Presswatch: Hillary's Africa
Corry, John
PRESSWATC H by John Corry Hillary's Africa M rs. Clinton has discovered Africa, and it has made a great impression. "It changed Hillary forever," her husband said, the "it" being her...
...Critical faculties atrophy on them, too...
...Africa appeared to be no more than a pit stop between fundraisers, and in the real world of foreign policy the most significant thing about Mrs...
...Clinton had nothing important to say...
...Clinton's trip was not where she went, but where she barely went...
...Clinton praised both the commission and the tribunal, and seemed to think their mandates were the same...
...And if it does not get the arms, it will not be able to conduct peacekeeping operations...
...She did say that hippos are dangerous, and lionesses hunt while male lions snooze, and Eritreans throw popcorn at visitors, Since her recent trip she's become a foreign-policy first lady—but dares not utter a certain N-word...
...The rubes go back to their districts when Congress is not in session, and that tends to keep them modest...
...But modesty does not come immediately to mind when you think of Mrs...
...The informal talks with reporters have turned out to be only a warm-up, and Mrs...
...It was called "The First Lady's Trip to Africa," and it was meant as an important statement...
...Nonetheless there is a difference between the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and the war crimes tribunal in Tanzania...
...The administration had conjured up an Africa not as it was, but as one of its policy-makers imagined—an Africa too high-minded to peddle elephant tusks no matter how lucrative that would be...
...Consider a small example...
...and if it does not conduct peacekeeping operations, many Africans may die...
...Africa was neglected in Clinton's first term, but now it is being noticed...
...Clinton had been in Senegal, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Eritrea, and South Africa, and what she had noticed most were the women...
...It changed Hillary forever," her husband said, the "it" being her fourteen-day, six-country visit in March...
...This is probably true...
...Forever" is an empty word in this White House, of course, but even so something has happened...
...The Times declared that General Abacha had dispatched the troops to Sierra Leone because he was "mainly interested in establishing his own country as West Africa's dominant military power and regional policeman...
...Other slides showed her with African leaders, and she found them impressive as well...
...African delegates to CITES burst out with "God Bless Africa," the continent's unofficial anthem, when the ban on the sale was lifted...
...It is the dominant power in the region, but it is also the N-word in foreign policy...
...Mrs...
...Nigeria, however, has been West Africa's dominant military power for years, and whatever Abacha's motives, which might even have been benign, the Times had chosen the one least likely to have moved him...
...No doubt it is bad manners to question the word of a Nobel laureate, but the Post should at least have made a phone call...
...Soyinka, an embittered exile, is a suspect source, but the Post published a story about the supposed deaths anyway...
...In fact she has been inching into foreign policy all year, inviting small groups of reporters to the White House to meet with her for coffee and relevant chit-chat...
...But the Clinton administration opposed lifting the ban and, according to Time, it predicted that "most of Africa" would oppose it, too...
...But Uganda is hardly a democracy—it has no political parties, for one thing—and Musevini, an old Marxist jungle fighter, is doing his best to prevent a U.N...
...Mrs...
...Sending Mrs...
...Clinton said at one meeting, "but I was told by several people who are old hands in foreign affairs that a very large proportion of the Congress as constituted after the 1994 election had never held a passport, had never traveled outside the United States—the numbers that were quoted to me were shockingly high...
...out newspaper ads denouncing the military government of Gen...
...The history here is complicated, but a turning point came two years ago, when sixty-two black American celebrities took Soyinka, an embittered exile, is a suspect source, but the Washington Post published a story about the supposed deaths anyway...
...And not only did most of Africa not oppose the sale...
...According to the Times, that was also why he was maintaining the peacekeeping force in Liberia...
...As for the African leaders who call for sanctions against Nigeria, no names come to mind, and it may be the two congressmen are alluding to Wole Soyinka...
...Clinton spoke from a lectern for more than an hour, offering a running commentary while an invited audience with an interest in Africa looked at the slides...
...Apparently the two elections and the establishing of the five political parties do not count...
...Few in Washington dare speak its name...
...Beware, however, when liberal politicians do the noticing...
...I'm not sure as to the exact numbers," Mrs...
...investigation of the massacre of Hutu refugees in Congo, the country once known as Zaire...
...She was referring to the Republican rubes who swept in during the revolution, of course, and she should not have been so snotty...
...Meanwhile, as a "reason for the act" on which they are seeking the co-sponsors, Houghton and Payne cite a "lack of progress in the return of democracy and civilian rule, and the call for sanctions by African leaders...
...I know it changed what I now believe I know and feel about what we should be doing forever," he said in the Washington Post...
...Clinton wanted her audience to know she was serious...
...The latter wants to bring to justice mass murderers, mostly Hutus who slaughtered as many as 500,000 Tutsis in Rwanda...
...the press did not report them...
...The story contained no details, and it said only that Soyinka had asserted that the students had died...
...N igeria gets a bad press, and while often that has been deserved, the criticism now has grown calcified: Nigeria can do nothing right, and whatever it does is wrong...
...Her commentary was very solemn...
...Clinton has come out of the closet as a spokesman on foreign policy...
...The same week the story was published, though, CITES gave Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana permission to sell the stockpiled ivory...
...And so it goes, and none of this might matter, except that our politicians are swayed by what they read, and, as always, they want to be on the right side...
...They may also recall that Nigeria was the first African country to assist U.S...
...troops in Somalia...
...Therefore few politicians have bothered to notice it, either...
...Even anti-government sources in Nigeria did not know what Soyinka was talking about...
...They had non-speaking parts in her presentation, but they added foreign-policy weight...
...Time magazine reported early in June that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, would reject the request by Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana that it lift the world-wide ban on the sale of ivory...
...Clinton, and unlike the rubes she does have a passport...
...The American Spectator • August r9 97 53...
...Actually, not many slaves ever saw the place, but that's another story...
...Clinton was avoiding the rest of West Africa because of Nigeria...
...She also seemed to think Uganda was a democracy, and that Yoweri Musevini, its president, was a nice man...
...Consequently one thing has now led to another...
...The administration has no clear fix on Africa, and for the time being small interest in finding one...
...Sani Abacha, and calling for a return to democracy...
...A collaboration has set in, a little like the one between Time and the administration over the elephant tusks, although on a grander and more insidious scale...
...The West declines to sell arms to Nigeria, and so it must buy them elsewhere...
...The press is not good at it, either...
...She said they were very impressive, and they were seen on most of the slides...
...Republican Amo Houghton and Democrat Donald Payne have just sent a letter to their House colleagues asking them to join as co-sponsors in a bill to penalize Nigeria because, among other bad things it has done, Nigeria has "begun to cultivate" arms deals with China, North Korea, and Iran...
...Thus Nigeria has maintained a peacekeeping force in Liberia since 1990, and if stability should ever come to that shattered country it will only be because Nigeria has paid a price in blood and treasure to ensure that it did...
...By most accounts she is ingenuous and earnest at the meetings, although on occasion the old insufferable Wellesley girl kicks in...
...She barely went to West Africa, spending less than a day in Senegal, and then only to visit Goree, the island that Senegal has turned into a tourist attraction for black Americans because it was once a shipping point for slaves...
...With such widespread opposition," Time said confidently, "the chance of resuming sales is almost zero...
...It seems to have had a great effect on him, too...
...Other newspapers also suspend their critical faculties on Nigerian matters, and not only on the editorial page...
...JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's senior correspondent...
...Worst of all is when they pay attention to one another...
...and if the trip had changed her forever, as the president said it had, she gave no sign of it at all...
...Since then Nigeria has had two elections, and recognized five national political parties, but hardly anyone in the press has noticed...
...it grants amnesty, or what it calls "indemnification...
...The former does not prosecute anyone who confesses to crimes committed under apartheid...
...It ought to be praised for these actions, although the New York Times, characteristically, has denounced it...
...S he did this with a slide show at Howard University...
...Clinton to Africa was not a terrible idea —no first lady had ever gone there before—but it was intended mostly to please black Americans, and to show she was interested in foreign policy...
...The three African nations are overrun by elephants, and since the ban was imposed, in 1989, they have stockpiled tons of tusks, most of them from elephants who died of natural causes...
...Rational people will hope that somewhere an arms deal gets cultivated...
...52 August 1997 • The American Spectator but that was about it on the light side...
...Moreover, she was joined at Howard by assistant secretaries of state, deputy assistant secretaries of state, and members of the National Security Council...
...Nigeria also has sent troops into Sierra Leone in an attempt to restore the elected government that was overthrown in a military coup...
...The Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka met recently with editors and reporters of the Washington Post, and told them that thirty-seven students in Nigeria had been killed when they demonstrated against an increase in tuition fees...
...Clinton had made the trip three months before, and supposedly had been pondering its lessons...
Vol. 30 • August 1997 • No. 8
