Bush defends his decision to skirt Africa's hot spots
His five-nation trip is meant to laud U.S. programs that fight diseases and corruption, he says, adding that his administration is actively engaged in resolving political turmoil on the continent.
DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — President Bush today 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 remind future U.S. presidents and Congresses that it was in America's national interest to provide foreign aid, but that rather than "making ourselves feel better . . . our money ought to make the people of a particular country feel better about their government."
The president stopped in Benin, in western Africa, on his way across the continent to Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean, at the start of a six-day trip.
Each stop on the president's "bed nets, not bloodshed" trip, his second to sub-Saharan Africa, is intended to demonstrate the success of Bush administration programs in fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria and encouraging clean government.
But critics have said that the president is side-stepping such trouble spots as Chad, Darfur and Tanzania's neighbor Kenya, where more than 1,000 people have died in post-election political violence in the last six weeks.
The 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, saying "there is a misperception about Africa in flames."
She said that Bush's agenda here Sunday with Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete was likely to include the turmoil in Kenya, as well as the crisis in Chad, the site of a recent coup attempt, and a discussion of economically ravaged Zimbabwe and other crisis points in Africa.
Bush announced just before he left Washington, D.C., that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would fly to Kenya to encourage negotiations intended to end the political crisis there.
When he arrived in Benin today, he said that Rice would deliver "a clear message that there be no violence" to the two sides in conflict over the election results, adding that he favored a power-sharing agreement.
