From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 11 2009 - 09:21:22 EDT
Obama declares to Africa: End tyranny, corruption By MARK S. SMITH,
Associated Press Writer Mark S. Smith, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago
ACCRA, Ghana – An American president who has "the blood of Africa within me"
praised and scolded the continent of his ancestors Saturday, asserting
forces of tyranny and corruption must yield if Africa is to achieve its
promise.
"Yes you can," Barack Obama declared, brushing off his campaign slogan and
adapting it for his foreign audience. Speaking to the Ghanaian Parliament,
he called upon African societies to seize opportunities for peace, democracy
and prosperity.
"This is a new moment of promise," he said. "To realize that promise, we
must first recognize a fundamental truth that you have given life to in
Ghana: Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient
which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the
change that can unlock Africa's potential."
The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black goat herder-turned-academic
from Kenya, Obama delivered an unsentimental account of squandered
opportunities in postcolonial Africa.
America's first black president spoke with a bluntness that perhaps could
only come from a member of Africa's extended family.
"No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to
enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers," he
said.
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20
percent off the top, or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person
wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of
brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is
the time for it to end."
He added: "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions."
Obama was on a 21-hour visit to the West African nation to highlight that
country's democratic tradition and engagement with the West. His visit, his
first to sub-Saharan Africa as president, was greeted as a "spiritual
reunion" Saturday by Ghanian legislators.
People lined the streets, many waving at every vehicle of Obama's motorcade
as it headed toward a meeting at Osu Castle, the storied coastline
presidential state house, before his speech to Parliament. "Ghana loves
you," said a billboard.
He was also visiting a hospital and a one-time slave trading post, joined by
his wife, Michelle, a great-great granddaughter of slaves.
The Obama administration sought a wide African audience for the president's
speech, inviting people to watch it at embassies and cultural centers across
the continent.
The address was in part a splash of cold water for Africans who blame
colonialism for their problems.
Obama spoke of the indignities visited upon Africans from the era of
European rule. He said his grandfather, a cook for the British in Kenya, was
called "boy" by his employers for much of his life despite his being a
respected village elder. He said it was a time of artificial borders and
unfair trade.
But he said the West is not to blame "for the destruction of the Zimbabwean
economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as
combatants." Nor for the corruption that is a daily fact of life for many,
he said.
"Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war," he said. "But
for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the
sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far
too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into
fighting among faiths and tribes.
"These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck."
Obama started his day with typical calm. Wearing a gray T-shirt and gym
pants, he walked through the lobby of his hotel almost unnoticed at 7:30
a.m. local time on his way to the downstairs gym for a workout.
A short time later, his motorcade left the hotel, passed under hovering
military helicopters and arrived for a delayed welcome ceremony with
Ghanaian President John Atta Mills.
"I can say without any fear of contradiction that all Ghanaians want to see
you," Mills said. "I wish it were possible for me to send you to every home
in Ghana."
Before the flight home, Obama planned to tour Cape Coast Castle, a seaside
fortress converted to the slave trade by the British in the 17th century. In
its dungeons, thousands of shackled Africans huddled in squalor before being
herded onto ships bound for America.
The castle visit mirrored ones paid by Clinton and George W. Bush to the
slave-trading post of Goree Island, Senegal — with the added impact of
Obama's mixed-race background and history-making election.
In Ghana, too, Obama followed in Clinton's footsteps. In 1998, a surging
crowd cheered Clinton in Accra's Independence Square and toppled barricades
after his speech. Clinton shouted, "Back up! Back up!", his Secret Service
detail clearly frantic.
Bush's reception last year was less tumultuous, but equally warm. At a
welcoming banquet, then-President John Kufuor noted huge increases in U.S.
development aid and AIDS relief — and named a highway after Bush.
Obama avoided scheduling large public events, wishing to keep emotions in
check in a singular moment in African-American diplomacy.
Obama flew to Ghana after the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, approved a new
$20 billion food security plan. It aims to help poor nations in Africa and
elsewhere to avert mass starvation during the global recession.
He also had a cordial first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. In their
half-hour private audience at the Vatican, the two reviewed Mideast peace
and anti-poverty efforts, aides reported. They also discussed abortion and stem
cell research at length, subjects of disagreement between them.