: Obama's missed opportunity

Zimbabwe: Obama's missed opportunity
Comment
Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:16:00 +0000

WHEN President Barack Obama said African leaders should stop blaming colonialism and take responsibility for the current problems on the continent, he dashed hopes of many people who had looked up to him to provide global leadership that was strategically different from his predecessor George W. Bush. The expectation on the new president was not for him to provide handouts to the continent; but to have a different public diplomatic approach that could help improve relations between U.S. and the Motherland.

That opportunity may have been lost.

Specifically, President Obama said it is time for African leaders to stop blaming colonialism and Western oppression for the continent's manifold problems.

Indeed Africa, like many other continents, is fraught with internal struggles; but the U.S. has fanned most of these for decades.

Many analysts wondered why the U.S. rhetoric, with regards to Africa, had not shifted with the coming of Obama. It had indeed shifted in the Middle East and in Asia and Latin America.

The optics of President Obama's visit to Ghana cannot be over-emphasized. It is intriguing. For Africans, it pays tribute to the country’s rare status as a supposed functioning African democracy with little corruption. It had a lot to do with appealing to the political sentiment of black folk back home and securing a second term; more than anything else.

The event was also freighted with symbolism - paying tribute to blacks enslaved in the New World. Obama visited Elmina slave castle - one of 20 on Ghana’s Cape Coast, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Governor General Michaelle Jean of Canada, a refugee from Haiti, paid a visit to that place too.

In visiting that very important place, President Obama seemed to be accepting the role history has played in shaping the socio-political and economic terrain of the African continent. Yet his public diplomatic rhetoric was out of sync with that acceptance.

At the Summit of the Americas--held in Trinidad and Tobago April 17-19 -- Obama went far toward repairing the damage caused by more than two decades of disastrous economic policy and seven years of neoconservative interventionism. America's adventures have included support for a failed coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in 2002 and orchestration of a successful one against Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

In Trinidad Obama seemed not so much the good neighbour as the good student. He graciously accepted Chávez's gift of Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America and took notes during Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega's lengthy speech recounting Washington's aggression against his country (of which, as president during Ronald Reagan's Contra war, Ortega had firsthand knowledge).

Obama responded to demands that he speak out against a recently thwarted plot to assassinate Evo Morales by unequivocally condemning "any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments, wherever it happens in the hemisphere." And when asked at his closing press conference what he had learned at the summit, Obama said that he had heard many complaints about a "too rigid application of a free-market doctrine" imposed by "what is termed the 'Washington Consensus.'"

In the Middle East, Obama seems to recognise that the problems there are partly a result of foreign policy and public diplomatic blunders by the West in general, and by the U.S., in particular.

Today we do not hear of the "war on terror", but "fight against extremism".

The U.S. president has opened up dialogue, to address root causes in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, etc. He has taken cues from regional groupings like the Arab League who said recently that he had opened a "window of hope" for Middle East peace.

Obama sought to change Muslim perceptions of the United States in a June 4 speech from Cairo; yet does not seem to recognise the utility of the African Union and other such institutions in changing African perceptions of the U.S.

Speaking at Cairo University, Obama said he wanted to see "serious, constructive" peace talks aimed at finding a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict; but felt African leaders should transform overnight and forget about colonialism to explain the challenges faced today.

The arbitrary drawing of African boundaries at the Berlin Conferences of 1884-5, and the ensuing challenges whose effects are still felt today, cannot be washed aside.

Why isn't there a corresponding Zimbabwean Peace Plan? Why not a Road Map for Zimbabwe? For Africa? Why sanctions, and not engagement? Why diplomatic sound bites for Africa?

Washington wants a "comprehensive and interlocking strategy" in Asia; yet is prescriptive in Africa.

Zimbabwe has managed to contain some of its seemingly intractable problems. It is a process, not an event. Conflict resolution in a country like Zimbabwe, with a chequered history, cannot be an overnight event.

Compared to countries like Pakistan, Zimbabwe pales into insignificance. Pakistan has the severest political and economic crisis in its history, yet the U.S. does not impose crippling sanctions on the country.

The country had an opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, murdered.Today, it faces a jihadist insurgency that is spreading beyond northern Pakistan, an army that is still hesitant to cede too much power to a civilian government and an ubiquitous intelligence service that runs a state within the state.

Although the US-Pakistan relationship is at a low ebb, it is incomparable to the of US-Zimbabwe relationship. Yet US11.8bn has been funneled to Pakistan since 2001 by the U.S.

In his victory statement, Obama said, “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” Against this euphoric rhetoric, the pivotal question has emerged: In what form will change take place in Africa, in general, and in Zimbabwe in particular?

While President Obama has failed to address the changing realities in Africa and the African Rennaisance, others from Asia – notably China – have stepped up their own engagement. This could have serious future foreign policy implications for the U.S.

By extending sanctions that have crippled a small landlocked country, Obama has chosen not to veer away from Washington’s benighted near decade embargo against Zimbabwe.

By refusing to take advantage of the opportunity to reject a morally bankrupt policy based on hypocrisy, double standards, and inconsistencies, in favor of constructive engagement, Obama turned his back on the possibility of a U.S. policy of new beginning when it comes to Africa. When it comes to Sub-Saharan Africa, Obama is sadly not the U.S. president bringing “change” that millions of Africans had hoped for.

Rather, he still has to recognize his own professed foreign policy objective of reaching out to African institutions and African leadership, by exhibiting the courage and politicized wisdom necessary to make this world a better place.

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Labels: BARACK OBAMA, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 5:42 PM