Obama begins Africa visit

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama headed to Africa on a long awaited first major tour yesterday at a poignant moment, just as the world prepares to bid a reluctant farewell to Nelson Mandela.
The White House sees Obama’s visit as a chance to make up for lost time, as the president was unable to fit in a visit to Sub-Saharan Africa in his first term, apart from a brief stop in Ghana.
There has also been disappointment on the continent, after Obama’s 2008 election caused euphoria and an expectation that the son of a Kenyan would put Africa policy at the top of his agenda.
Obama hardly dampened expectations, declaring in Ghana in 2009: “I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family’s own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.”
The current US president also travels in the shadow of his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who are remembered fondly for their economic development and HIV/AIDS programs.
US Africa policy has languished in recent years, with Obama battling an economic crisis, rebalancing US attention to a rising Asia, facing revolution in the Middle East and consumed by his legacy project of ending US wars abroad.
US officials are aware that emerging economic opportunities and energy resources in Africa have attracted a clutch of interest from rising rivals.
Washington noticed that new Chinese President Xi Jinping professed a “sincere friendship” with Africa when he visited the continent on his first foreign tour, part of a Chinese economic and diplomatic offensive.
There is one glaring missing stop on Obama’s itinerary: Kenya.
Officials said that the indictment of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, over previous election violence, made it politically impossible for Obama to stop by on this tour.
The president will stop first in Senegal, where he will meet President Macky Sall and pay an emotive visit to Goree Island and a museum and memorial to Africans caught up in the slave trade.
Then he will move onto South Africa on Friday for a weekend of talks and events, including a news conference with President Jacob Zuma in Pretoria.
He will hold a town hall meeting with young Africans at the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg.
Then, Obama will move onto Cape Town where his events include a visit to Mandela’s jail cell on Robben Island and a roundtable with business leaders that will include senior members of the president’s economic team.
The final leg of Obama’s journey will take him to Tanzania, where his program includes talks and a news conference with President Jakaya Kikwete and a visit to the Ubungo power plant.
He will also lay a wreath at a memorial to 11 people killed in a US embassy bombing in 1998.
Obama’s wife Michelle, the couple’s two children Malia and Sasha, and the first lady’s mother are traveling with the president to Africa.