DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — President Bush on Saturday defended his decision to avoid Africa's most troubled quarters on his trip across the continent's midsection, saying the United States was ready to help countries that make the "right choices."
For Bush, the trip underscores an effort over seven years to shift the way the United States does business with the developing world, tying government aid to anti-corruption campaigns and commercial ventures to free- trade commitments.
He said he wanted to say to future U.S. presidents and members of Congress that it was in America's national interest to provide foreign aid, but that instead of "making ourselves feel better . . . our money ought to make the people of a particular country feel better about their government."
Bush stopped in Benin, in West Africa, on his way across the continent to Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean.
Each stop on the six-day trip, the president's second to sub-Saharan Africa, is intended to demonstrate the success of his administration's programs in fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria and encouraging clean government.
But critics have said the president is sidestepping such trouble spots as Chad, Sudan and Tanzania's neighbor Kenya, where more than 1,000 people have died in postelection violence in the last seven weeks.
The U.S. assistant secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi E. Frazer, said the administration had "a very robust strategy of conflict resolution" that had succeeded in Congo and Liberia, and that "there is a misperception about Africa in flames."
She said Bush's agenda here today with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete probably would include the turmoil in Kenya; the crisis in Chad, where rebels attempted a coup early this month; and economically ravaged Zimbabwe and other trouble points.
Bush announced just before he left Washington that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would fly to Kenya to encourage negotiations to end the crisis there between the government and opposition over the election results.
When he arrived in Benin on Saturday, he said Rice would deliver to the two sides "a clear message that there be no violence" and that he favored a power-sharing agreement.
A senior administration official said Rice, who will visit Kenya on Monday, would seek to drive home to President Mwai Kibaki that he would not have unqualified U.S. support until he makes a deal with the opposition.
