The signs of new construction are visible everywhere in Khartoum. Libya recently erected a giant, almost-oval hotel not far from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, bestowing downtown Khartoum with an oddly distinctive landmark that the locals call “Gaddafi’s egg.” The priciest rooms run at $4,000 per night. Just across the street is the massive and appropriately named Friendship Hall, built by China.
Following decades of conflict, Libya and the United States took major steps to improve their bilateral relationship in the closing months of the Bush administration. In September 2008, Condoleezza Rice visited Libya, the first secretary of State to do so since John Foster Dulles in 1953. In November, two weeks after Libya contributed $1.5 billion to a newly created Humanitarian Settlement Fund intended to resolve outstanding lawsuits by American victims of Libyan terrorism, President George W. Bush telephoned the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and voiced his satisfaction with the settlement. In December 2008, Gene A. Cretz took up his position as U.S. ambassador to Libya, the first since 1972.
Madagascar, a tourist paradise of beaches and exotic animals, is home to one of the most uninterrupted cycles of coups and crises in Africa.
Democracy hasn’t settled easily on the world’s fourth largest island. Like so many other African nations still struggling still with their colonial past, Madagascar was left by France in 1960 ill-equipped for free and fair elections. It experienced political upheaval for much of the post-colonial period. In 2002, the United States recognized the current president — the country’s sixth — after he grabbed power in a coup that left dozens of Malagasy dead. That coup, and the creation of Marc Ravalomanana’s government, was the fifth political crisis to successfully unseat a president in 30 years.
On January 26, this cycle of political upheaval began again. Andry Rajoelina, the ousted mayor of the capital city, accused Ravalomanana of leading a dictatorship. Soon after that came protests, marches, and bloodshed. On March 17, days after Rajoelina burst into the unoccupied presidential palace with gunshots and mortar fire, Ravalomanana handed power over to the military.
At the end of President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery invoked the hope of a day “when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors.” No one expects such a utopian vision to materialize any time soon. But both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken eloquently of the need to emphasize diplomacy over a narrow military agenda. In her confirmation hearing, Clinton stressed the need for “smart power,” perhaps inadvertently echoing Obama’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq as a “dumb war.” Even top U.S. military officials, such as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, have warned against overly militarizing U.S. foreign policy.
The recent spike in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia has generated a great deal of international media attention, including news reports sprinkled with ubiquitous references to Long John Silver, Jack Sparrow, and Captain Hook.
Somalia poses a grave danger to the United States and the Horn of Africa today. Despite the U.S. “Global War on Terror,” piracy in the Gulf of Aden threatens the supply of oil and commercial trade to the West. Islamic extremists threaten the stability of this region more than ever. Islamists in Somalia continue to welcome ideologies from Saudi Arabia that fuel large numbers of angry and unrepresented young men, who turn to Osama bin Laden’s call of resistance and terror in the face of Somalia’s disparities.
Among the litany of booby traps left by the Bush administration for the Obama team, Somalia could be one of the most complicated and bizarre.
Editor’s note: The Africa Policy Outlook is an annual publication released jointly by Africa Action and Foreign Policy In Focus that highlights the key themes and trends in U.S. Africa policy. See the appendix below for a general schedule of African elections planned for 2009.
I have been asked many times a variation of the same question: "Why do Africans wait until it is too late?" For most Westerners, Africa is hunger, war, despotism, AIDS and poverty — full of Africans who are either helpless victims, or who choose to sit on their hands, only lifting them up to accept Western handouts.